Status: Single
City: LOS ANGELES
State: California
Country: US
Signup Date: 2/15/2006
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Monday, June 29, 2009
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Current mood:  tired
here we have for you part 2 of the first chapter of a.w. fox's "i hate you, please love me." throw us a comment if you like it!
Halfway to Seattle's Best, Kelsey stopped abruptly, doubling over with stomach cramps. He spat on the ground miserably. Once again he was reminded of why he chose not to deal with Len: Len truly seemed to enjoy drug transactions, viewing them as an extension of his social life. He felt at home in the gritty environs of The Blade. Kelsey, on the other hand, found it to be a miserable, almost apocalyptic, carnival. The desperate seekers moved like hyper-competitive versions of a blood cell through a vein. They all wanted to make it to the lungs and heart as fast as they could, to gobble up all the precious oxygen first. Once they got what they thirsted for--what they needed to survive--they'd then dissipate and separate through endlessly splintering arterials, heading home to the extremities. In this type of environment, he couldn't stand having to engage in the kind of useless social intercourse that made him feel ill under normal circumstances. Kelsey straightened up, clutching his stomach, willing himself to pull it together. "I'll be okay once I...you know." "I sure do!" Len said, his eyes practically gleaming with a merry Schadenfreude. He clapped Kelsey on the back as the two began walking again. "Hey, have you ever considered doing speedballs with mostly coke, instead of doing just dope?" Kelsey shook his head. "Hell, no. I see heroin as medicine. I won't touch coke." "Dude, you're missing out! There's nothing like a speedball. That rush, the clanging in your ears, the taste of the coke in the back of your throat, the way everything goes into stereo right after you shoot it in--nyang, nyang, nyang!" Kelsey couldn't relate to people who treated drugs as if they were some new death-defying extreme sport. He'd take his narcotic version of a peaceful day at the beach, thank you. "You wouldn't get so sick if you cut down on the dope, and did coke-heavy speedballs," Len continued. "I shoot so much coke that if I don't get any dope, I don't notice withdrawal symptoms. My habit's mostly coke, you see. If you shoot coke whenever you start feeling the sickness coming on, you'll be so amped out of your head, you won't notice shit." Kelsey nodded. He thought Len was an idiot. The idea of shooting coke as a way of curing heroin withdrawal seemed to him like purposely breaking your own hand because someone had just amputated your leg with a chainsaw. Also, it annoyed him that Len kept referring to heroin as "dope". He found that heroin aided his intellectual capabilities--it quelled his bodily misery and naggingly intense emotions, paving the way for the far less complicated realm of distant, theoretical rumination. But right now, its deficit was causing both his bodily misery and naggingly intense emotions. He quickened his pace as Len pointed at a band poster tacked to a rare tree. "'Ruined By Birth'," Len read. "Don't you work with the frontman from that band? Didn't they get signed? Well, whatever. They fucking suck!" Kelsey exhaled. At least there was something that he and Len agreed on. However, the last thing he wanted to do was think about Justin Michaelson. "Yeah, I used to work with him," he said. "He quit a while ago. I guess he doesn't need to work at a record store anymore." Justin's awful, faux-British, pompous "New New-Wave" band, Ruined By Birth, had recently been on the cover of Seattle's liberal free weekly, The Seattle Libertine, as the subject of a major record label bidding war. Justin had smugly quit his job at Kill Yr Idols Records a few days before the article came out, enigmatically and irritatingly claiming that his band was "on the verge of something huge". Kelsey had never forgiven him for a variety of offenses--the least of which being that his awful band was legions ahead of Kelsey's. Justin was incapable of uttering a sentence that wasn't either sarcastic, ironic, or mean. He routinely made fun of Kelsey's favorite seminal bands for being "maudlin"--and then, in his own band, ripped them off in the most soulless way imaginable. His defense was that "sad people are losers; my band's about fun," but even that didn't explain his egregious, self-referential lyrics ("Don't you wish you were just like me/Playing sellouts from Milan to Perth/Don't you know that it's not easy/For an ice cold boy who was Ruined By Birth!"). He'd brag about trying to impregnate various hipster girls in the music scene. "I want to ensure that my legend continues," he'd said, grinning. When Kelsey evoked this line to his coworkers as evidence of Justin's assholery, they all claimed that Justin was just being funny, and that Kelsey took people far too seriously. The day before Justin quit the record store, Kelsey returned from his lunch break feeling ill. He just knew that the sandwich maker at the sub shop he called "Aging Hipsters Heroes" had slathered on the butter and snuck in a few jalapenos in his sandwich despite his instructions to the contrary. Kelsey's boss, the flamboyant and unsympathetic Brad, told him to get over it and price gun CDs with Justin, who was scheduled to leave within the hour. Brad considered himself the stand-up comedian of Kill Yr Idols Records. During store closings, he'd grab the store mop and use it as a microphone, swiveling his hips and singing along to CDs of interchangeable cloying teenage divas with fake-sounding names like Misti Cherry and Destini Childs. Brad had particular contempt for Kelsey's bisexuality, which he considered a "narcissistic, immature, sexual non-preference." At first, he asked Kelsey if he was just a boring straight boy trying to be avant-garde, or was else engaging in sexual layaway--"bi now, gay later." When Kelsey attested that neither was the case, Brad sniffed that he was obviously a sex addict trying to "have his cock and eat clit too." This got a predictable laugh from Kelsey's coworkers. Kelsey could have kicked himself for trying to appeal to Brad's nonexistent sympathies. He resigned himself to the price-gun and a carton of CDs. An uncomfortable silence settled upon Justin and Kelsey as Kelsey's condition declined. Even a few minutes of flirtation with a cute girl--who chose looks over fame by sidling up to Kelsey, not Justin--didn't take away his unease. "Um, Justin?" Kelsey began. "I think that Aging Hipst--I mean, Age of Hipsters Heroes screwed up my order and I wound up eating something that I'm really allergic to. Would you mind staying a little later so I can go home? I'm only supposed to be here for a couple more hours." He tried not to show any evidence of not feeling well, because he knew that Justin would seize on this opportunity to gleefully decline. But when it came to his physical fragility, Kelsey was horribly transparent. "Sorry, Kelsey." Justin laughed. "I've got a hot date after work. Better get your Epi-Pen ready." "Epi-pen?" Kelsey asked. "Yeah," said Justin, smirking. "It's what people with real food allergies carry around in case they have a reaction. Too bad there's not an Epi-Pen for being a fucking hypochondriac." Kelsey had numerous fantasies about ripping out Justin's mustache hairs one-by-one ("They're all the rage in Williamsburg," he had replied, upon returning from a trip to New York sporting a 'stache). These fantasies didn't dissipate after Justin left the store for good, and worsened every time he saw an article about the fucker's band in The Libertine, complete with annoyingly clever titles: "Ruined By Birth, But Saved By New New-Wave!" "Ruined By Birth Excavates The Grave of Eighties Brit Pop Nostalgia", "Ruined By Birth Is A Premature Hit!" To make matters worse, the store's assistant manager--a sycophantic rockabilly aficianado named Meggie-Lee--never failed to plaster the bulletin board in the employee breakroom with news of Justin's band's unwarranted success. Kelsey vowed to himself that the next time he felt like he was going to puke, he was going to take aim at what he called "The Justinsanity Clippings". His one guerrilla attempt thus far had been thwarted by his desperate fear of confrontation. He had reached a breaking point the day that he saw that Meggie-Lee had put up an actual promo poster of Ruined By Birth on the employees' refrigerator. It was tacked up with a magnet that claimed "Women are from Venus, Men are from Uranus". The poster depicted Justin and his bandmates dressed in all black, scowling ponderously in the middle of a cemetary. The four of them were centered around a large headstone which somehow had been manipulated to read "Ruined By Birth". Kelsey had seized a black Sharpie marker and had written underneath the band's name, "Too bad you weren't all aborted!" He had cackled like a loon after he'd written the final exclamation point in the sentence, but then spent the following hour terrified that his employees would know that he was the one who had defaced the poster. The very thought of someone approaching him about the matter gave him a stomach ache, so he retreated to the back room at his first opportunity and scribbled out the sentence. From then on, he confined his responses to news of Justin's band's continued success to mere passive-aggressive eye rolls. He had thought that The Blade, at least, would be one area where he wouldn't have to ever hear about Seattle music scene gossip. But despite Len's exhile from the Pacific Northwest music scene, the kid still had his finger on its fibrillating, arrhythmic pulse. It seemed that Len always wanted to talk about various dreadful bands that were far more successful than Kelsey's. Last week, he had drooled over a horrible speed metal band called Charles Manson's Last Lay. The band's four members were rumored to be Satanists, crackheads, and serial rapists. Kelsey didn't know if their Lord Voldemort schtick was merely a publicity stunt, but he did know that all four of the members worked at a slaughterhouse in Tacoma and used deliberately offensive monikers such as Penis and Mr. Clitoridectomy. Their execrable music was merely the cherry on top of a shit sundae. Luckily, Len--his brain zipping merrily along--was already on to a new topic. He began waxing nostalgic about his erstwhile attempt at punk rock immortality. "Yeah, well, I'd never sell out like Ruined by Birth. Did I ever tell you about the time that my band, The Crusty Curmudgeons, went on a huge tour all over the Midwest? Damn, it was fucking amazing..." Len continued describing the glory of his days as a punk rock drummer. Kelsey exhaled thankfully as the two of them approached the door of Seattle's Best Coffee. Unfortunately, there was a line six-person deep. He steadied himself against the glass case filled with pastries as a wave of dizziness threatened to send him sprawling on the tiled floor. His equilibrium worsened when Len asked him the one question Kelsey had spent the entire day trying not to think about himself. "Hey, didn't your band have a show recently? Wasn't it last night? How'd it go?" "Fine," Kelsey said tersely. The last thing he wanted to do was admit to Len the truth--that he could potentially have more in common with the ex-drummer for The Crusty Curmudgeons than he wanted to admit. Kelsey's goal was to ease the screaming cells in his body and try to forget the growing dissent that was fomenting between himself and his bandmates. "Cool, cool," said Len. He laughed, oblivious to how slow the line was moving. "Shit. Have you seen the latest anti-drug commercial on TV?" Kelsey groaned. He had yet to exchange money and product with Len, and the last thing he wanted was for his impending connection to start discussing topics that would make the customers at Seattle's Best--largely Midwestern tourists who had come for coffee before watching the fish-tossers at Pike Place Market--suspicious. He told himself not to worry. Because he had tattooed arms, dyed chin-length black hair, and a labret piercing, the type of person ahead of him on line at the coffeehouse would have stared at him as if he was a piece of dogshit on their shoe long before he had ever tried heroin. He lowered his voice to a whisper, trying to get Len to quiet down himself. "Are you talking about the commercial that, like, takes place in some kind of army camp in the jungle?" Kelsey was not a fan of television, but his three roommates spent an almost inconceivable amount of time in front of the screen in their living room. Darren, Mikey, and Miranda couldn't believe that Kelsey didn't like TV, and always invited him to partake of their favorite evening activity--drinking (beers for Mikey and Darren, a nasty-tasting diet alcoholic concoction for Miranda called NoCarb Girl! Cooler) and eating pizza while watching hours and hours of it. A few nights ago, he had stopped by the living room to request that his roommates open a window. He couldn't stand the smell of food, particularly the anchovy and pineapple pizza that Darren and Mikey favored. While Miranda gushingly enthused over his vintage ski vest and tight flared corduroys, and Mikey taunted him by putting a slice of the offending pizza under his nose, Darren tossed Kelsey a bottle of beer and invited him to park his ass for a while. In the interest of domestic harmony, Kelsey consented, although he did ask if there was any other kind of alcohol in the house other than Miranda's diet crap. "Beer kind of makes me sick. It's so yeasty," he explained. Mikey guffawed. "Try going down on a girl with a yeast infection!""I'll assume you're talking about that skank you used to date," Miranda shrilled. "Sorry, dude. But this is a Stella Artois. It's a really good beer, trust me," said Darren. Kelsey opened his beer with Darren's bottle opener and stared dully at a series of commercials. A forty-something blond woman danced joyfully with a seventy-something man to a disgustingly catchy jingle that touted something called Penimax. The man then priapically dangled car keys in front of her gleeful face and then carried her into a red Ferrari. "Penimax," a male announcer's voice oozed. "For men who want to live their lives to the max! Discuss with your doctor if you're healthy enough for sexual activity at your age, and if Penimax is right for you. Side effects include a runny nose, male-pattern baldness, weight gain, hirsutism, and priapism, an erection that lasts more than four hours..." Darren, Mikey, and Miranda burst into laughter. A jaunty instrumental tune announced a show called Running In Stilettos. A bony, Pomeranian-faced blond with a nasal voice started gesticulating wildly as she spoke. "My college roommate Bunny always told me that men were like wine...The older they were, the richer they were! And Hamilton Mann III is certainly rich! I've fantasized about a beautiful home in Greenwich, with two point one beautiful children and a closet stuffed with Manolos and Jimmy Choos, but how can I give up on my Holly Golightly fantasy of life as a single gal about town in Manhattan?" "We are so not watching this crap," said Darren. Kelsey silently agreed. "It's okay," said Miranda. "I've already seen this episode five times. Lizette finds out that Hamilton's cheating on her with a nineteen-year old model." Mikey clicked the remote control. "Catfight!" he enthused. On the screen, two women in business suits screeched insults at each other and began wrestling while surrounded by a pit of fecal-appearing brown mush. The show's host, a casually dressed man with a chiseled face and a posh British accent, began his imperious introduction. "Welcome to 'The Best Beard', the reality show with a twist. Our two eligible bachelors appear to be the icing on the wedding cake for the forty desperate thirtysomething career women who've been woken up each morning by the incessant buzzing of their biological clocks. But what happens when these ladies realize that the menfolk for whom they've been so desperately competing are gay, gay, gay?"Miranda squealed. "I love this show!" Darren and Mikey turned to Kelsey expectantly, to see his review of the latest top reality television show. "What?" Kelsey asked, appalled. "Just because I'm bisexual doesn't mean I like this crap!" The two best friends shrugged at each other. "I think it's kind of funny," Mikey muttered self-consciously. "Just because I like it doesn't mean I'm gay or anything," Darren echoed. "Not that there's anything wrong with being gay," he added. Miranda tittered, as the host for The Best Beard threw his be-suited arm out enthusiastically. "When we come back, we'll see Tammi and Judi go head-to-head in the swimsuit and evening wear competition! Our two lovely ladies will be judged on their tummies, bummies, and boobies by our celebrity judges. Let's see how much progress they've made in fighting their figure flaws, food foibles, and fashion faux pas! The winner will enter the Physical Challenge round, where they'll wrestle the triumphant bachelorette from last week's Best Booty contest! But after the past several months of a strict diet and exercise regime, are our bachelorettes woman enough to get down and dirty in a ring filled with rich, succulent, caloric, sinful Godiva chocolate? Or will they give in to temptation, like a pig at its trough, and be distracted from their ultimate goal? Don't touch that remote control! We'll be right back for more of The...Best...Beard!" "Not your speed, Kelsey, huh?" Darren asked, observing the disgusted expression on his roommate's face. "Or is the Stella not doing it for you?" "It's okay," Kelsey managed, choking down another sip of beer. Yet another commercial began. It depicted a gaggle of parental-looking figures dressed in military fatigues. Each middle-aged husband and wife couple were lined up near a tented camp in the woods, receiving various weapons. A cop, in uniform and badge, played the role of army general. Once the artillery had been distributed, he stood in front of the parents, outlining a battle plan. The parents then all saluted, grabbed their weapons, and dispersed throughout the woods in spousally-determined groups of two. The camera then cut to a high school basketball court, where a group of six multicultural teenagers finished a pickup basketball game, laughing and joking. One of the boys, distinguished from the other five by the fact that he had jaw-length hair instead of a crew cut and was wearing a concert T-shirt instead of athletic gear, showed his friends a baggie full of pills. "They'll make you feel really good," he intoned in a gravelly voice. The scene flashed back to the parents, who were now deep in the jungle, shooting at bottles of pills, syringes, baggies of white powders, and rolled-up joints--the War on Drugs taken to its ludicrous and all-too-literal conclusion. The cop kept yelling, military-style, as the parents slapped each other five as yet another prescription bottle or plastic baggie exploded: "C'mon, soldiers, don't give up now!" A matronly, bespectacled middle-aged woman brandished an AK-47, which she aimed at a pyramid of bottles of pharmaceuticals and paraphernalia: "Ratatatatat!" A crackpipe burst into flames. A skinny man with a crimson and forest-green bowtie and a balding pate stuck a hunting knife into a technicolor poppy plant. At the moment of impact, he emitted a resounding "Hyiaaaa!" The police officer/sergeant screamed "Fire in the hole!" Flames licked the sky as a randomly-placed trailer (identified as a "meth lab" by the policeman/army sergeant) exploded amongst acres of marijuana plants. Back at the basketball court, the five players regarded their "druggie" friend warily. "I don't need anything to feel good, I'm high on life!" swore a wholesome African-American boy. "That's right. Drugs are for losers!" enthused a Latino kid, who continued to bounce a basketball. "Yeah, dude, we're outta here," said a blond Caucasian, martialing his troops and shooting the druggie miscreant a dirty look over his shoulder. Back in the woods, the parents had somehow been reunited with their anti-drug kids, while the pill peddler--who had also been magically transplanted into the jungle--was led off in handcuffs by the police officer/army sergeant. John Philip Sousa-style patriotic fight songs echoed in the background, as the gaggle of parents and their five law-abiding kids sat around a campfire, their arms around each other. "Parents, talk to your kids!" they all chorused, in cultish voices. "Join the battle! Be a Freedom Fighter! Be a soldier in the War against Drugs! Paid for by DrugFree America." Kelsey barely heard the subsequent commercial ("Meat. Cheese. Fries. Food for guys, who ain't ashamed to be guys. BusterBurger."). He stood up abruptly, willing himself to not spit out a scathing critique. "I'm going to bed," he said. Kelsey suddenly felt a sharp elbow in his ribs. He immediately transported himself back into the present--dopesickness, Len from Olympia, Seattle's Best Coffee. Len elbowed him again, grinning. "Earth to Kelsey!" he bellowed. "The good man wants to know what it is you're buying." "Sorry," he murmured. The cashier--a stocky, crew-cut guy with nerdy glasses, a thick neck, and bodybuilder biceps--gave him a dirty look. "Yeah. Um, could I have a chocolate bun, a mocha, and a small coffee, with room for cream?" The anabolic mathlete called out Kelsey's order and then gave him the pastry and drinks. He paid and handed Len his snack. He tried to maintain control, as another round of stomach cramps made his bowels seize up dangerously. He had already slipped the money he owed Len inside the bag where the chocolate bun was safely ensconced. Once they were outside, Len would shake his hand--placing the half-gram balloon in his fist--and then Kelsey would be reassuringly on his way to both bodily and territorial safety. The pair stepped outside and Len grinned broadly. "Like I was saying, do you remember the anti-drug hysteria of the 1980s? Nancy Reagan, Mr. T, and all of those 'this is your brain on drugs' fried egg ads." Kelsey nodded, his eyes fixated on the distance he'd have to travel in order to get back to his apartment and cure himself. "Well, the commercial I'm talking about is like an update on all that fried egg bullshit. It sure doesn't take place in a fuckin' jungle. In this ad, there's a cute little waif girl cooking your standard 'brain on drugs' fried egg in a sizzling pan. But this time, she says 'this is your brain on heroin.'" Len affected a soprano voice. "Then, suddenly, she picks up the frying pan and starts smashing up her entire kitchen with it. 'This is what happens to your job on heroin!'" he imitated screechily, gesticulating wildly. "'Your friends! Your boyfriend or girlfriend! Your entire faaaamily!' She starts throwing shit around the kitchen, dude. Wham, there goes the glass door to the oven. 'Your dreeeeams!' Oops, sorry microwave, didn't mean to hurt ya there, li'l buddy. And then she throws the fuckin' frying pan across the room. 'Your entire liiiiife!' And I'm watching, thinking, okay, so heroin smashes up kitchens? Can you imagine, Kelsey? 'Oops, hun, was that your new Cuisinart? Sorry, ossifer. You know what heroin can do to a kitchen." He threw his head back and hooted with laughter. "Sounds pretty grisly," said Kelsey, disturbed, wondering when Len would part ways with him. He had what he needed. It was only his physical weakness and sickliness that kept him from breaking into a run. "Yeah, well," said Len, eyeing a hesitant-looking, scraggly male/female couple crossing the street towards the main intersection of The Blade, Pike and Second Avenue. "I think it's fuckin' hilarious. Hey, I gotta go. I think I see a couple of customers. See ya soon, Kelsey." "Yeah," said Kelsey, exhaling with relief. "See you soon, Len."
to be continued in part 2 of chapter 1!
btw, the musical suggestion, "the crying light," by antony and the johnson's, is a stunnig record and makes a great soundtrack to kit's writing!
 | Currently listening:
The Crying Light
By Antony and the Johnsons
Release date: 2009-01-20 |
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12:34 PM
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