rewrite: The Woods- ch 1

Chapter 1

The ditch was cold. It had a small stream of water running in from higher ground. The winter was brutal. The four layers I was wearing weren’t enough to protect me from the cold. The night sky was bland. The city had always excited me, except for tonight. Tonight, I had no home. No place to stay.  I was homeless. No money. No food. Nothing.

When the time came around, I stood up off of the ground. Ice broke on my back and slipped off as I stood. The air was hard to breath. It was thin, and crisp. In Denver, this sort of thing happened to me a lot. I would fall asleep after a long night of drinking and swearing. It would be hard to wake up, I would lose bodily functions, a whole lot of other bad stuff would happen the next day. What could I say? I didn’t have a place to come back home to.

When I stood up, I could see some college kids looking at me. I knew them. They were underage, so I would buy them booze, assuming that they gave me money. It was illegal, sure. But what did I care? I was an old guy who bought whiskey for eighteen year olds. I didn’t give a shit.

“Whatchu lookin at, you young piece of shit?” I said, jokingly, as I walked over to them to say hi.

“Well, we lost our ID’s again. Maybe you could help us out.”

“Sure thing, kid”

He handed me the twenty dollar bill he had been holding in his left hand, folded into quarters. The nearest gas station was a few blocks away. I walked at an ample pace, hoping that if I came back fast enough, he would give me a sort of tip. I walked through a few feet of snow ridden ground, and got to the station. They have two types of whiskey here. The ten dollar kind and the twelve dollar kind. This kid liked the twelve dollar kind. It could get him drunker, quicker, and it tasted pretty good too.

I remember back when I was his age. I did the same thing as him. Pay some bum to buy me shit that I couldn’t get myself. It started in my sophomore year when I payed some guy to get me a pack of menthols from a convenience store pretty close by. He was good with it, I gave him a ten dollar profit from the situation.

As I was thinking, the man at the counter interrupted my zoning out. “Sir, would you like to buy something.”

“Ah, yes. I’ll take a bottle of your finest whiskey sir.”

“Okay, that’ll be twelve bucks.”

“Here’s twenty.”

He grabbed me the bottle and I was off again. What adventures would I have today. Maybe I’ll get a few more dollars and I’ll be able to buy the twelve dollar kind for myself. Maybe I could get myself some food. That’d be nice, eh. Get myself an actual meal that has meat and everything. Maybe go to a diner and get some eggs and pancakes. What about a haircut? With this eight dollars left, I could rule the world.

I brought the bottle of whiskey back to that kid. He ran off and I could see him open it a couple blocks away and take a pull. He always takes it back to his dorm and dumps half of the bottle into a cup to put it on the rocks before he drinks the rest. He just likes to have a taste before he gets back.

I decided to spend that eight dollars on a new jacket that was heavier than any one that I have owned before. I walked over to the nearest thrift shop, it was owned by a church or something, and bought it. It felt nice having another layer. It was warmer than before. I wouldn’t have such a hard time getting to sleep at night with this on.

I went over to downtown. It was loud, as always, and the scenery was alright at best. There was a bar blasting already loud EDM music, and I could see people dancing jaggedly inside, like they hadn’t tried before in their lives. The freeway a few blocks away was my destination. I started walking again, but somebody stopped me.

“Hey, old man. You want some cash.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. He was offering a job. Not giving me a nice little insult to lower my self esteem for the day.

“Yeah. Of course I do.”

“Come over here.”

I turned slowly and walked straight toward him. He gazed at me with a big smile. I walked faster. I was by his bar faster than he could say pronto.

“Let me look at you.”

Despite the bad weather, this man wore his black top mostly unbuttoned. His chest was flashed at me and anybody else around. He had a small cross around his neck and spoke in a Jersey accent. I was honestly questioning his sanity.

“Well, you’ll work. Come here, we need you to lift some boxes. I’ll give ya, eh, ten bucks. Get it done good.”

“Okay.” I replied. He was eager to put me to work. I lifted cases full of what I could assume was recording equipment. I have no idea how they could record anything with the club in the background.

When I was done, he paid me. “You did good. Eh, what’s your name.”

“John. Why?”

“John, you come by some time, you can have free drinks the whole night if you tell them you’re name.”

“Alright man.” I reached to shake his hand.

He didn’t take it. “This is a one time offer, ya understand? I ain't gonna give you free drinks all the time, alright John.”

“Okay man. Thanks though, man. I could really use those.”

I walked away with a grin on my face. A whole night of getting drunk all paid for. It was a blessing. A gift for me to receive in exactly three hours when the club reopens.

I decided to spend the money he gave me on some food. I hadn’t eaten since the day before. My stomach ached like it had been punched by thirteen strong black men. I walked to the diner across the street. I ordered fries and a coffee. The coffee never ended, so I spent the next few hours waiting for the bar to turn into a nightclub.

It was boring in this little diner. I sat there, debating whether or not I will be able to have enough food in me for tonight. Fries and Coffee weren’t exactly a very substantial meal. I started thinking about facts. Facts. All day, every day. I might be a former stoner, who still drinks and smokes on the daily, but I think about shit I know. Like how coffee makes you feel more full than you actually are, because it has a shit load of caffeine, and caffeine is used in dietary pills so people feel full.

“Excuse me, could I get more coffee?”

She walked over with the pot already in her hand, poured the coffee into my cup, and walked away. She was beautiful, with a mole over her left eyebrow.

She reminded me of my mother. She was this little woman who would always be real polite to you whenever you come by. She always was baking, cleaning, or doing something around the house. After I left from that little San Francisco home, she got lonely. Real lonely. She started talking with some of the little neighborhood kids, and that just started the escalation. They started drugging her up every time she would have them come over. She would always go into the other room, and they would drizzle a little of this drug called amphetamine on her food.

Amphetamine is one bitch of a drug. My mom would go crazy. She didn’t even know why, but I would make her sex crazy every time one of the neighborhood kids came over for a little pie and coffee.

The first kid was little Jimmy W. Tite. He was a clever young man. The way he got the amphetamines was from this old war vet from the Korean. That old man introduced more drugs into them little neighborhood kids could have known. He started selling it to them, saying it was totally legal.

That old man got his hands on just about anything you wanted, too. It was amazing to see him work. He would take pocketfuls of anything from his wife. She was in her 70’s, and she had some of the worst diseases that you could think of. He would get pills, crush them into powder. Open em up, anything. He would sell alcohol, too. And cigarettes. Everything that you could get your hands on, he got his hands on it far before you, and he would sell it to you.

My little old lady was always swindled by these little boys, and she would always take it.

I don’t want to talk about that anymore.  

Come around 7:00 pm, I walked over and prepared myself for the longest bender I would ever be on. When I walked straight up to the door, the bouncer asked me to “step the fuck off and make room for someone who will actually fucking pay,” until I told him my name. Then he let me through.

The bar was vibrant, colorful. I could see a purple tint on everything. When I walked up to the bar, the tender said the same thing as the bouncer. Until I told him my fucking name. He was real peachy. He had strong black arms, and he probably wouldn’t need the bouncer to back him up in any fight. I’d say he was entering his 30’s.

“Okay then, whatchu want?”

“The hardest shit you’ve got, man.”

He poured me a straight vodka. Nothing else. No flavor. No ice. No tonic. He poured me the strongest smelling, horrible tasting, alcoholic volume rising, liver killing, rat poisoning, man strangling, make you so mad you decide to stab a man, vodka I had ever tasted. When it hit my tongue, my mistake hit me like a bullet. That didn’t stop me from rolling with it. After downing that terrifyingly large glass of vodka, I said, no, I yelled “another.”

“Mmm mmm. No more. That’s the hard shit that Vince keeps around to get as drunk as possible as fast as possible.”

“Then make me something fucking else. I want bourbon on the rocks. Whiskey. A daiquiri. Something that will get me more drunk.”

He started laughing. “Alright. You want it, you got it man.”

He made me a strawberry daiquiri, using the same vodka he had poured me before. I drank it reluctantly, and ordered another. And another. At some point, I passed out.

I woke up somewhere else. Somewhere I’ve never been.