FreeWrights Peer Review™

Know when you get that dropping feeling of complete and full devastation? Reflect on your time on earth and begin to think that maybe, just maybe, your existence is not only unnecessary but absurdly detrimental to any and all those in which you encounter. Begin to untie massive webs of desperate rationalization, tied into a four point bow and placed with painstaking passion around a towering pile of rancid bullshit.

Sometimes, I stop and I wonder, how many? How many, if any, of you reading this have got into a drunken scuffle? Wait a second...

Did I just say a scuffle?
Wow, A Fuckin' scuffle??

Reminds me of certain large, brown puppet hanging out with a yellow puppet birdfriend, next to a green hobo living in a trash can, screaming about letters and breaking into a joyous song number to teach kids with lazy parents the ways of life, and no, I’m not resentful in the least.

......Digression, God damn it, Ugh.

See, I am very perceptive. Perceptive to the point of fault. Reading and comprehension. 5th grade's dumbest student can get through a Goosebumps book easily. That ten year can read the words, but I doubt he is paying attention.


HEY, YOU!
YEA YOU!
LITTLE FUCK IN THE BACK!
PAY ATTENTION, I HAVE YOUR ADDRESS

Nah man, you guys are better then that, you can't be sold so easily. "A scuffle" is cheap, breakable and that just isn’t going to cut it. As your narrator I should know better. Funny thing is, in many ways I do. The emotions charging inside my organs builds up to the point it seems nothing less than obvious. Yet, here I am worthless simile, lame metaphor, misplaced image far too vague, you want more, and if I were you, I'd cry out for the same.

I tried to be one of you crying for that very same. Failed downloads from the only narrator, to the deepest parts of functioning brain stems. "Scuffle" Not quite descriptive enough, that hollow word lacks the proper connotation it deserves. Rather, let us try this. Knockdown, winner takes all, battle royal. No holds barred destruction of body and soul, possessing not a stitch of remorse, sparring over nothing except the established goal of physical pain. Hollow words bellowed, enticing another like him. Baiting, waiting, "Fuck you man" is what he says, "Someone please come fuck me up then I can justify the emotional pain, with some physical pain" Is what he means.

Imaginary rusty pipes and broken beer bottles raised into the air and frozen in time long enough for the air to scream in thirst for blood while witnesses' hands reconcile together to pray. Abashed at the surreal sight in front of them.

Glorious royal red, vicious red wine. Epic in proportions. Somebody call Hollywood, here's your smash. The crow eventually make a swift exit well as swift as possible. Truth be told, many times they indulge in an awkward run. Oh my goodness! Let me tell you, flat dead sprints, not in any particular direction, just to get anywhere but inside this little section of hell in which they accidentally stumbled.

Being and overseer allows me some narrative privilege. I must know my audience, so here are some more questions. Have you ever seen someone break into a run for no reason except it is the only alternative to freezing stiff? Paralyzed and petrified? Have you ever run away from the sight of a human so damaged you feel if your eyes continue looking in his direction, you too might be like him? Caught his problems like a common cold and diminish themselves down so low, no one even knows it’s you. Yes, running can be freedom, if you know where you are going.

Run mother fuckers, run!
Not from boredom or fear!
Run mother fuckers

Damn the brutality of the image itself, feared, a familiar sinking feeling, forceful desperation, spreading, building, Walt Disney World, Busch Gardens. Tyrants establish monarchy using intimidation and correlated chaos. He's his own tyrant against his own mind's population. He's his own democracy where the voting booths had but only one option. He's his own judge denying the execution appeal.

Choice is easy when left with only one option. One choice is simple. The same selection he'd have made if it was an open ended essay. Escape, sweet, sweet escape. There is no real fight, no real bar and the only thing he's outside of, is his disease encrusted mind. Crazy fuckin' fuck.

On a side note as your narrator I find it important to tell you all, I really pull for our eccentric antagonist. Tried to convince him otherwise, to no avail. Have you ever attempted to convince a man, faced with freedom, his chosen escape, to return to everything he is running from? He spends all day repressing the same paralyzing pain to the back depths of his mind, and you could turn him around, bandaged his entire psyche? In case you have not try solving a Rubik’s cube in three seconds.

Can you picture that? Try if you can, close your eyes, let down your defense allow a mental rendition of unprecedented destruction. A vivid depiction of his vile day to day life reverberating in his subconscious. Dreams exist in his morning, no longer fake but real upon wakening. Ever-conflicted battle between what he will do and what he wants to do. The tug of war rages on, casualties build as fast as low income inner city housing. Ahead, a treacherous obstacle course filled of indecision and winding uncertainty. Behind, a crematorium of burnt ashes from torched bridges burned by his own hand.

Looking to his options he is faced with a brutal realization. There are not multiple outs in a field where there usually are hundreds. Two options: one he kept refusing to consider. “I can’t continue to fight through the fiery agony that comes with the beginning of each and every day.” He mutters to himself.
I know what he means, seen it millions of times before. Woken to the sounds of a loud shriek of a voice "Stay down motherfucker, do everyone a favor." Each day the verbal assault on his entire existence gets worse, the shriek penetrates deeper, the hesitation he feels builds. Resulting in an unrelenting nagging and exaggerated twangs of sharp personal abuse, a continuous cycle of perpetual recovery. Fight pain or give up, escape. Escape sounded like bliss to him.

Escape came in the form of vice. Smoke a blunt or three drink a beer or 12, blow a line or gram. Stock piling devastating decisions, all added, and then multiplied to a fraction leaving him unable simplify the answer. He can't even show his work to prove his position. Every day was test day, everyday he had a funeral to attend, every day he had jury duty.

I usually don’t keep company with his type; I like the bottom of the barrel. Still to this day I wonder how it all came to be, although I have a faint idea. Parents were saints, church going, hard working, upper class Americans spending their entire existence preparing to finance his turmoil. Unconditionally supporting and guiding him, but as we all know, things happen when the chicken flees the coop.

Eyes shut, head bowed, seeing his picture in the police blotter burned onto the back of their retina. They feel responsible, a layer of sad misunderstanding. Those who loved him the most, gazing at him with ferocious desperation, wondering, where it all went wrong? Where the fuck it all went wrong?

Be at ease, I your humble narrator can explain, it is really quite simple. Hardwiring man! Believe me, can't be attributed to you folks, not you, it’s him. A faulty cord, a defective stereo, lost the receipt, can't get cash back or even store credit. Ah fuck it anyways; Best Buy is far too crowded, not like he needs it.

Extreme difference between your antagonist and what is considered "normal citizens", you getting the idea yet? Can you see? I am just trying to help the innocent. You are not the reason that he no longer fears dying. You are not the reason he feels capable of ending life. You are not the reason it all went wrong.

Let me guess, you are wondering, is it possible there is a plan? Eventually the pieces all will fall into place, won't they? If our little tiger just follows his heart he will eventually be saved and delivered to the land of milk and honey. Rich, famous and happy.

HA! Sometimes you guys crack me up.

Hate to break it to you, your sister, your cousin and everyone else, but some things are just doomed from the start. I call it the fat, redheaded, poor, baby syndrome, in other words, no matter what.
He’s Fucked.

A disadvantage presented as a diploma from the school of hard knocks and the institute of destruction. Enjoy your gloves and dead president mask, bank is on the left.

This little tale ends at potentially the beginning of another; this little tale also begins with a clique, so it will end itself with one as well. Our beloved derelict swallows the last of the pills he has. Right around the time he was able to finish that handle of cheap vodka he stole from his cousin’s garage. A little sharing between families is usually a good thing, and to be honest with you, his cousin would have given him the handle in an instant. I guess if you do drugs long enough, you become a drug, addicting, an object of hate but just can't get enough of and willing to do anything for, you are what you eat, although in this case, you are what you ingest.

..................but I digress.

He certainly would have given him the vodka, what he wouldn’t have given him was .45 magnum he left hidden in a ceiling tile. See his cousin whom we shall call the "X factor" for now, stayed up late at night imaging ways he could become more like his beloved icon. The most impressive thing about our antagonist is his ability to portray himself. Often reading his deepest thoughts, I could feel him picturing his funeral. He hoped that he could be remembered how he remembered himself. Funny thing is, my friends, he would be.

Internally convince yourself of anything long enough and it just becomes true. To everyone who remembers elementary school, “Put your mind to it and you can do anything you want.” True and false, fact and fiction. Sure, it happens occasionally, but to slam such false hope into children’s minds is just cruel. Take a classic example, a section 8 disadvantaged Spanish youth sitting in the back of 3rd grade, putting his mind, as hard as he can, to living in one of the mansions across town, then returning home to his apartment to be beat my his abusive father and alcoholic mother. I’m right behind him, hiding, waiting to get to him next.

I am in the business of reducing down desires, motives and aspirations and contorting them to shapes, snugly fitting the holes I’ve created. A mental molester, hacker of the mind, a complete train wreck. Bad news bears. Yah man, I'm a doozy, but I don’t think I am as bad as my reputation. I only go where I’m invited, just can’t vouch for what I will do one I'm there awhile. Don’t get into the ring if you aren’t going to fight. See? It’s not my fault, besides I have feelings too, I’m sick of hearing about how bad I am on the news.

Jumping off my high horse for a second, I find it pertinent to remind you all that there are times it all becomes too much to bear, even for me. Sights I’ve seen, bodies I’ve disassembled, and I can see them when I close my eyes. Desperation is ugly for anyone, and anyone can fall victim, anyone who just wants to let go, following the same escape route mapped for generations previous. He was no different, yet grotesquely unique, a rhyme wrapped in a riddle. Watching him wonder around rock bottom, I contemplated desertion, just leaving this one alone, but everybody has got to work.




Fuck, let me tell you, It was sad, I looked at a young man, convulsing from swallowing a bottle of valium whole (and when I say, "swallowed the bottle whole", I mean, this fuckin’ kid, ate the entire prescription bottle, 60 pills and thought about eating the Walgreens bag it came in) I've seen drug overdose suicides before but this was wildly new, just by the nature of his determination.

Almost foaming at the mouth on hundreds of milligrams of valium and enough vodka to kill a frat boy, he was actually walking, almost strutting and confidently at that, over to the gun he took home. It was like the pills were just a warm up. Breakfast, Cheerios! Lowering cholesterol! Nonchalant, content behind his smoking cigarette.

I’ve showed some the edge before, and more often then not, they back out. Make that phone call to maybe the one person who won’t completely write them off and ask for help. I’m not undefeated; I’ve lost, just not very often. That being said, he eyes the gun for what seemed like 2 seconds, embedded in thought I always assumed he was apologizing to the weapon for inevitably getting blood all over it.

Releasing the safety and raising it to his temple he finally has found his escape. Air always becomes thick and dense when a life form is about to leave its post, and I had to sit transfixed with cold chills, amazed by his every move. Just as the sight became too overbearing, he finished his cigarette and fired straight into his temple. Not one to ever do anything half heartily, a second shot was fired, for good measure I figured. Feeling confident, we had one less in population I left my spot hidden from view, only this one is too proud to just go quietly. Even in death he was driven to extremes.

Just as I emerge from the shadows, his rotted soul struggling to out of his body. And it was the darnest thing, I swear to this day it’s true, it was one of those stories I’d repeat over and over again, late at night to my friends at a bar. I don’t know how many of you are big drinkers, but when a story is told to a group the goal is always for someone else to top that with their own. Somehow trying to explain that what they know is more impressive in nature. This story rips their tales from their drunken mouths, packages them in aluminum foil and shoves them right the fuck back down. In silence, I’ve quieted riots, gathered crowds, and delivered the words, one at a time, demanding the attention of anyone in hearing range.
There he was, dying by his own hand,
He smiles,
raises his shaky left hand
waves to me
and says.
"I got about an ounce of indoors under my bed you can have, I don't need it."

That little fucker! He knew I was there the whole time, they usually don’t recognize me even if they can see me, but such as the rest of his story, he didn't follow the rules. Chuckling despite myself before turning to grief and heartache. At first I thought it was because I would miss him, I knew I had messed with him far more then many others, still we had a decent relationship. Sometimes I’d be gone for a couple weeks at a time, a month at most, in the end, he'd always call me back apologizing for what he's done. Can you believe that? Just then, I had an itch, this one was a drug, and the supply just went dry.

T, I have read this a couple times. Okay for me, but not great or anything to crow about. Shows me you have talent.

Bluejay-
thanks for the read. It isn't anything amazing of this i'm aware. this is suppose to be part of a longer story, I just wanted to get some feedback on the beginning. I question my writing constantly, basically I was looking to see if there was any talent to be seen. I'm glad u think there is, that is promising.