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“Eyes, black eyes that carve hollow secrets into your skull, empty experiences that grey not only your hair but fill in the wrinkles of your skin. You are a white wash canvas lost inside a storage basements cranny,” thought Yoma.
Yoma had travelled nowhere exotic. He had spent the majority of his 65 years exploring nothing but the inner workings of his own banal life. “I will see the world,” he whispered. This hushed prayer had been heard by friends, lovers, children, grandchildren and strangers for as long as Yoma could remember, he whispered “I am a million pieces of rock spread across every pixel of blue sky.” Yoma often spoke in this manner. Weaving Kerouac phrases that could leave a person frustrated with wonder. As a young boy a brick wall could suddenly become the peak of Everest, his mutt of a dog a faithful donkey and the air that floated amidst his left ear his knowledable Sherpa. As a man, the brick wall melted from Everest to a steel prison where he wrote lascivious theatrical pieces along side the Marquis De Sade and other men of great evil abilities. But as time went on, the brick wall froze into, well, a brick wall. The day Yoma stopped seeing flowers in the stars is the day Yoma meant it when he said, “I will see the world.”
“Look at this!” I told Ebony, my best friend, who sat next to me in the Tipperary Pub, the Irish-themed bar of the Parsippany Sheraton. I was here for the Deadly Ink writers’ conference and Ebony and Lucy were here for moral support. “I think it’s my death threat. Oh, I’m so excited!”
Ebony took the envelope I gave her, pulled out the note and read it aloud.
“I’ve done the deed. You won’t be disappointed. Have the money before the luncheon or you’ll never be hungry again.”
She put down the paper and gave me a look. “You are excited about your own death threat?”
Ebony had full lips, big brown eyes and a voluptuous mop of African hair that propagated equally in all directions. She wore about five dozen bracelets and golden lipstick. I wore old t-shirts and ragged jeans. Jewelry and make-up were always an afterthought.
“Just think about it,” I said. “What an idea for a story!”
Lucy, my other best friend, inched over to see the paper. She had just got off duty and still wore her cop uniform and the twenty pounds of stuff that came with it. That’s why I was so calm and nonchalant. It was easy feeling invincible when your best friend’s a cop. Lucy was six feet tall and loved martial arts and extreme sports.
Their running made a breeze out of the standstill air. One by one, they would give chase. The others fled in whatever direction they could, attempting to escape in a torrent of running feet, exhausted breath and scared laughter. Eventually one would become two, two became three and so on until the one had become the many. Those who knew them may have said days like these were a glimpse at what they would become. But to the boys in the grey-striped shirts, it was just a game. Always just a game.
The area in which they played seemed almost tailor made for them: a bright blue sky hanging over a small expanse of green grass; an old wooden shed with a flower garden off to the side. Sometimes they would wonder about that old wooden shed that no one ever seemed to use, that clipped green grass they’d never seen anybody cut. But thoughts like those always got pushed to the back of their mind. This place was theirs, an escape from their nightly incarcerations. This place was perfect…save for the dark wood.
He booked a one-way flight to the Neon City. He told his old lady he might not be back. There were no guarantees, he said. He had a reservation at the Gold Bullion hotel, and it was as plush as they came, downtown. After he checked in, he found the craps pit, and got over on a $5 pass line bet. Twice more he laid odds with the shooter, and twice more the shooter made point. It’d been fifteen minutes since he walked through the double doors, and he was already ahead. He thought about calling her; he looked at his cell phone, only one bar, so he collapsed it, and shoved it back into his pocket.
He spied a girl at the bar, and she warmed his mug with a smile. He was dressed to kill, and so it figured. He made his way to the bar, and struck up a conversation. She was in room 328, and asked him if he’d join her for a drink at ten.
When I tell people I used to be homeless I always get attacked with questions. The most popular is “what was the worst part?”. The answer? There are no bathrooms. If you have to take a crap you have to search high and low for a place that doesn't care that you'll never buy something from them.
You probably don't realize how good you have it until you have to frantically search for a public bathroom at three in the morning. Those bathrooms were a treasure cove. The best part is that after you did your thing you could use the sink to take a "whores bath", basically a sponge bath using the tiny amount of soap in the dispenser. You could also wash your change of clothes (which were kept secure in your backpack of course). All this was made even more interesting because I have OCD and being clean is the most important thing in the world to me.
After people get bored of the standard homeless questions I always get this one: what do you remember most about being homeless? This is also easy to answer. I remember the day I scammed a scammer.
There it was in front of him. Arthur stared into the darkness at the pair of glowing eyes that stared back at him. He clutched the heavy wooden chair as if it were a shield, frozen in place. Were it not for the spot lights on the stage behind him, Arthur would be in darkness with only the flashlight in his back pocket to guide him.
What the hell is this thing? He thought. In the moonless early morning, Arthur could see almost nothing outside the little circle of light emanating from the stage behind him. It was one of those portable ones that had been brought in by truck the day before.
He slowly backed away from the beast in the darkness. For a moment he thought it might eat him right there on the spot, this whatever it was. It let out a low growl. Arthur jumped, dropping his chair. The beast began to inch toward the light.
They move pretty quickly, considering they're dead.
"Blood-sucking bastards," the Captain growls, shouldering his assault rifle.
The gun barks three times. The sound that follows shortly after can only be best described as a watermelon being smashed by a baseball bat.
The Captain lowers his rifle and smiles proudly. Even after all that we've gone through, he still manages to find joy in the simple things.
"Took off the top half of his head," he muses.
