Hurricane Party Ch. 03

My mind is racing. I walked around the waterfront for over an hour after I left Lidia's building. It was stupid of me to hang around afterward, but it didn't occur to me. Now I'm sitting here thinking of what to do. She's walking into a trap. Eric isn't going to listen when she tries to break up with him. He's not going to be reasonable. He won't be understanding. He will beat the hell out of her while his friends watch. His friends won't try to stop him. They will jeer and laugh while she cries and tries to run away. He said he would hold her down if he had to. I believe he will if he can.

But he won't. Because I won't let him. I have always felt like I was a stranger in the dark to the rest of the world. Tomorrow night that is exactly what I will be. 

I have seen some very sick, dark shit in my life. Lately I have been thinking of my own sick and dark shit. I'm not happy, you see. I can think of few brief moments in my life when I think I was truly happy. I am jeapordizing myself by taking this upon myself. I have to ask myself something. I know what a waste my life has become. I know how dysfunctional I am. I realize that I haven't done anything grand in my life. No one is inspired by me. I don't have any kids or wife to come home to. I'm one of those nameless faceless people who floats through life every day never truly being noticed or remembered. I can't remember one accomplishment so great I want to take the memory to my grave with me. I have had some friends and been with some people who made me feel proud in my past. They are all gone now and this wrecked person I am is all that is left behind. I have to ask myself.

If I do this can I learn to live with myself?

I know what the consequences can be. Probably will be. In the past my temper has got the better of me. Never without being provoked, but when I lost my temper I also lost self control. I had a friend tell me once 'You will find your place in this world'. That was almost twenty years ago. She's gone now. In the ground. I haven't found my place in this world. But goddamnit I am going to do something worthwhile for a change. Maybe I can make a place for myself in this world.

Most likely I am going to end up sitting in a prison cell. No one will write me. No one will plea for my pardon or appeal my case. No letters from a sweetheart waiting on the other side of the bars for me to come home to and screw her brains out. No cakes with files in them. If I go through with this I sincerely believe I can live with myself. So I can handle what life throws at me afterward no matter what.

I'm tired of sitting here. I've got things to do. I checked the weather channel a few minutes after I got back from the waterfront. The hurricane is poised about a hundred and ten miles off the coast from me. The tropical force winds are radiating out from the storm around it in a wide arc. The wind and rain are picking up outside. A few hours from now and it won't be safe to go outside. Most people won't go outside now. So that means it's time for me to get moving. I know this sounds redundant, but I need to go back to the waterfront. 

About twenty minutes later and I'm walking along the docks. A shadow lost in shadows. The wind is a constant high wail. It is almost pitch black out. No moonlight can penetrate the thick barrier of angry clouds. There are lights on in a few of the larger boats docked here. I steer clear of them. I am working my way to the pier near the end of the waterfront where the old guys like to fish. Something I need is there. Once I reach the pier I walk to the end. The wind is buffeting me pretty bad now, but I want to get a good look at the ocean. Whitecaps are raging everywhere. The hurricane is over a hundred miles away and I can barely walk for the strong winds. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when the bastard gets here. 

Along the pier at regular intervals are huge wooden beams. On every fifth beam is a big piece of pvc pipe with a curved fitting on top. They are for disposing of fishing line so they won't kill fish and other marine wildlife that can get tangled up in the line. The top is curved out to keep water from getting in. I've seen a few dead birds wash up on the shore with pieces of monofilament fishing line tangled in their feet and wings. They are pretty pitiful. I feel sorry for them. I carefully slide my hand down inside one of the plastic pipes. I feel a knot of fishing line. I pull the tangled mess of line out slowly, careful not to rake my hand through a bunch of fish hooks. I take a small plastic grocery bag out of my rain jacket and stuff the mass of fishing line in it. One more item and I can go home. 

Shipyards and docks are great resources for finding stuff. I mean just stuff. Pieces of rope, all kinds of discarded metal items. Lengths of chain. The problem is I don't really know what I'm looking for now. It's dark as hell outside and raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock. I know I'll find plenty of things out here. When I see one I can use it will come to me. It's kinda scary what I plan on doing. Then again I have been scared my whole fucking life. Time for someone else to be scared. 

After a few minutes of cautious rambling I have found it. I have come across an old sailboat with a salvage sticker on the hull. Sarah Lee is written along the ass end in big red letters. I guess someone likes cheesecake. It is only tied in one place. I guess since it's already beat to shit it won't affect the scrap value if the hurricane beats it a little more. And if it sinks big deal. 

Fuck the salvage. That there is an artificial reef now boys. Let's go fishin'  They would say.

There is a small decorative anchor hanging from a silver chain on the bow of the boat. The anchor is about twelve or fourteen inches wide from tip to tip. The chain gleams in the random lightning flashes. 
I keep a diver's knife in my boot. The tip is thick and blunt for prying oysters and such off of rocks. I hinge the blade under the anchor and pop it off with relative ease. I wipe the blade of my knife on my pants before I put it back in its sheath in my boot. Old habits die hard. The chain is still attached to the hull. I wrap it around my right hand and give a hard slow tug. Never snatch a chain. That'll cut the piss out of you. Steady does it and she'll give every time. The chain has some kind if plastic sheath over it. Probably to keep it looking shiny. I push the plastic up and wrap the bare chain around my hand, then pull the chain slowly. It separates from the boat with ease. There is a small metal plate with four rivets hanging from the end of the chain. Flecks of fiberglass are stuck to the rivet heads. I splash the chain in the water to wash the fiberglass fragments off. Fiberglass plays hell with you if it ever gets in your skin. You will never stop itching. I wrap the chain around the anchor and put it in my jacket. Time to go home and make preparations. 

I have found inspiration in strange places in my life. I knew this old guy a few years back who was an ex-con. He was a guest of the Alabama prison system for a long time. That must be about as close to hell as you could get. He used to tell me the wild shit he saw while he was in. Often when he would tell me a story about the hardships of Alabama prison life, he would punctuate the tale by showing me scars he got when the story was happening. I learned alot of things that people do to each other in prison. One night he called me out of the clear blue. He was shit faced drunk at some dive and wanted me to give him a ride. I won't go so far as to say he was my friend, but at the time he was the closest thing to a friend I had. So I went to pick him up. When I got there he was getting into a shouting match with a bunch of bikers outside the bar. I apologized to the guys. They were pretty cool about it once he quit yelling. Then the drunk fucker got mad and turned on me. Next thing I know and he's taking a jab at me with a knife. A cheap knife, too. I don't know why but that pissed me off more than anything. The knife was old and ratty looking. The handle was deer antler that had turned yellow with age. The blade looked like it hadn't been sharpened or cleaned in since it was bought. The last thing you want is a rusty knife in your gut. Trust me, I know. 

He took a staggering run at me and swung the knife. I side stepped and dodged him. I planned on goose stepping around him until he had to stop to get his wind, then getting in my car and speeding off.  To my surprise he was alot quicker than I had anticipated. He spun around and leapt right at me, knife held out in front of him. I came down hard with my left hand and hit his forearm just below the wrist, then punched him in the crook of the arm with a hard jab. His arm flew up limp but he still had the knife in his hand. I balled my right fist up as hard as I could and punched him in the throat. It felt like hitting a pinata. A little resistance then a soft mushy feeling. He tripped backward gagging and hacking. I stood my ground and waited for him to give up. People are unpredictable when they are drunk, more so when they are drunk and stubborn. He regained his balance and dived at me. His eyes were bulging out like that blue puppet Gonzo. He was still trying to catch his breath, but that didn't stop him from trying to kill me at the same time. I waited til he got about two good steps away then hooked to his left. I came around with my right elbow hard and fast. My elbow caught him squarely in the throat. He fell like someone had reached up his asshole and pulled his skeleton out. He lie there about for two minutes puking and bleeding until he decided to give up the ghost and die. 

The police showed up shortly thereafter. They questioned me for all of thirty seconds then started canvassing the crowd gathered outside for witnesses. I wasn't put in cuffs or told to stay put. I didn't even have to sit in the back of the squad car. Apparently the witnesses told them what they wanted to hear. They came back to me a few minutes later and told me I wasn't going to be charged with anything. They didn't ask me to come downtown, didn't ask me for my full name. They even asked me if I needed a ride home, to which I politely declined. I'm not entirely convinced they filled out a police report. They don't call it the dirty south for nothing. 

I learned alot from that old cuss. Tonight I am going to put what I learned to use.

It took me a while to untangle the mess of fishing line and old hooks. Now I've got about ten feet of the fishing line played out. I tied it to a kitchen chair and walked across my apartment until it tightened up. I walked back to the chair, doubling the line over itself once, twice, then a third time. I cut the line from the chair, then at the bottom of each loop, then at the top. Now I have three even length pieces of line. I knot them together on one end and tie that end to the chair. I make another small knot about two inches below the one attached to the chair. I pull a chair up and sit close to the one with the line tied to it. The fishing line is pretty heavy gauge. I would say maybe sixty or seventy pound test. More than enough for what I am using it for. I start braiding the three lines together. In ten minutes or so I have a piece of braided monofilament rope about three feet long. I tie it off at the end then cut the line between the two knots at the top. Last I tie a loop about the diameter of a quarter in one end, and a loop about the size of a nail head in the other.

I need a soda straw. I look through my kitchen cabinets and drawers and find three. One big one and two skinny ones. The big one is white with yellow stripes. The skinny ones are solid red. I'm pretty sure the skinny ones won't work. I might have to go digging through the dumpster to find one the right size. If I have to, I'll do it. 

I look through the jumble of fishing line and hooks. There are a few sinkers and several hooks in the tangle. I carefully cut the hooks and sinkers out of the line. Most of the hooks are big and rusted. When I am finished I have ten sinkers and eight hooks. Two of them are small treble hooks. Perfect. I got snagged on a treble hook once when I was a kid. I remember I was scared shitless. They have three sharp prongs and can get hooked in damn near anything. It got me in the skin of my right palm. I had to pull it out and it hurt like merry hell. 

I take one of the smaller sinkers and ream the hole in the center out with an ice pick. I slide the sinker over the neck of a treble hook. I have to force it a little but that's ok. That means it will stay put and work well. Next I tie the treble hook to the small loop of the braided rope I made. This is the moment of truth. I pick up the big soda straw and put the treble hook into the end. The hook slides in easily. That's a relief. It isn't touching the inside of the straw with all three prongs, so it has room to move. I hold the straw up and let the hook slide to the bottom then hold the straw upright on the kitchen table. I slowly pack the rope into the slender body of the straw. I twist the rope between my fingers as I pack it in, so it will roll into a neat spiral inside the straw. When all but the big loop is stuffed inside the straw, I wrap the loop around the base of the straw. Now all I have to do is lie the straw on its side and tape the end so the treble hook won't fall out. 

I just realized I have an erection. It doesn't seem like it but almost four hours have passed since I went back to the waterfront. It's almost daylight outside. Less than twelve hours til the hurricane party.  I know Lidia isn't sleeping right now. She's thinking of Eric and trying to find a peaceful way out. I'm thinking about him trying to think of a quiet way in. 

For a moment I can picture her sitting in front of her painted window. How hopeless she has to feel looking out through the blues and coral colors at the raging sky and the ocean in its tantrum. The view has to be blurred. 

That is how our life has been, isn't it? We go through life holding on to the hope that there is some true happiness for us. Most of our life the vision and the realization of that happiness is blurred. I don't even know who I am any more. It pains me to know she must feel the same. Eric hurt her pride and turned her need against her. Now she is trying to regain her pride and it is tearing the girl apart. 

I'm going to take a long hot shower and lie down.  I know I won't get any sleep. I just need to try and calm down. I might find myself at peace with this situation. I am going to crash the hurricane party tonight and kill all three of those bastards. Lidia will be shocked and scared for a while. The shock and fear will wear off. Eventually she will be living by her own free will and that thought is worth all this to me. In the not too distant future the view out of her painted window will be much brighter for her. Right now I'm going to lie my head on the table until I work up the energy to take that hot shower. 

Fade Out

Whoa. I can't believe I fell asleep. Shit it's almost six o'clock. 

I bolt to my living room and stand on my couch. I can hear moving upstairs. Scraping noises. Sounds like someone moving furniture around. Eric's getting ready for the party. That means I have time to get ready, too. If I know his scumbag friends half as well as I think I do they will be there early. They practically live there anyway. Lidia will be arriving early to talk to Eric. This could be a recipe for disaster. I have to get my ass in gear. I have to take a quick shower and rinse off three or four times with really hot water. That way I won't smell like soap or shampoo. 

I'm standing in the shower five minutes later rinsing like mad. I step out and begin to towel dry, when the power goes out. I fumble in my medicine cabinet for a candle. I clumsily slap around until I find a small candle and a lighter. The candle is just about shot. I light the little nub of a candle and go to my bedroom and get dressed in the half dark. Black shirt. Black leather jacket. Black gloves. Black denim jeans and black flat soled shoes. Did I mention I like black?

I take the candle and set it on my dresser. I cautiously open the drawer where I keep the manriki chain. How do I carry this thing around without sawing my leg off? Wait, the chain on the anchor. I grab the manriki by the handles and go to the kitchen with the candle in the other hand. Drops of wax hit the floor as I walk through my apartment. I set the manriki down gingerly in a chair and the candle on the tabletop. The anchor and chain are on my kitchen table. I strip the plastic sheath off the chain and slide it over the manriki. Like a fucking glove. I slip the soda straw in my front jacket pocket. With the plastic sheath over the manriki I can fold it up nice and put it in my back pocket. Last thing I grab is the anchor. I have to loop the chain around the neck of the anchor so it won't fall loose. I stuff the bottom of the anchor down the front of my pants about four or five inches. It sits flat against my stomach. Last I felt inside my jacket pocket and pulled the tape off the front of the soda straw. I pushed it hard into the bottom of the pocket so the treble hook can't fall out.

I can see my pants are tented. A blue vein throbber, guys in high school would have said.  I hear voices from above me now. I climb the couch and press my ear hard against the wall. 

"Yeah it fucking sucks. Don't shit yourself, though. I have a shitload of candles and we have ice for the beer so it's all good." That's Eric's voice. I recognize it.

"Where do I stash the camera man?" The Tommy Chong impersonator asks.

"Beside that chair. She won't see it anyway." Eric replies.

"When is Lisa gonna get here? I got some ass kickin' ditchweed from my little bro this morning. I wanna get her flyin' and poke her ass tonight man." That's the other guy. So all three of them are there. 

I hear the high shrill ringing of a cell phone.

"Yeah? Ok, yeah whatever. Just hurry." Eric barks. "Lids is on her way. About twenty minutes."

"This is gonna be so fucking cool man." The second voice says.

"Just don't fuck it up. I told Lisa what a bitch Lids is being so she is cool with it. If Lids shows her ass I want you to help hold her down while Trip takes the pictures." Eric commands.

"I just push the button man?" Mr. Chong asks. Seems he ends every sentence with the word man. It's obvious he's an intelligent one. 

"Just push the fucking button when the green light comes on you fucking douche." Eric snaps. 

The cell phone rings again. Eric answers.

"Fuck!" He blurts. "Lisa ain't coming."

"I guess that means we get to work Lid's ass raw eh?"

"You damn right Trip. You are abso-fucking-lutely-right". Eric says in response.

Time to get moving. 

Thirty seconds later I am padding up the stairs. Good thing this hurricane is in town. This place is a ghost town. Most of the tenants here are older folks. They don't want to ride out a hurricane. They want to sit it out from three hundred miles away while watching the fucking thing on the news. Good for me. Less than twenty minutes now.

I'm asking myself can I really do this. Before I can answer my hand is touching the knob on Eric's apartment door. I turn the doorknob just the slightest. It turns freely under my hand. I didn't expect it to be locked anyway. These guys have the responsibility level of a cockroach in a shit house. I turn the knob slowly, dammit seems like it's taking forever. I spin the knob a bit farther then it won't turn any more. I open the door and slide inside.

It's dark in here and smells like three tons of reefer. There are seven candles illuminating the apartment. Four of them are sitting side by side at the far end of the room. I guess that's where he plans on making Lidia suck his grimy cock while the stoner takes pictures. The other three candles are scattered around, not really putting off much light in one place. I press myself against the wall and slide behind a big easy chair. I try to train my eyes on the base of the chair. Eric said the camera would be here. I can see a faint silver reflection near the right side of the chair. I touch it with my toe. Yep that's it alright. I push the camera under the easy chair with my toe. 

The chair reclines back. Shit someone is sitting in the fucking thing. I press flat against the wall. Fuck which one is it?

"Fuck." Eric screams.

His voice is from somewhere away from me.

"Dude don't you have any more candles? You have to be like, prepared for this shit ya know?"

That's the second guy. So then the guy in the chair is Trip. Hello Mr. Stoner. Are you enjoying your seat? 

I can smell his oily hair from here. I don't have to worry about him smelling me, this bastard stinks. I brace my right hand on the back of the chair then put my foot on the reclining lever on the side. I push the lever down and shove the chair upright. Trip flops forward in a comical little jump. He stands up and turns to face the chair.

"Whoa dude. Eric man your chair is fucked ....."

I can see the yellowed whites of his eyes.

"Who.." 

I'm waiting for him, standing not twelve inches away. My right arm is half extended. The palm of my right hand is laid flat with the fingers pointed in and the thumb hard against my palm. I punch him under his nose with the flat of my palm. I shove his nose upward into his brain like a grenade made of cartilage. He makes an odd 'urf' sound then goes limp and falls forward. I catch him as he falls and spin him around. I seat him back in the easy chair. 

That was your last trip asshole.

"Trip what did you say?" The second guy's voice. 

I see a dark shape walk into the room from a door on the right. I pull the small anchor out and let it swing from the chain.

"Trip what did you say dude? " The second guy asks again.

"I said anchors away motherfucker."

"Wha?"

With a snapping motion I swing the anchor up, then over my head and in a fast left hand spin. Just like working the cables. Not 'heavy' at all. The chain wraps around his neck one loop and the anchor circles back around and smacks him in the face. One of the prongs buries itself in his left eye socket. My cock feels so hard right now it just might explode.

I grab the back of his head with one hand and shove the anchor in with the other. I can feel a moment of sickening resistance, then the prong glides through the eye cavity into his brain. I rip the chain from his neck and grab it with both hands, then pull as hard as I can and slingshot his body into a dark corner behind me.

"What the fuck are you two doing in there?" Eric barks.

"Just enjoying the hurricane party." I say.

I pull the soda straw out of my pocket and palm it in my right hand.

Eric walks into the room through the same door the anchor man did. He sees me and freezes. 

"Who are you? Did Trip invite you?" He asks me angrily.

"No." I say. "Lidia did."

Eric takes a step forward and raises his right arm. Like he's going to tell me to get out. I jump forward and grab his right shoulder. I pull down with all my strength and bring my right knee up into his gut. He coughs out a belch of air and doubles over. I pull him upright. His face is turning a bruised purple color. His eyes are bulging in their sockets. His mouth is wide open, gasping for air. 

I put the soda straw in my mouth then lean forward and stick the other end in his open mouth. I blow  hard into the straw.

He suddenly gets this confused expression on his purple face. I jam the straw back in my jacket pocket. He has about two feet of the braided rope hanging out of his open mouth. I punch him in the chest as hard as I can. He inhales in a loud whooshing sound. A foot of the rope disappears down his throat. I hook my finger through the loop at the end of the rope and draw the rope tight.

He starts acting purely insane. He's screaming and trying to slap at me. I tug the rope and he starts making gurgling crying noises. I pull the rope down and he drops to his knees. Good doggie. I pull it to the right, he crawls to the right. His eyes are shot with insane panic. Blood trickles from his mouth. He's trying to talk, trying to cry, trying to breath.

"Shhhhhhh." I whisper to him.

He tries screaming and I give the rope another tug. He immediately grows silent. Something in his pathetic garbled words sounded like 'I'm sorry'. I can't be sure. I bet he is, though. I take the rope with my left hand and pull the manriki out of my back pocket with my right. I give it a snap and the plastic sheath falls off. His eyes seem to grow to ten times their original size. The razor sharp links of the chain shine and catch in the candle light. He makes a feeble attempt to back away from me on his hands and knees. A slight tug on the rope and he stops cold. 

"You shouldn't hurt women." I tell him, then let go of the rope.

He makes a desperate dash backward on his hands and knees. I snap the manriki and it wraps around his neck. I give it just a slight tug and his skin seems to erupt in a gout of blood. I put my right boot on the back of his head and shove his face hard into the floor. A dark puddle spreads around him. I whip the manriki up in a snapping motion, and his body lies still. 

"That was for Lidia. She deserves better. Better than both of us." I whisper to the bastard.

"Oh my God." A voice says from behind me. 

I spin around, the porcelain handle of the manriki still gripped in my hand.

Lidia is standing there.

"What? Oh God what is happening?" She screams.

I'm frozen. I can't fucking move. Our eyes lock. She is ash white. She takes a step back toward the door. She's in shock. She can barely move. Neither can I.

Oh God no I've done more damage to her than Eric ever did.

She takes another step backwards.

Maybe if I do this I can live with myself echoes through my mind.

"I, I couldn't let him hurt you again." I say breathlessly. "I saw your bruises Lidia."

Her hand is on the door knob. Any second and she is going to break and run. She looks like she has just been shot.

"I saw the bruise when you walked by. I, I can't tell you. I mean, I don't know why I had to, why I had to do this. It just, I couldn't stand myself." I stammer. I can't even fucking speak. "I couldn't live with knowing he was hurting you. I had to do something and things, things just went too far. I got too mad about it because I saw how happy you could be." 

I should give up on trying to talk.

Her hand left the doorknob.

"Do I know you?" She whispered through tears.

"No. Nobody does. I'm nobody. Especially to someone like you. I had to do it. It was killing me, it was just, it was just because you are beautiful and you deserve so much better. I was eavesdropping. They were going to take pictures of you. The camera is under the chair. Eric was going to make you, he wanted, he wanted to do things."

 I break into tears.

"I'll wait here for the police if you want me to. I'll turn myself in. It's just that, it's that.."  I can't breathe to talk. I blurt the words out in a painful shove. "I have never had anyone in my life so beautiful as you who didn't die or go away, and I just couldn't stand to see you being torn apart."  

I'm consumed by crying now. I drop the handle and fall to the floor on my knees. I bury my face in my hands and let my anguish take me. I'll sit here and wait for the police. My breath is hitching and catching I am crying so hard. I'm kneeling in a puddle of Eric's blood. 

I've killed three men. I believe they honestly deserved to die. Now I realize I didn't just kill them because of Lidia. It's because my loneliness has consumed me. Look at the animal I have become.

I look up and Lidia is gone.

I guess I will sit here until the police arrive and carry me away.

An hour has passed and I'm still sitting here. 

Another hour passes.

And another.

I slowly rise to my feet. My knees pop and hurt. The police station is two blocks from here. She could have walked there ten times by now. I have gotten myself in over my head. This is all too heavy for me. I don't know what to do. 

Wait. Yes I do.

Fade Out

Somewhere in a small apartment in Charleston South Carolina a young woman is watching the news. She has watched the news channels all day. The headlines all repeat themselves. The same stories over and over again. She always grows still when one headline plays. She watches it, then waits breathlessly until the same news reel is played again.

"A grisly discovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Jeanne. The remains of three men were found in a pile of wreckage at a central Florida boatyard. The men were apparently drinking while seeking shelter on a boat that had been tagged for salvage. Authorities believe the men were killed as the boat, the Sarah Lee, broke free from its moorings and was thrashed between the docks for several hours. Authorities say they have not yet been able to identify the three men because their bodies were badly disfigured by being submerged in water for several days. Authorities also noted the waters are teeming with fish and other aquatic life that mostly skeletonized their remains and that is making the effort to identify the men more difficult. 

In an unrelated incident, a seven story apartment building was consumed by flames less than a mile from where the three bodies were discovered. At a press conference Monday morning the fire marshal stated that drug paraphernalia was likely the cause of the fire." 

I went back to the waterfront after the cane blew past. Debris was everywhere. Several of the buildings had lost windows. Lidia's building took a hard lick. Several of the window panes were missing. The gutters were twisted and torn away. The ladder I climbed to peer through her window was gone.

I found one of her painted window panes among the endless litter left behind by the storm. I keep it with me now. It's my talisman. It's a reminder. 

Time to move on.

Fade To Black