chap 2

[Axanderdeath]

Chap2
Always out of place in comfortable situations
Side of the road dreams
The sad light of dreams
Cause what do they mean
Dreams
Road dust on your legs
You’ve been running
You’ve become a slave
In the sad lights sleeve
Just blowin off steam
Just blowing off steam

I let jack sleep on my couch. His place was a sad place to live. It made me feel bad for him for his liver. Some times in the middle of sex with Sally I’d think of Jack in his shady hotel drinking by himself to keep from cumin.

When I met him he was a transient and so I was in Montreal. We met in a homeless shelter. I had just arrived from Halifax and had no money after drinking it all up the first night and I was reading some beat generation book dreaming about being a part of it and I noticed a tall guy (jack) in the corner of the homeless shelter reading a book by mordiaci richler I had read, he looked up and he had some soulful eyes. Not the dead embittered eyes of most of the others that were at the homeless shelter. I walked up to him and called him a writer. He said yes. He’s a couple years younger then me, any way he was soulful then, I have his notebooks. I am reading them over.
XXX
In Regina Jack slept on the side of the dirty highway the first night. Jack says there was a nice bush there that he hide his belongings and a cold beer store not 2 blocks away.

In the mornings hot sun jack would lay all his shit out on the grass without shame. He was concentrating on relaxing.

A guy came up to Jack on a bike. He had a salon done Mohawk. The guy held up his beer. “Cheers for beers” he said. Then he slowed down and turned back towards jack and sat down with him. “Mind if I have a beer with ya” he asked.

“sure” Jack said, anyone can have a beer with Jack.

“What you do here.” Jack asked the guy after a pause.

“Well my name is Zack” Zack was probably a latent homosexual according to Jack. “I work with the parks it is nice to be around all the nature.”

Jack thought about nature and what about it really meant. He remembered a huge truck stop just out side on Winnipeg around where those bizarre decapitations happened on a grey hound bus. The truck stop was surrounded by muddy fields. A smell of gasoline. Jack remembered saying to him self “ah the great out doors.”

“Zack nature is especially good when it is surrounded by city, hopefully if we play our cards right. Sooner or later we’ll have no nature not surrounded by city…” Jack snickers and brushed back his own Mohawk he had at the time—it had a checkerboard shaved in the side.

“You ever read chuck palinuik?” Zack asked him.

“yes I have.” Jack remembers he said this with enthusiasm—which comes along with when you find some one that is not just another tabloid following peon. No, that the read fiction that is in popular demand. “What makes you ask?” Jack asked Zack.

Zack looked at jack in the eyes and tried to hold back a laugh that jack suspected would have been girlish… “You just seem so free… Like you can do anything. I see a lot of hitch hikers come through here and have these really tough attitudes Jack wrote he knew these types and dis-liked them but always tried to come up with theories that would justify the assholes demeanor.

“Zack you got a beer for me?”

Zack then hand Jack a beer.

“Cheers for beers man” then Zack said.

“For sure” Jack said and cracked open the beer. “Hey Zack what I said about nature being surrounded by city might come true but I don’t like it too much…”

Zack looked up into the clear blue sky and his finely cropped Mohawk Jack notes that the image made him slightly sad that the world could marginalize something then market it to the new badly dressed yuppie.

“Lets go down town ad drink in a park. Are there some hot punks in town?” Jack said.

Zack got a huge ‘hey you guys’ smile on his face. “Yeah they hang out at the park. I don’t talk to them. The are crazy…”

“What makes them crazy Zack?” Jack asked—patiently.

“I got my bike.” Zack said.

“Well I have all my wordily possessions in this duffel bag” Jack gets up and carries his huge duffel bag to the bushes and kicked it a couple times.

Then jack took Zacks bike and hid it in there too.

Jack walked across the street followed by Zack.

“NAAAHHHHH” Zack said as Jack puts it ‘as if a dishwasher avoiding the old bacon stretcher joke’.

“ You got work tommorow?” Jack wanted to know.

“No” said Zack.

“What’s the problem then Zack?” Jack wanted to know.

Jack notes that Zacks voice changed from a ‘cool’ voice to a ‘Jehovah witness voice when the question of fact that disproves his fate wrong has been uttered’

“Its my fathers bike” says Zack

“Is your father dead?”

“No.”

“Well he has a shity bike and noone will steal it” jack said and continued walking towards the downtown leaving Zack…
XXX
Jack went down to the park after Zack had bitched out. Jack sat down in the middle of punks.

“What’s up?” Jack asked the crowd.

“Party” answered an indescribable person.

“Sounds good” our hero concedes with beer in hand.

There were about 20 of the crew at the park that day half were natives with jail tats all over there bodies in their 30’s and 17-25 year old white kids made up the other half.

Jack sat in a part of the park called ‘the spot’ which reminds me of the names my little crew of misfits gave drinking spots back home.

Hitch hiking Jack had been talking about 4 direction how this simple chain –diagram had been found in 5 or 6 different aboriginal peoples tribes across the world who had no She had connection. Which people that had picked up Jack and had no connection about 5 or six of them…

Jack ventured to ask one of the natives with jail tats about this.

“What the fuck does it matters what it mean. Look who is here. White black native, Indian and what ever you are…” People were laughing and jack felt like he had said something ‘unspeakable’ which I understand and maybe he did, however I doubt he meant it that way.

“I think it is beautiful—what I heard about the 4 corners was that it predicts of a time when the races of the world unite. My mother read me native myths each night before bed. I got mad respect man.”

The biggest meanest looking guy stood up and said, “we are all of the same earth!”

Jack replied, offered “you want a beer man?” I am sure it was a touching moment.
XXX
Jack was making eyes at a girl who instantly made him think of Joni Mitchell. She had a soft smile and it was hard for jack not to be captivated—something about her was special to Jack.

“I am going to buy a 24!” Jack announced to everyone.

Then jack went up to the girl and asked if she knew where the beer store was.

“Of course I can and listen if you would like to come over to my house after and we can have a bottle of wine I have there that’d be cool.”

Jack asked if they could listen to radio head too. For some reason Jack thought that was a sweet thing to ask her. And that she knew it.

“Of course” she answered apparently glowing.

They doubled her bike down the street to the beer store. They doubled as far as they could but they were both drunk and that made it short-lived. They slammed the bike against the beer store window and Jack went it and demanded a 24 of beer which was 56 bucks but Jack reluctantly paid.

Jack and the girl put the beer in the basket of the girl’s bike and walked down a wonderful quiet street. Which wood fences and the occasional kid throwing a stick. Or a dog pissing on a tree. Smiling Jack wrote that they got to her house smiling like a loving couple staring into each other’s fate.

“Its so nice”jack sdaid”why would you want to stay>?”

“I don’t” she said “I am moving to Toronto for art school.”

“Toronto sucks”

“Have you ever been there?”

“No.” Jack said.

They both laughed.and stood in front of the two story house.

“How do you afford it?”

“My sister and I stay here. Our father pays for it.”

“That’s nice of him. Does he live here too?”

“No. He’s and asshole drunk.”

“At least he pays for your house.” Jack said pleadingly.

“He raped me when I was a 4 year old child.”

“Where does he live?”

“He pays for everything. My sister and I need him before we can leave.”

The art on the walls was done with light strokes and bright colors and deep purples rivered around like the sickness if beauty jack notes.

“You can’t have beauty without sickness. With out dark there is no light.” She told jack.

“I need a beer. I have beer, but if I keep going on about deep shit like that I will sound like a hippie.” States jack.

“I thought you were” the Joni Mitchell said to jacks dismay.

Jack cracks a beer.

“I want to show you something” she tells jack. She takes jack by hand up to the roof and the sit and drink beer and holds each other’s hand and jack shouts at her neighbors. “I hope you don’t mind waiting for my friends to come over.” She asked jack and the door bell rang…

Her friends did not like jack; at least he got that impression while he was doing a drunken Elvis impression with her guitar.

Her friend who Jack refers to as ‘bull dyke’ said that Jack played the guitar like he was trying to rape it.

“Why not let her play?” Said ‘bull dyke’…

Jack handed the guitar to the girl and she played some hippie esque song. ‘Bull dyke’ seemed applaud by something. She did not say anything but Jack got an unsettling aura from her.

They all then went off to the PARTY.

Jack wakes up after blacking out at the party. He is rolled up in a carpet. It is 6 am and everyone is on acid. He leaves after asking what had happened which everyone finds hilarious. And takes a cab to where he kept his shit.
XXX
Jack was in the stair well drinking with buffy a native girl who had ‘Vulgar’ tattooed across her chest… Anne a crazy depressed girl whose was always on some drug and Steve a reserved guy that at the moment was being thewed in to by his women. Steve held the phone a couple inches from his ear while his screaming girl bellowed out of the phone. “You FUCKER! ASSHOLE! BITCH!!!”

“What?” Steve says in a small voice and explains to her where we are and hangs up and puts his cell back in his pocket. “She going to be joining us soon.” He says.

Anne asked us all what we thought about euthanasia, and Steve said there was a lot of them and they all hardy har hard about it. Anne had done an east about it and she thought it should be aloud. It was decided that noone else really cared either way.

Then they all talked about the injustus about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Staves girl friend who jack thought looked like patty from Charlie brown and jack showed everyone the little book he had gotten from an eso station washroom that was entitled ‘sexual positions from around the world. Steve and his girl friend started dry humping and the rest of them left them and went out to buffy’s car.
XXX
The plan was to go out to the side of the highway and fly a sign and get as much beer as possible. Buffy’s car was an old boat we They drove to a good place. Jack and Anne and buffy, they held up a sign that Jack and Anne had drawn up –made pop references on it and TV personalities exclaiming to money and they made about 160 bucks in the end.

The got a 24 and went down to Jacks camp. The bugs were out. It was dark.

“Hey lets drive the car around and drink.” Jack said.

“Good old drinking and drivin” buffy said, we went. Buffy is a mad driver doing doughnuts in the park in the center of the town.

“Fuck yeah” jack screams holding beer out the window, “the us art!” Jack brags about his irresponsibility. Fuck Jack.
XXX
Idiots scream in the street Iv promised myself her that U wound not drink. It’s around midterms and she is studying late. She study s at school because I was too much to be around while she was trying to study.

I catch the train down and go to a strip club. There is a guy in a nice suit at the door and he asks for 5 bucks which I hand over. He looks like he wants to slap me cause I do not tip him.

I suspect she cheating on me. I have boon doing coke a lot behind her back. It helps me deal with it all.

The strip club is dimly lit and lap dances are 10 bucks. Two beers are 7.50 I attempt not to tip the semi-attractive bartender she says “you better fucking tip” I do. Her tits a big but sagg I get the feeling that she use to be a stripper. / I can see the man in the suit going up to here one day after closing time saying something “your beautiful but it’s time to bar tend.” Subtle… she was a bit offended but ended up realizing that is was better for her.

A voice “hey guys put you hands together for DINNA HEEEEEY!”

Tina is a fake blond with high white boots and when she smiles you can see you uneven yellow almost brown teeth.

Jacks in the perv seats up by the stage. When I get down on my luck it feels good to comical guy like Jack. Sure she was cheating on me. But I cheated on her-jack fuck a girl since that fat native girl after he rapped her car around a street lamp. The fucking in some bushes, the next day he left,

I tell Jack that I got to go piss.

“You got blow?” Jack grabs my collar and pulls me closer to his BO and bad breath—stale ciggs…

“ I gotta piss man.”I brush off Jack and the stage and Tina is bending over in front of some old sweaty bald man-she holds her ass checks open and the old man throws townies. She turns and her angry face turns to a smile when she realizes it’s an old bald man. I get the GAG reflex….

The washroom smells like piss more so then most washrooms.the light flicker in seizer inducing intermittence. I wash my hands and go in to the stall and do a line off the toilet paper dispenser. As my head flys back form the line I feel nothing—then horny.

I go out and hacks next to the old man jaw wide open—gaping at Tina hacked fucking s imaginary cock on the filthy stage that is covered in sick looking stains walk out into the rain and leave jack, how ever I think about what he had written about the day he left Regina.
XXX
Jack say the guy across the media, the guy was looking a Jack, as though he wanted to say something to him. Jack knew the look, jack knew that this feeble looking guy on a bike would chime up to speak to me.

“You won’t make money,” meant fly a sign, and money do that-- jack knew that was shit. Jack had made 50 bucks in an hour.

“thanks for the tip” Jack says and tried not to make eyecontact.

“”I know where you can get a bike.” Jack could use a bike.

“I have no money for bikes.” Jack told him.

“ I am a security guard at…” the guy told Jack the name of a company that Jack instantly forgot. “The bike has been siting there for about a week unlocked, and in Regina that means it’s fare game. So they walked a couple blocks up to get the bike, on the way the ran in Steve’s girl friend. She was short for a pack of smokes and Jack split a pack and the all went back to Steve’s back yard where the weird security guard wanted to read everyone’s torot card. Jack asked if he’d be a famous writer some day, it was not in the cards…. Also the torot card read suggested that Jack’s life might not have much life left to live.
XXX
Jack rode the bike down to the High was and was picked up instantly.

When she gets in she puts here arms around me. And I turn the computer off and I take out my floppy disk.

We have a good fuck and then watch the daillyshow. Then we go to bed. I wonder in the dark what Jack is up to in the night. I kiss sallys sleeping fore head and slip into slumber.