Drunken memories

Ah, the glory days that weren't so glorious, but they weren't so pretend as these days spent in stuidies of self control and passion management...

There was this one time, back in the day...

It was another party at Jeremy Cunningham's... And, of course, I was as fucked up as you can get and still be standing. Jeremy was a thief. And I mean that in the best possible way. He was good. I once shoplifted a TENT. Compared to Jeremy, I was a rank amateur. He would hold up the zippos in front of the cashier while he paid for his gas- ask how much it was, wave it in the cahsier's face and slide it right into his pocket, and she'd never ever know the difference. He was a slick, slick thief.

I grew up poor. And being poor means you have to find your own entertainment. No video games for the white trash kids in the sticks... No siree. We ran through corn fields naked, we tore shit up, including each other. We tested the boundaries ... of our parents, our neighbors, the law... We had a hellofa time, finding that entertainment. It was so much more creative before we were handed the family torch of alcohol. Then it got sort of predictable. But I like to think I added my own brand of flair...

I was a little fucker, back then- smallest kid in my class. I barely topped 5'0 as a freshman. I made up for it with a big fucking mouth and using my brain. I prided myself on letting my mouth get me out of fights that my mouth had gotten me into in the first place. And, in the offchance I couldn't talk my way out something (which was rare)- I was more than happy to fight. I had four brothers. My two older brothers were step-brothers. And, to add to the pain that brothers inflict, they didnt ever really like my mom, til the end, when they all made peace with her before she died... But, that makes for a lot of unnecessary asskickings. They treated me, my brother and their little brother equally in one instance: We had the RULES.

Rule 1: No little brother shall ever be able to kick his older brothers ass. (There's something to this one. As the middle boy, I will tell you this- NEITHER of my little brothers have ever kicked my ass- I would die before I'd let that happen. And my lil bros are fucking TOUGH. It's a brother thing).

Rule 2: If we ever got in a fight at school, and we lost that fight- we would get our asses kicked twice as bad by our older brothers when we got home.

Rule 3: You never, EVER, drink a man's last beer. (This is just common sense, and the heart of civilized society.)

Rule 4: All Pussy is fair game. (this one backfired on them in the end)... Definitely my favorite rule.

Anyway, for a little-bitty fucker, this was harsh shit. I thought they were bullshittin me, but I found out wrong. I came home the first time on the shit end of the stick. I had gotten into an altercation on the bus with a kid named Noe Flores. I backed down. My lil bros were only too happy to tell Bobby and Billy how I had pussed out to a kid TWO years younger than me. (and a foot taller with a fricking moustache!). They kicked my ass so bad, they gave me a week to recuperate before they demanded that I challenge Noe to a fight.

I did what I was told. I challenged Noe to get off the bus halfway between his house and ours. We all skipped getting off at our stop. At the halfway point, Noe wouldn't get off, even though he was with about four of his cousins. My little bros, thinking that this meant there would be no fight, got off anyway, trying to save a longer walk home.

I had learned my lesson though. I got off the bus at Noe's house, alone- with him and his four cousins. And I got jumped as I was taking my levi jacket off.

And I kicked his fucking ass, while screaming every anti-hispanic epithet I could recall, in front of not only him, his cousins, but his Dad, and his mom, and about twelve other family members who were drinking beer in his front yard.

I never really thought about til just now- But I bet HE got his ass kicked really bad by his brothers after that. No one fucked with me, they respected the balls.

Any-fuckin way. This was supposed to be short. I was a teenage drunk. I was a teenage pothead. I was a teenage pimp. I was drunk, stoned, and fucking every moment of my free time from age 15 to 20. And I hung out with the same class of moron as me- poor white trash and poor mexicans from the wrong side of the tracks.

Jeremy started hanging out with some gang member mexicans, most notably "Robert". Robert carried a straight razor. I had never really seen one before til the night he put it up against my throat and kicked me out of Jeremy's party.

I was by myself, and I was WAY fucked up for that early in the evening- so I deserved some embarrassment, I will admit. But this was supposed to be my good friend, my partner-in-crime. Literally, in fact. But he stood by while this gang member fuck punked me.

Well, I chalked it up to my own stupidity and pushed it back. But there kept being run-ins with Robert. But, I never went to a party at Jeremy's by myself after that. I always had Doyel and our own little crowd with me, so there was never too much shit after that, because all we did was scrap.

But one night, at my girlfriends house, (Courtney Dunn... Man I miss that girl) Robert was there, by himself, with me and Doyel. And everyone was fucked up. And Robert started acting up. He didn't have his carnals with him this time. He did pull out his straight razor at one point and Reminded me of that previous night.

Silly Mescan. You should have shut the fuck up while you were ahead. I played it cool and we proceeded to get drunk, drunk, drunk.

About four-thirty we ran out of beer. Doyel, always the devil on my shoulder, told him that we had some beer out and the canyon- the middle of nowhere where my family lived. I caught on immediately and agreed. We got Robert into my camaro and drove way out to Horseshoe bin canyon, where my family lived in a fucking trailer house on a the only hill for miles and miles, on the lip of a canyon system that stretches from the outskirts of Slaton, Texas- for a hundred miles southeast.

When we got there, it was still dark. I shushed everyone to silence. At that point, Doyel and I had never discussed anything at all. I had assumed we would just take him out to a cotton field and I would get in his face, kick his ass in the dirt and then go on. But he just kept running his mouth. That boy just couldnt stop himself. So when we got to the house, I figured, well fuck it- We will take this motherfucker out in the canyon, and well, some of us will come back and one of us wont.

Robert asked where the beer was and, we were all stumbling ass drunk and I just said down this hill here. He seemed a little confused when I asked him to carry the shovel. I threw a .410 to Doyel and grabbed my own 20 gauge and off we went, in the now semi-light of the dawn into the canyon.

I think this is the part where Robert stopped talking shit.

Well, maybe I will elaborate on all the details later, but I'm buzzing and tired, so...

We got down to the place where I had built a dam in the river so that we could jump from a rope in the trees and I led Robert to an old fire pit and told him to start digging.

At this point, all the subterfuge was kind of gone. We put the guns on him and just nodded to the ground. Dig, you cocksucker.

The sun was coming up, and as the light trickled through the trees, the dark ebbed away and so did my drunken fervor. I kept looking at Doyel, he kept looking at me. Robert had dug about 2 feet down and had to stop to dry heave twice. He looked at us, and he didnt say a word, and that's probably a good thing. Begging is the last refuge of a man who doesnt deserve to live anyway.

I looked at Doyel one last time, and I said- fuck it. Robert- you ready to go home?

He almost gasped as he said YES. And we led him back up that hill and took the guns back to the house. We drove the 30 minutes back to Lubbock in silence and dropped him off at his car.

He stopped coming to parties after that. Go figure.

I saw him one last time after that. We may not all learn our lessons, but I'd like to think he learned his. But what the fuck do I know? He may be in the pen with Doyel now, for all I know.

I know I learned my lesson.

Owned but not taken

Sacrifice me to your indecency
Pull me down within your darkness
Consume me and be consumed in turn

Worship me at the altar of your lost pleasures
Let me become the dreams you never allow to come true
Use me, use me, use me up

Thats what I was born for
Thats what I live for
Thats what I would die for

In this life, I am owned but not taken
I am the careless possession of someone who needed me desperately enough to have to hold me,
but never enough to want to find out what i needed to hold.

I am owned but not taken

Take me-
Take me,
TAKE ME!

I will not solve your problems
I will not complete you
I will not bring you eternal paradise

I will bring you the moment. I will bring you desire. I will bring you love.
I will love you with every fiber of my being for a blissful blinking of your mindseye.
I will let you take my love, and I will take yours

And for a moment, perfection will be ours.

but just for a moment....


(inspired by GFW)