story

The cruel early morning light penetrates the tattered and bent mini-blinds of the studio skewering the thin and veined eyelids of the sleeper, the light moving methodically across the landscape of his face like an eclipse slowly raising him from unconsciousness in a tug-of-war of light and dark. His mind a waterlogged ship being hauled reluctantly from some dark abyss.  He stirs and shifts just enough to evade the light, a fleeting reprieve if only for a moment. His mind creaks and grinds to life as digitized images of the prior evening flash before him between the pulses of a malevolent headache.  A grainy reel of super 8 images, poorly edited, whole scenes deleted.  He regards them dispassionately in a bleary fugue of semi-consciousness and reaches for a pack of Camels strategically placed on the cheap bedside bureau but his hand can find no purchase.   He rights himself to his elbow cautiously feeling a wave of nausea and disequilibrium cracking one eye to assess the situation. An empty pack of cigarettes.

"Fuck!"

He contemplates next steps making critical calculations in attempts to compensate for his badly damaged internal gyroscope.   Uncertain if standing will evoke involuntary vomiting, he returns again to repose, takes a deep breath and glances through the tattered blinds absently. Kudzu blankets the hillside overgrowing and suffocating everything   He can't recall its advent,  so insidious. How long ago had he looked through this same window and seen grass? This organic juggernaut of destruction was once praised as an anodyne, growing now out of control like some mutated virus run amok, it is cursed. The analogy to his current circumstance hits hard and sticks in the mud of his poisoned mind.  Mustering some hidden internal reserve of strength,  he rocks and heaves himself to an upright attitude with a guttural grunt, standing and swaying slowly and circadian as a drunken seaman, awash with nausea and regret.  He pauses a few moments to achieve sufficient sea legs and starts the journey across the threadbare dwelling. Slow and Parkinsonian he proceeds across the domicile to the head. Standing over the porcelain appliance he feels the beautiful and primal warmth of urine welling within his pelvis and staring its rivulet journey downward, its commencement sending  a shutter of warmth and adrenaline up his spine. He exhales a soothing moan as urine trickles into the basin, an anemic and forked stream slowly misting his thigh with a pungent sprinkle. The adrenaline warmth another fleeting moment of reprieve from the suffering.

The telephone shrieks to life and shatters the silence. He stands frozen, eyes closed,  unmoved, and counts its rings waiting excruciatingly for the caller to give up and move on. They do not. 12,13,14,15...Are you fucking kidding me? He begrudgingly finishes the business at hand and moves toward the cacophony.

"Hello?"
"Mark? What the fuck? Where are you?"
"Nadine?"
"Yes it's Nadine you fucking asshole! Where the hell are you?"
"Home. Feeling a bit rough this morning. What time is it?"
"What time is it? It's 9:30 you fucking drunk! Get your ass in here!"
"Babe, I'm pretty banged up over here. Not gonna make it this morning."
"Mark. You know if you miss work they will drug test you. You do remember that right?"
"Ya. I know. I've got it covered."
"You've got it covered?"
"Ya, I got it covered."
"You're an idiot!"
"Love you too babe."

He returns the phone carefully down to the receiver as if nitroglycerin, a decrescendo of yelling barely audible on the other end before finding purchase.

"Well, I suppose I should get my fat ass to work" he says to no one followed by one last cleansing procrastinative sigh.

He commences with an all too familiar routine. First to the shower.  He steps into the steaming water allowing  the hot water to flow over his head and then melodically and meditatively moves his head in small circles. "Allow it to ease your pain", an inner voice implores. Time is short and he is already an hour late but he knows this step in vital in his process. Another bolus of adrenaline enters his bloodstream sending a shudder up his back and erupting his back in goose flesh.   He washes his weathered body. More nausea moves through him. A burp bubbles up from some deep-seated toxic cauldron burning his throat.  Finishing, he towels off and dresses quickly gaining some momentum finally.  This ritual his only anodyne to a self-imposed toxicity. He makes a frenetic last push, fighting the overwhelming inertia to simply say fuck it and quit, but rent needs to be paid, bourbon needs to be bought, and cocaine isn't cheap.  Perhaps just an hour late won't gett him fired. The morning light is intense and unforgiving. No shade of sunglass adequate. Still delirious, probably still drunk, he hurries into work tucking his shirt in as the sensor whooshes open the doors. The Home Depot consists on two types of people: retirees who want the benefits and losers who accept  this was the best things were going to get, or more likely, just don't care. He scans the store locating the blue vest of the floor manager. The din of the room piques his headache and he realizes he has forgotten to take aspirin. The crosses the vast gulf of a store and makes a B line for Carl. 


He enters the break room briskly and enters a  chaotic scene of arguing and histrionic hand gesturing. The Puerto Ricans have assembled to have their mid-morning cafe-con-leche and talk politics.  The room smells on stinky socks, cigarettes, and body odor. He is  pretty sure someone has just taken a dump in the tiny, poorly ventilated toilet room at the end of the break hall. A malodorous cacophony piquing his hangover once more. A few more sighs for good measure.

Creature of The Ramble Wood

The Ramble wood stood as a bastion of nature against the relentless urban encroachment of the city of Adalaine.  Designated as a wildlife refuge by the Vanderbilt family, the great wood was cordoned off for preservation.  The family commissioned the construction of a great fence to encapsulate the wood and resist urban invasion.  Human entry was forbidden.  Nature was left to its own devices. 

Farmland, once serving as a buffer between the wood and the urban populous, had been largely eliminated as farmers, on-by-one, sold out to developers bringing the neighborhoods to the very doorstep of the wood.  Relentless pressure mounted on the great wood and the creatures who dwelled within. 

Once abundant with wildlife, the population of rabbits, deer, bear, and bats in the wood had fallen precipitously. Local experts blamed habit loss while others theorized a new predator was afoot. Ecologists of international merit were brought in by the Vanderbilt family at great expense. Extensive surveys and investigation by the experts could find no cause for the sudden decline. The animals had simply vanished.

Legend grew of a strange creature that inhabited the wood. Stories of sightings were sporadic and inconsistent in description.  Some described a human-like creature, walking upright, while others claimed it lumbered about on all fours. The Mexican work-hands spoke of a Chupacabra.  A hideous creature rumored to steal small children from their homes in the night.  Many refused to work near the fenced perimeter of the wood for fear of an encounter. Tales of the creature became a favorite pastime at the neighborhood clubhouse, often during evenings of over-imbibement, serving to cloud their veracity. The legend reached a fever-pitch when WLOS broadcast a grainy cell phone video that claimed to be the creature retreating into the dense brush beyond the wood. Being of low quality it was quickly written off. The affluent residents of the neighborhood rimming the wood would laugh the stories off as good fun akin to the tales of a giant catfish lurking in the community lake.  Their refined intellect could obviously not accept such a ridiculous legend. A few residents, however, felt differently, if only in private. These were the few whose homes backed up directly to the fenced wood.  Because on some moonlit nights, as their dogs stood barking viciously at the darkened wood beyond the fence, they would feel a chill up their spine and a creeping feeling something was watching them. Something medieval. Something dangerous. 

The shrill ring of the rotary phone cut through the air like a knife shattering the peaceful early morning quiet and awakening Grady VanZandt with a gasp. 2:04am.  Grady lifted the receiver and in a moment the world came back into focus. "This is Grady". The voice on the other end was frantic, a patchwork of spanglish and incomplete sentences interrupted by a staccato of exasperated breathing. "Ok, Ok, tranquilo, tranquilo amigo". Grady tried to calm the chicano across the land line. "What did you see? Que paso?". "Ok, ok, I'm coming. Me voy!" Grady glanced outside the bedroom window for a moment.  The full moon cast an eerie pale white light on the lawn beyond the louvered bedroom window.  Grady regarded the thought and rolled out of bed bracing his hand on the bedside mahogany table. Carol VanZandt stirred and rolled part way over regarding her husband. "What was that all about?" "Chicano worker says he seen some kind of creature along the fence line near the workers quarters. You know, them trailers in the back quarter. Got himself all worked up about it. Probably drunk at this hour. Or worse still.  Maybe a cyote or bobcat. Plenty of them roud'. I'm up now. Might as well check it out" "Ok, be careful" 
"Moon like this. A man hardly needs a flashlight." "You're bringing your flashlight" "I'm bringing my flashlight darlin'"