Part Seven

No Such Thing as Normal. (Draft)

On average, Angel had moved to a different city every year of her life, it was just the way it was. Her mom was flighty and unpredictable, getting involved with different men in each city and then moving her and Angel every time it fell apart. She got really good at making friends and blending into new situations, even though she hated it every time. For most of her life, Angel had felt alone and this caused some issues because no one understood some of the choices she made.

Her mom was going to collage for as long as she could remember and was always focused on writing papers or doing different projects, between that and the long line of loser boyfriends, Angel was left to figure things out for herself for the most part. She watched all her friends battling with her over protective parents and she considered herself lucky, her mom was really pretty cool and they got along more like friends or siblings than mother and daughter.

When Angel turned sixteen, her mom hooked up with an unusually drunk, disgusting guy, even for her mom’s standards. It was summer and they were on their usual yearly camping trip and Angel woke up one night and heard her mom and this guy fucking in the tent that was five feet away from hers. She was used to her mom doing shit like this, she was used to her mom having no standards but her performance that night was a new low, earlier that night, they had been making fun of the drunk, rolling their eyes and cracking jokes about how pathetic he was, now, the whole camp was hearing about how she had changed her mind.

It was the beginning of the end and it was the beginning of a life changing summer for Angel. On the way home from that camping trip, she could barely even look at her mom, her mom didn’t say anything about her late night encounter and Angel wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. They went about their forced, blind relationship like nothing had happened. It was the way everyone in their family dealt with things that bothered them, complete denial was safe, easy and it kept the gears running. No one wanted to be the one to rock the boat or cause any bother to anyone else, no one wanted to be noticed and by no means should there EVER be any kind of confrontation. Angel didn’t know any better at this age but she was finally starting to figure things out. Apparently even Angel’s grandmother had been in an abusive relationship the whole time her and Angel’s grandfather had been together and all that separated them was him finally dying. On that ride home, she made some decisions, it was time to make some changes in her life, she thought she was finally old enough and she felt ready.

Angel was glad that she had at least got through her first year of high school and she was thankful it was summer time, so she had a few friends she could call when she got home. All she wanted was some hard drinking and some space to she could think about the disastrous camping trip. This was the longest they had stayed in one place and she felt like the friends she had made here might really get her, even though she had no idea who she was in the long run, she just knew the act that she had been playing since she got there the year before. Even if they weren’t the cool kids, they were fun and they were close and they had taken Angel into their circle right from the start and that meant the world to her. They were now in her eyes her new family since she had now had enough of the one she was born with.

Once everything was out of the car, Angel was on her way to her friend Gina’s since she  could just walk there and she hoped she would get her high and listen to her tale of woe. Gina was one of her favorite friends because they walked to and from school every day together. Gina’s parents were strange and religious and Angel was always uncomfortable in their house. Behind there though, was a quiet little pond and this was where they always met. It was shady and cool and there were a few comfortable rocks to sit and hang out on. One of the other places they liked to meet was the boat launch that was down the street from Angels crappy little apartment. Both of these places allowed the girls privacy and a place to escape from their crazy families, they were relatively protected from the law when they hid out in either place and they were drinking or getting high or skipping school together.

In the summer sun they shared a bowl of some crappy low end pot, passed a bottle of peppermint schnapps back and forth. Bitching about their family was the glue that held their relationship together. Angel said, “My mom is such a slut” and Gina said, “My mom is such a nut”. It was a conversation they had on almost a daily basis.

They sat finished off the bottle together and decided they both deserved a night out since they were such good kids for dealing with their keepers that called themselves parents. Angel said they should call some people and get out of there as the sun went down. Nighttime was always her favorite time, she felt more alive and with the cheap booze running through her veins, she was ready to go out and get in some trouble, to blow off some steam.

With only two phone calls they found themselves in the bright lights of the most hopping beach town in the state. Mike and Annie and another friend named Beth were along with them. Since Angel and Gina were both pretty buzzed already it was best to get someone else to drive. It was Friday night and the boardwalk was packed, it was almost shoulder to shoulder as fat tourists and drunk punks of all ages stumbled about from bar to bar and then fast food place to loud arcade. It was like everyone and their mother was there that night since there was going to be fireworks starting a few hours later.

Even Angel’s mother was there. They ran into each other in the crowd, literally. Angel asked her mom, “What are you doing here?” Her mom was usually in bed studying by eight at night and her mom was caught off guard too so she said “ umm….ahhhh….you know, watching the fireworks”. Angel saw the overnight bag under her arm and said “ oh, right sure.” She was worried that her mom would notice how fucked up she was so she said good night and that she would be home later and made a quick exit.

Since it was crowded, she decided to follow her mom for a while and see what she was really up to. Angel wasn’t really surprised when her mom went into a bar and found the scumbag she screwed while they were camping. “Fucking typical”, Angel said to herself and she took off to go walk on the beach in the opposite direction.

Angel was lost in thought as she walked, thinking about the joint she had in her cigarette pack and wondering if she could find a quiet place to go smoke it alone. Seeing her mom ruined her night but she knew none of her friends would be ready to go until almost sunrise, not that she could have found them at this point anyway.

From behind her, someone was yelling her name, trying to get her attention but Angel was oblivious. When the girl who played drums in jazz band with her tapped her on the shoulder  from behind, Angel turned around and swung with all her strength as a reflex. At night, around here, a girl walking alone had to know how to defend herself and Angel was better than most even though she didn’t look like it. Years of being the “new girl” and getting in fights over it with whomever the resident tough girl was gave her some skills that were not obvious to the naked eye.

Tonight though, she felt bad. Angel and Jess knew each other from class but they had never really hung out together before except on the field trips that they took together with band class. “I’m sorry, Jess, you snuck up on me, are you alright?” and she gave her friend a hug. Jess smiled and said, “Your fucking nuts, I was yelling your name since the ice cream shop back there, it’s okay. What’s up, how are you?” “You know, same shit, I was going to find somewhere to smoke this, and you want to come? It’s the least I can do for almost knocking you out.” Jess said sure of course and they wandered down to the edge of the water together.

Angel knew that Jess had a few years on her since she had just graduated the year before. She smiled at Jess and said, “Nice night” as they took the last couple of hits. They stood there with their feet in the sand and the waves washing around their ankles watching the fireworks and enjoying a nice comfortable buzz together. Jess could buy them more drinks since she had turned of age the week before so she asked Angel what she was doing and if she wanted to hang out and Angel quickly said, “Yeah, you want to get out of here?”

Since Angel didn’t say much as the girls walked along the beach together on the way to Jess’s car, Jess didn’t really ask many questions or try to fill the void with conversation. Angel would open up and talk when she wanted to and for now she seemed to be just enjoying the nice breeze and the moon that shined down upon them, it really was a nice night.

When they got in the car, Angel suddenly felt exhausted and Jess asked her what they were drinking. “Vodka, comrade.” Was Angels response and they were at the liquor store before she knew it and then on they were at Jess’s house mixing juice and fruit and cheap vodka into a blender with ice. Angel had given all her money over at some point in the journey and the idea of forgetting everything and getting back into a good mood woke her up some and put the beginnings of a smile on her face.

Angel asked where her parents where and Jess told her that her mom was on vacation with her girlfriend. Jess liked girls too and now it made more sense to Angel, mom was gay too. It never occurred to her to feel uncomfortable because for the most part, she hated people as a whole and didn’t trust them anyway so when she found someone she genuinely liked and got along with, she didn’t really worry about the details, Angel just followed her gut and her heart usually. But once she knew she was safe from prying adult eyes, she sat at the kitchen table and rolled another joint for them while Jess added whip cream to their frozen, fruity drinks. They took their drinks out to the back patio to enjoy the night.

To show her appreciation, as she handed Jess the joint, she told her “ You don’t even know how badly I needed this, thank you” and she leaned back on the rocking metal chair and looked up at the stars. “You don’t seem to be yourself tonight, I’m glad I could help.” Angel finished off half her drink in one sip and she loosened up, launching into her story. As the girls drank, her and Jess talked until the sun came up about everything and nothing, they laughed and told each other the secrets that only alcohol can make people tell.

As the sun came up they destroyed the kitchen and cooked everything they could find for breakfast and settled in to watch their favorite movies since in their drunken rants, they found that they had that in common too. Neither girl made it through even half of the first one before passing out cold.

It was dark when they woke up except for the blue screen on the TV. Angel ran to the kitchen and started violently puking in the sink. She saw the bottle sitting on the shelf and saw that between them, they had finished all but an inch at the bottom and that knowledge sent her into another bout of emptying her stomach. Breakfast might have been a bad idea but at least she wasn’t thinking about the weekend, just the night before and the new friend that she had made. Jess came in and gave her a pat on the back, they laughed and started cleaning up the kitchen together.

Gina came by when they were almost done cleaning and Angel asked if she had heard from her mom. Gina said, “Nope, no mom but I saw you guys leaving last night so I figured I would come see what you were up too.” Jess and Gina knew each other too since in a town this small, everyone knew everyone else. Angel wasn’t really sure if they hung out or got along but they must have since Gina knew where Jess lived well enough to just show up.

While Jess took a shower Gina brought up how cool it was that Jess basically had this huge house to herself all the time and how compared to the shit they had to deal with at home, it seemed like Jess had it made. “It seems lonely to me,” Angel said, “ besides, mom has a girlfriend, that had to have been rough on her, everyone has something and everyone’s family is fucked up in one way or another. But yeah, we got wrecked last night so having your own space is pretty fucking cool.” Gina’s eyebrows shot up and she said, “Oh, yeah and how was that, is that all that happened last night?” Gina had a mischievous grin and Angel walked out onto the patio to smoke instead of answer Gina’s question since she didn’t really know how to. Something else had happened the night before but Angel wasn’t really sure what it was yet so she preferred to just not think about it.

The truth of her own statement settled on Angel while she sat outside in the fresh air and the thought allowed her to let go of a little bit of the hate that she was carrying around about her mom, only a little bit. Everyone has something, there was no such thing as normal, realized Angel and she kept repeating it to herself. The more she said it the more she liked the weight of truth behind it. Jess and her two moms lived in a three bedroom house that sat on acres upon acres of land, and they were on some fantastic vacation together somewhere together. Angel found that she was jealous in a lot of ways because even though a gay mom was unique, at least there was love and stability in Jess’s life. They obviously took care of themselves and did pretty well for themselves. Angel felt at peace sitting here and she blew smoke rings into the air. She knew, because Jess had told her the night before that she had moved around almost as much as Angel had. You can never tell what lies below a seemingly perfect surface, there is no such thing as normal.

Jess had come back from showering and asked Angel if she wanted to use her bathroom to clean up, Angel told her that she should probably swing in and check in with her mom, since she never stayed out all night, she figured her mom might be worried, at least that’s what she thought. Gina said she heard about a keg party at the beach later so Jess and Angel looked at each other, smirked and shrugged their shoulders, saying in unison, “why not”.

When Angel got home, she brought the girls upstairs with her in case her mom was pissed about her not coming home the night before so she could deflect it. She knew her mom would never be a bitch in front of anyone else because it would ruin the illusions she tried to project. Everything was dark though and no one was home. In the back room of the apartment, past her mom’s room with the bed made, Angel pressed the button on the answering machine. There were three messages, all in a slurring male voice in a crowd on a cell phone. All the time stamps were from an hour before she had run into her mom the night before. The messages played out and Angel realized that her mom still had not come home either, she laughed, said “fuck it” and went the get the bottle of whiskey that her mom always had in the freezer. Jess, Gina and Angel did a shot each before Angel got herself cleaned up, and then one more before they left.

The party was in full swing when they got there with a raging bonfire in the middle of everything. Drunken teenagers were dancing around, there were movements off in the shadows and that could only mean that there were also drunk teenagers falling all over themselves and falling all over each other already and it wasn’t even 11 at night yet. It was a typical scene, Angel thought to herself that it was also how almost all the horror movies she had seen always began like this too.

As much as she tried, Angel was not a people person. She had moved around too much and although her skills at socializing were sharp, she still preferred to hang out alone so she wandered around on the beach picking up shells and different rocks. When she had her fill of cheap beer, Angel made her way back to Jess’s car to grab her mom’s bottle of whiskey that she had stolen and stashed in the back seat, wrapped in a sweatshirt. Gina got lost and found some other friends almost as soon as they got there but Jess was lying back on the trunk of her car, with some mellow song coming out of her stereo. There was a half empty cup of beer sitting next to her, condensing a puddle that shined against the paint, Jess was just staring off into space, obviously in her own little world. Angel tried to be quiet and not disturb her friend  and she stood and wondered if she should but when Angel finally did, the door shook the whole car when she shut it. Jess said, “Hey” and Angel said, “Hey” and there was a high pitched girly giggle that came from the direction of the bonfire. Gina was enjoying herself.

“I don’t want to bother you, sorry,” Angel said and Jess told her not to worry about it, Angel asked her if she was having a good time and leaned against the car next to her, offering her a pull off the whiskey. Jess said, “Nah, thanks, not if we want to get home safe.” Angel couldn’t fault that logic and asked if she would prefer to get high instead, letting it go that her real question had not been answered. Jess smiled and told Angel, “Sure, come, sit, and join me.”

It was another perfect summer night and there was a thunder storm off over the ocean it gave them something to watch instead of the party raging around them both. Jess asked her why she wasn’t enjoying the party and Angel said, “Kids, can’t deal with them, this is much more my pace. I am enjoying enough I guess, it’s definitely getting better now.” She took a hit off the joint and washed it down with whiskey and felt the warm blanket of inebriation wash over her. Part of her was starting to wonder if maybe it was something about Jess that calmed her down too, she was just so calm and mellow, the silences were always comfortable and the conversations were always interesting, they had almost everything in common. Angel said this, and Jess told her, “Dude, you’re fucked up.” They both laughed but Angel knew that the feeling was mutual.

That night, Jess had company on the couch again. Angel’s last thought as she passed out was that she was right, that camping trip had changed everything and she just didn’t care anymore. She felt Jess take the empty bottle from her hands and cover her in a blanket. In her sleep she muttered “Thank you, ILoveyouYA KNOW” in a drunken slur. Jess laughed, said something like “yeah, I wish, sleep well you nut” but Angel never heard anything, she wouldn’t really be able to remember most of the night or half of what was said.

At least she didn’t puke again the next morning and she felt pretty good about that. Jess was cooking bacon and the smell was what woke Angel up, “Good morning” she said as she curled up at the kitchen counter that went across the room and held her head in her hands. Jess put a cup of strong coffee in front of her and went back to preparing breakfast. “I’m beginning to think I should call you Angel, I feel like crap.”

Jess had to get to work that day and said that her mom was coming back later so they should find something to do later when she got out of work. Angel said, “Sure” and Jess dropped her off at home on her way. Her mom was finally home and when Angel came in, and she tried to pretend to be a concerned parent and demanded to know, “WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN YOUNG LADY?”. This made Angel laugh and respond in a nice, cool and calm voice, “You know, around, where have YOU been (chuckle) young lady?”  the look on her mom’s face was priceless, it got red and she sputtered, looking for a way to explain what Angel had already known so she helped her out and said, “Yeah, let’s not worry about it huh, its summer, we are all just having a good time huh?” All her mom could say after that was, “You owe me a bottle of whiskey too.” “Yeah, okay mom” Angel said as she went into her bedroom and turned some music on. To prove her point she decided to steal her mom’s weed stash before she went out with Jess that night. “Fuck her,” she whispered to herself in the darkness of her bedroom. Her mom had to realize, it was a new day and she was dealing with a new Angel.

There was a lot to think about as she settled into her nest of junk and childhood mementos. The music was comforting and soon she fell into a dreamless sleep. Her mom banged on her door a few hours later to let her know that she had a phone call and that she was going out for a while and of course, “I love you Angel baby” as she was going out the door . Like that still meant something or like Angel had dreamed the exchange that happened between them before she had gone to hide and recover from her hangover. It was Jess on the phone and Angel thought, “Finally”.

“My mom might be going on vacation this time so we might as well just hang out here tonight, who knows when she will be back.” Jess said awesome and showed up and hour later with some movies she rented, a pizza and some beers. They toasted and talked over the movie, building the bond of friendship the way people had for ages and eons before them.

Jess said that her mom was home already and “I think my mom’s girlfriend is nuts, she told me she was the reincarnation of Betty White and when I told her that Betty White was still alive, she cried. Joining the military is starting to sound good these days.” Everyone had their thing, everyone’s family is fucked up and there is no such thing as normal. Angel said, “My mom met another new guy, I don’t know much about him except that he is a total drunk,  he smells like shit and might have raped my mom and she liked it, now she’s dating him and lying to me. If you join the military, I might go with you.” Everyone has something, everyone’s family was fucked up, and Angel was absolutely sure that there was no such thing as normal.

Later that night, when Jess kissed her, she went with it, since there was no such thing as normal then who cares right? It was nice and it was something she had never done before, she was glad that her mom was out being slutty because it was finally her turn to do the same. That night Jess took her virginity and made it out before her mom got home the next day and saw that she had spent the night. Angel knew that her mom had issues with anyone different and she hated anyone gay most,  and she fell asleep that day with a smile on her face, knowing that her little affair would piss her off just as much as her mom’s new relationship and all the others her mom had in the past. She had her ammo for the next big fight. Which only took another week to happen, Angel smiled and her mom kept asking “What did I do to you? Where did I go wrong?” and this made Angel laugh uncontrollably.

She and Jess saw each other every day and summer turned into fall, school started again and then fall turned into winter, Angel dropped out of school. The girls spent most of their time at Jess’s house since she had the whole basement furnished as a fully functioning and stocked apartment. Since her mom had a girlfriend too, she was a lot more supportive of their relationship. Angel was perfectly content with her new life, all her friends knew she was with Jess and they didn’t care. When she started spending time away from home more often Angels mom took it as I cue to move her drunken boyfriend in. This added a new dimension to everything because this guy really liked Jess and Angel and loved spending time with them a little too much. He would behave like a desperate Horney pig right in front of Angel’s mom and she couldn’t look at her anymore.  She definitely couldn’t stand being home anymore. None of her friends would come upstairs with her anymore, they would wait outside, no matter how cold it was.

Jess was finalizing her plans to join the army and Angel went along with her to some of the interviews. They kept telling her that they wished she was old enough to join too, with the new world war picking up steam, they told her that they could use all the help they could. Angel told them that she was ready and she would go if she could. Anything to get away and do something different.

Gina and all their other friends  had started hanging out at Jess’s house with her and Angel. They would through mini parties in the basement apartment, they would drink themselves stupid and everyone would pass out together. Since Jess was training, the pot smoking became a thing of the past and with how much everyone was drinking, it was a safe bet that they had all safely cleaned out their systems. Their strange little misfit family celebrated together as the holidays rolled by. Angel and Jess were completely in love and completely inseparable by then.

Any time she went home, Angel heard was that she was no good and how she had to find a job and help pay rent now that she had dropped out of school, like she ever stayed there, she had to stop hanging out with that dyke and stealing the pot that wasn’t hers. Since she was drinking and her mom was drinking a lot more with her lovely new boyfriend, everyone was loud and mouthy and there was nothing but fights and half of them didn’t make any sense to anyone.

One of these fights was followed by the announcement that they were going to get married, with or without her blessing. She said, “Great, good luck to you guys. “ Then Angel disappeared for two weeks on a bender and when she came back, she had a form for her mom to sign so that she could be shipped off to the army on the same day as the one person on this earth that she felt like she had a connection with before she was stuck here with these people who she thought she might end up killing at some point in the near future.

Angel’s new ‘dad’ thought it was a perfect idea, a great idea, he was already blindly drunk when she showed up and he still smelled like shit to her. Her mom was at work at the office where she spent most of her time when he wasn’t driving ‘daddy’ around to rip off other scumbags that he knew and get more booze or drugs. He signed the paper and cracked open some beers to celebrate. The asshole was so proud of his daughter going off to serve her country he said, she told him she liked the idea of saying fuck you to a nation that thought that because she was a girl in love with another girl she wasn’t good enough to join their militias, he said “Yeah, yeah that’s going to be great too, that’s going to be great for you.”  He asked for a hug and put his hands all over her when she tried to humor him since he was now, family in some fucked up way. As she felt his dick get hard in his pants, he said, “Your mom was really sad you weren’t at the wedding.” Angel jumped away and shoved him as hard as she could, since she knew she was taking off in a matter of days now that he had signed the paperwork for her. An idea formed in her mind. Daddy hit his head on the corner of the stove when she shoved him and he was so drunk that he just fell to the floor and laid there grabbing his crotch, saying “And I missed you too, oh how I missed you, I was sad you were gone too, oh I missed your cute little fucking dyke too, but I really missed you the most.” He was halfway unconscious and she was about to throw up if she looked at him any longer.

So with the door shut behind her and hiding in her room, she tried to get the rage under control. One of her favorite childhood trinkets was a small wooden bat that had been fitted to her when she was like eight or nine years old, as she looked at the sleek piece of hardwood, she knew what she had to do. Angel looked over the room and threw everything she thought she would possibly want in a bag she kept an ear on the convulsing moron lost in his little world on the kitchen floor. It didn’t take long for her to get all her things together since almost everything that mattered had already been moved over to where she had been staying with Jess. Gina was still in the car, waiting with the engine running since her plan was to just corner her mom and demand that she sign the paperwork and get out of there for good. It was taking a bit longer but she looked out the window and saw Gina where she had left her and she steeled herself for what she was about to do.

She took one last look at the paper that would be her ticket out but that also meant she was going to have to fight in some war she didn’t understand or care about in some country that she could barely pronounce. With all of her worldly possessions on her bag, a bag that had recently held school books and CD’s and her childhood baseball bat in her hand, she took a breath and found Daddy in the kitchen with his cock in hand and his fluids all over his own pants and the floor. Angel couldn’t leave like this, she had to leave a message for her mom, and that message would be Daddy in all his glory, the smile that crept onto her face was like nothing she had ever felt before. Everything felt cold but she knew it was the only way to end the joke that her life had been up until that very moment. As the bat connected with his face, everything felt right for once and she looked forward to going off to do battle and feel this feeling again, she was ready for war she thought. No one screamed, no one saw anything and his blood on the walls of the kitchen was like a work of art. As she went out the door she knew there was no going back. Everyone has their thing, everyone’s family is fucked up, and there is no such thing as normal.

Gina asked her why her hands were shaking so bad when Angel got back in the car but at least it was too dark for her to see the blood that stained her and the black sweatshirt she was wearing. All Angel said was, “We should go down to the dock, like the old days.” It took less than thirty seconds for them to get around the corner  to the dock and when they got there, Gina turned the light on saw the blood and the look in Angel’s eyes but asked no questions, she said everything she needed to say with her eyes. Angel got out of the car in the frigid January night and walked over to the dock, lay down and washed herself in the icy rushing waters. By the time she rolled over and watched her breath steam in the air,  Gina had bundled herself up and made it down to where Angel was laying. “What the fuck happened up there?” And Angel didn’t spare any details while she filled in the fifteen minutes she was inside the place she had once called home. It had been the longest her mom had stayed in one place in Angel’s entire life. The friends she had made here were some of the best friends she had ever had in her life too. She had also gotten to meet her first love and change her life forever, she knew it was the last time she would ever sit there on that dock again.

The stars held no answers tonight and Angel had to figure out what to do next on her own. Gina cranked the heat in the car and seemed worried about her friend. “Here’s what we have to do, Gina are you with me? I want to take a pass back by the apartment to make sure the cops aren’t there yet, I need to go and make sure my mom is still working and then I need to find somewhere to stay until I ship out, and I have to do it fast so I can call Jess and let her know what happened, to let her know I am fine. She might have to rent a hotel room for me.” Gina said, “Okay dude.”

After taking a back road to the other side of the apartments and sitting long enough to be sure that the lights were still off and she had not gathered any attention, they went to the other side of town and sat outside of where Angel’s mom worked. She could see the light on in her mom’s office and her broken down car in its usual space. This was the closest Angel would ever be to her mom again. Everyone has issues, nothing is perfect, everyone’s family is fucked up and there was never any such thing as normal, she thought to herself again.

Gina dropped Angel off at a Chinese food restaurant and went to find Jess and bring them together. Angel thought that she should play it safe and stay away from anywhere she was known, anywhere she had been seen. It took Gina only an hour to make it back and the three girls sat in a quiet corner while Angel told her girlfriend how her mom had married that asshole and how he was out of his mind when she got there and put his hands on her. They had a laugh when Angel told them about him falling to the floor jerking off with beer all over him. Angel said, “I wiped all my prints off the bat when I was done but I left it right next to him so hopefully my mom will pick it up before she knows what she is doing, I think he was breathing but I needed her to see what I thought of him. Best part is, that he still had his cock in his hands and he was covered in his own goo and that is how she is going to find him.”

They drank a few scorpion bowls and Jess said, “We can go get a room at the hotel right next to the airport where the Sargent is meeting us and stay put until then. If they come looking for you, they will come looking for you at my house I’m sure.” Angels said that she couldn’t have survived for this long without her and whatever she had to face didn’t seem too bad as long as they were together. So after one more stop at a store for supplies Jess and Angel went into hiding. Since they wouldn’t need much at boot camp they didn’t worry about all the stuff that was still in Jess’s apartment in the basement. They called the recruitment station to let them know where to reach them, they ate take out, fucked and joked about how stupid the laws that were supposed to keep them out of the military were and how anything would be better than this. They really thought they were screwing the system and were fairly proud of themselves for that, it was another big joke to them.

Angel kept a close eye on the news to see if she had gotten away with her perfect crime and she found out that she had killed her new Daddy with the baseball bat that she learned how to hit baseballs with. Just like she thought would happen, her mom had picked the murder weapon up when she got home that night and the stupid bitch still called the cops even though she knew it had been her daughter. The news report said that pills and drugs and different unregistered guns had been found in the house. All those pills her mom took when she was depressed bit her in the ass and no one believed her when she kept telling them, “That dyke brainwashed my daughter and it was my daughter that did this.” When the cops found the life insurance policy that the loser husband had and found out that my mom was left millions, her fate was sealed. The news said that the daughter was wanted for questioning but otherwise was not a suspect because they found out how upstanding she was and that she was about to go serve her country. In the eyes of the cops, this made her a comrade in arms even at her young age. They only wanted to know why she had gotten permission to enlist or even why wanted to, they wanted to know what had driven such a nice girl to such extremes. Most of them had daughters themselves and the story made them sad, they pictured their own daughters and how all they seemed to care about was make up and the mall and boys. It made them shake their heads in disgust and the news had experts come and talk about how the military was saving the kids of America by offering those opportunities they wouldn’t normally have. Angel’s story was becoming famous throughout the world and it was being used as a recruitment tool.

The day the girls went to the airport to fly out and start training, there were cops and TV cameras lining the gate waiting for Angel. It was the only place that they knew they would be able to find her. When they came around the corner and saw the scene, Jess squeezed Angel’s hand and said, “You look sexy in your uniform, let’s do  this babe.” Angel smiled at her and her eyes filled with love. There is no such thing as normal. Angel knew she had to play this right because she was almost done but this was going to be the hardest part. Within the crowd was also an insurance guy that was there to give Angel the millions that had been left to her mom by the drunk asshole. All this money went to her now since her mom was going to spend the rest of her life in jail. Angel didn’t know what to say or what to do, it didn’t change anything because once you enlist in the military, and they owned you so she went to start her newest adventure in life.

It took longer for Angel to be able to get on the plane than it took for them to get to the base where they switched to the military aircraft that would take them to the camps and bases, then to the warzones in other areas of the world. Jess saved her a seat and had a hard time hiding her smile. Angel felt pretty safe so she told her, “shut up.” They promised each other that they would stick together through all of this. Even though they knew they had to be careful because they were in enemy territory now,  they still kept as many parts of their bodies touching as possible on the flight and whispered together the whole time. Angel told her that all they had to do was survive this and they would be millionaires. “So you got paid to get away with killing that fucker? That is so awesome.”

Then when they landed at the base, things got more serious. Real soldiers, real guns, real tanks and real dangers. Jess and Angel looked at each other and started to worry. There was a time when people would join the military so they could pay for college or like Jess and Angel had done, they enlisted with hopes of a better life but once America went to war with almost all the other countries in the world, all of that changed. Now there were only hardened, lean, mean killing machines who lived for the battle and were more like animals or robots programed only for destruction. “Oh shit.” Angel said and Jess only made a strangled and sick sound in the back of her throat.

They were being yelled at by a red faced, giant that was one big rippling muscle. While standing at attention they present their paperwork that had their assignments printed on them. The angry red faced guy looked over the words that neither of the girls could really make any sense of. He understood the codes perfectly though and in a voice that was louder than needed he asked who Jess was and she said, “Sir, I am sir.” They guys face got redder and redder and she looked the two girls over, shook his head in disgust, he knew what he was dealing with. “Report to F Company by that plane there,” and he pointed and made sure that he had their attention. “Do you think you can manage that?” He asked in a voice that was way louder than it needed to be. Jess repeated the proper phrase, “Sir, YES SIR.” And she was freed to go, Angel thought he meant both of them so she picked up her pack and started to follow Jess who was walking as slowly as she could to the plane that was pointed out.

“Where DO YOU THINK YOUR GOING?” The guy with the red face and the badges and striped patches asked Angel. She said, “Umm, you told us to report  to F Company, I was going to report to F Company, umm, Sir.” Then she was on the ground and tasted blood before she knew what happened. She got her last look at Jess and tasted blood in her mouth while she felt the tears start to tumble down her cheeks. Jess looked back once and tried to run to help when she saw Angel with blood coming out of her mouth and the general closing in to kick her in the ribs. Two burly, uniformed meathead with guns held her back and she fought against them violently.

Angel hated her tears and she felt the familiar anger rise, she hated being humiliated and the things that were being screamed at her and about her in between kicks were the most awful things she had ever heard in her life or ever would again. Her eyes were locked on Jess and she saw the two soldiers holding her back as she fought to come back and help her. Angel hoped that Jess would just walk away, save herself from the same painful fate. The general was asking if she was stupid, he was telling her that she came from inferior stock and that he knew all about her type and that she was worthless. Angel couldn’t help but agree, she guessed that this was what she deserved for what she had done to her mom and that fuck she had married before she left. The general was still kicking her when she saw through the dust, blood and tears that Jess looked back one more time before she disappeared into the bowels of the jet, headed for some remote corner of the earth. “So Jess is on her own now and so am I, if this is how it is then this is how it is, we just need to survive this.” was the last thought she had before losing consciousness.

She came to,  and there was nothing but pain, pain and darkness. Her hands were tied behind her and her legs seemed to be tied together too as far as she could tell. Everything felt strange, Angel could tell that she had broken bones, she could feel blood dripping from her whole body and she wasn’t really sure where she was. Suddenly the room was filled with a blinding white light and she was surrounded by slabs of meat dressed in black and white camouflage. They were nothing but blurry shadows to Angel, without faces and judging by the chill that ran up her spine, these shadows also had no souls. “What do you want?” angel asked, defiantly.

The first soldier grabbed Angel off the floor by her hair, looked into her eyes and asked, “Are you with us sweetheart? I wouldn’t want you to miss this, I want you to enjoy everything a REAL man has to offer.” They had heard about her, they had heard about what she had done, they thought she was using them to escape that law, they were here to deliver their own brand of justice.

Angel closed her eyes as the soldiers passed her back and forth, and she thought about all the moments with Jess that she had shared, she was thinking of sitting with Gina on the dock. Deep down she knew she would never see any of them again in any other way but her imagination, she didn’t think she was going to make it out of this room. One of the shadows punched her with all his might in the face, breaking her nose and said, “If you’re trying to picture your little dyke and escape from this moment, I feel like I should tell you that we sent some of our friends to see her too and welcome her just like we are welcoming you, we got all that money too, do you like that? You hear me you bitch, I have YOUR money and your fucking girl.”  One of the other shadows said, “We are sick of you freaks coming in here and weakening what we stand for and our unity and strength, now we are going to teach you a lesson.”  All of the shadows laughed like this was the best joke ever told and high fived each other between taking turns kicking, fucking and violating Angel for what could have been only moments but might have been days for all she knew. When they told her that Jess was suffering the same fate, she started to put up a fight and this was what they were looking for, they thought they were tough and they wanted to break her in every way possible, this is what they were trained for. Eventually though, anyone’s stamina will fail them, and there is only so much that a body can take, she went limp long before they were done with her, soaked with an assortment of fluids from herself and the shadows that kept attacking her. There was never any such thing as normal and Angel knew this to be a fact now.

She wondered if she could have saved them both if she had not let her tears fall at the first sign of challenge and confrontation. Angel was pretty sure that she got them both killed with her weakness and as she realized that she was going to die here in this cold empty place with only the company of strange, shadowy figures that took and took from her until she was no more, until she had nothing left. The final thought she had was that everyone will end up right where they are supposed to end up in the long run, everyone has their fate, and everyone had their thing. Everyone’s family was fucked up and maybe she should have figured out how to solve her problems and deal with her life instead of running away from them like she did. Since nothing could be done and there was no going back, Angel took her last breath with a smile because she knew that she had at least known love once in her life, even if she didn’t get to have that relationship for as long as she wished she could have but it was still more than most people ever got to have, she had also, in a way, saved her mom from her pathetic cycle of life too, justice for what it’s worth was served. Soon the pain would stop, soon reality would finally stop weighing on her. All that she regretted was that it was going to be over this easily, that her final test was an absolute failure and that because of that, she had also gotten the sweetest person she had ever known killed along with her. She had regrets that she had not put up for of a fight in the name of love. “At least I won’t have to move anymore now,” were her last whispered words to herself as she left this world to try to find something better, something that might be a little more normal. Nothingness and oblivion would be better than everything that she had survived in her short years. Maybe aggression, pain and confusion are the only things that could be considered normal, everyone has their thing, until they have nothing. Everyone’s family is fucked up somehow.

2/4/2012 1:03 PM

Part Three

Internal Technology Part 1.

The year doesn’t matter, neither does the setting. What really matters is how things changed once the universal chip was introduced. Unlike electric cars, boob implants or the massive super computers that were run by the companies that put out all the chips, ran oil companies and most of the government, this technology was dirt cheap right from the start. Made from biological cells mixed with the lightest alloy metals, no bigger than a dime and placed at the base of the spine with a quick visit to a doctor, it was the simplest way to communicate. For years throughout the world, people had been making phones smaller and smaller, computers thinner and thinner, no one was ever happy with the results, it just wasn’t enough and then a miracle. By then everyone was completely dependent on their little screens for every aspect of their lives. Phones, laptops, hand held game systems and devices that did everything called tablets. People would text each other when they sat in the same room or a group of people would all have their phones out to show off pictures of their pets, or what most people would call, children.

There were still a few holdovers, like me who saw this technology for what it was and longed for the old days. Even now, I don’t own a cell phone, I never have and I never will. I am from the wild days, back before even the internet was invented; there aren’t many of us left. Most kids these days have no idea what a VCR even was, they had never held a joystick controller to play video games and they definitely wouldn’t know what to do if a cassette tape fell apart, or how to fix it with a pencil. Like any addicts though, this gives them a weakness that can lead to their destruction.

Everything happened faster than anyone could have expected or predicted. Once religion failed as a source of control, the governments looked for another method to keep the blind sheep funding their world wars. First they used paranoia by creating an enemy for everyone to fear, they staged a disaster of epic proportions to sell their story. Whenever you have an imaginary enemy though, there will always be people who doubt and question instead of gullibly swallowing everything they are told. This put a halt to international travel because after the bombs landed, no one could trust anyone else; everyone started to selfishly look out for only themselves instead of their neighbors. Most people would call what happened next fascism, a police state or socialism, where once there was a democracy, anarchy prevailed. In their homes, families hid together out of fear. Eventually it was not safe to walk the streets at night anywhere, people huddled by televisions and computers, waiting for news about what was happening out in the world that they were too afraid to really accept as truth. Friends stopped going to see each other and instead kept in touch through email and social networks, text messages and they started to communicate in a new language, abbreviated and incomprehensible to most. When you went to see bands play, in bars or large stadiums, every hand in the crowd had a hand attached to a camera, a phone or a recording device, depending on what they wanted to take away from the night. If there was a sporting event, people would stare at their screens watching that as they sipped at their beers and nibbled on their snacks, cheering, mid-song for their favorite team instead of paying any attention to what is going on around them.

U-Chips allowed people to do these things with their minds, users could call people or text them just by thinking about it. If someone wanted to see what was going on in the game, all they had to do was think about it, it was the same with the weather report. Sometimes you would see someone’s finger pull back and then their eyes would shoot to the other side of their sockets suddenly, then they would smile or they would swear. Everyone liked playing Angry Birds, a little too much. Famous people had them before anyone else; this is the age old way of selling anything. Tabloid talk shows started to show footage of trendy stars sitting in trendy restaurants in silence, staring straight ahead as they shoveled bland, overpriced food into their overly stimulated but empty heads.

It seemed like things couldn’t get any worse for a while there. There were murders every single day because someone wanted someone else’s phone or computer; they took their lives just to have some gadget that they thought made them better than anyone else. Technology set the bar for class warfare, those who had, prospered while those who didn’t just didn’t, it couldn’t ever have stood a chance. There were whispers and rumors that this was exactly what they wanted. Bombs and the war that because the result, fear, paranoia, then came trillions of dollars in medication for a rainbow of mental disabilities, then came the U-Chip. Those that had everything wanted to make sure that everyone else had nothing. No one ever knew which side dropped the bombs but both sides blamed the other side for the millions of people who died. Medicating the populous worked for a short time but eventually, slowly, people started becoming aware of what was happening while they stumbled through their drug induced comas, the started to take some long hard looks at their lives when they started being unable to find work or feed their families. Everything fell apart from the center outward, you could feel the panicked sweat of greed, you could taste it, and there was no way to deny or escape it. All of humanity was sitting like calm willing cattle being led to the slaughter, eating pills and waiting for things to go back to normal somehow. If anyone was brave enough to speak out, they were quickly and quietly dealt with. Called a terrorist or insane, no one ever rocked the boat anymore since these rumors quickly became facts of life.

No matter what drug you do though, a tolerance to it is built. The trendiest of trendy people started getting the U-Chips implanted in the beginning, and then the people who took the pills the most got U-Chips implanted. The pill popping rejects of life needed someone to care for them and tell them what to do so they were an easy sell. Convicts and criminals were next, figuring that as long as someone held the leash, none of these animals could cause any harm, U-Chips were better than any drug anyone had ever done in the history of the planet. If you wanted to get drunk, there was an app for that or if you wanted to shoot someone, there was an app for that too. If you could think of it, there was an app for it. When someone called a Chinese food place, they could order their food in the answerer’s native tongue. The same held true for any language that could be needed, the programs adapted to their user, it was one of the most attractive points about it, they sold the illusion that people still had free will and could never be controlled. U-Chips were always sold as a convenience more than anything, a way to eliminate waste and clutter, to compact all your needs into the blink of an eye. The wiring happened on its own when it was implanted, spreading within seconds throughout the body and mind, overwhelming and overtaking the ends of nerves and taking over the entire being until the chip is removed safely. They don’t tell you any of this in the commercials that are on every radio station or on every channel of the television every few minutes. They also don’t tell you that it needs to be removed by a professional since these mental GPS chips are rigged to explode if they are disturbed or altered in any way; it was a safe guard against people killing each other for their chips and selling them on the black market. It was also a way to discourage bad behavior by the ones who still had not been plugged in to the system, or so they said.

If we had been scared of what was going on in the world before, we were now terrified at the blank looks everyone walked around with. Pills were bad but this was worse. Like I said before, I want nothing to do with this idea, even though I am aware enough to know that one day, just for writing this, I will be stuffed in black bag and I will wake up covered in blood with a sore neck from where my chip was installed. They never like people who speak against the cause and the cure, they were making more money than they knew what to do with and that was all that mattered to them.

Since everyone was plugged in for twenty hours out of the day, no one ever saw the effect it had on real life. They didn’t realize that there was ever a turning point where the voice of humans stopped completely and died off from the spinning rock that we called home because people didn’t have to communicate with all the old fashioned things like voice or touch, they just sent thoughts to each other. I always figured that the government types had watched the same movies I had, either that or they were unaware of the saying about how history always repeats itself. Most of their plans were stolen straight from action movies, as were the speeches about how things should be, with different words sometimes but more often than not, you can name the movie, song or TV show that they stole it from if you were paying attention. If someone were medicated or if someone had the chip you didn’t know the difference though, all you have is the moment, as long as The Suits were around, there could be no new memories and there was never going to be a future for anyone.

The Suits controlled The Machine. The Machine held everyone’s fate, decided who would be allowed to do what, where when and why they would be able to do it. Every single U-Chip was routed through these computers; at least that was the rumor.  When U-Chips were released to the public and people lined up to get them put in, the prices of traditional hardware skyrocketed to the point where it was almost impossible to afford a simple zip drive to store info on. On top of the cost, The Suits kept a close watch on the rare bits that were sold by people they deemed to be terrorists and criminals, once they had the monopoly on people’s minds and people’s willpower, they were never going to let it go.

People like me who were good with computers right from the start knew enough about the primitive technologies to bring down the whole system and that poses a major threat. Ever since that cold, snowy night those U-Chips were presented to the world, I have had to keep one eye over my shoulder; I have to pretend to try to be like them with their empty stares out of fear of being caught. Since the best way to blend in is camouflage into the scenery, I had some custom contact lenses made by a fellow rebel that made it look like my eyes were dead, blank and still like the zombies while my real eyes could constantly search my surroundings for trouble. People who are plugged in can’t tell the difference from one another but if you were awake and paying attention, you could easily see the emptiness where there was once a soul. This made it easy to tell if someone was following you because their eyes will follow you, you can tell that there is someone home upstairs, usually they were on record mode, reporting to the authorities about the actions of rebels like me, people who pose a threat. They were always easy to spot and they were easy to lose in a crowd, no one ran anywhere, no one looked like they were able to put up a fight. When Suits were chasing you though, they added the element of violent focus to those other qualities and made them fearsome creatures. I always figured that what was once the military became The Suits when the bombs dropped. When 92% of the population had U-Chips there was not much need for security or surveillance anymore, everyone was subdued and pliant, if someone thought about beating their wife while they were at the bar, it raised a red flag at the closest headquarters and when the wife beater walked out the bar, he would be arrested and beaten to a bloody pulp. Whenever anyone thought about breaking the law, they were punished before they even had a chance to commit the crime.

If I had the chip, there would be cops at my door every time I decided to smoke pot or watch a Suits approved movie because those, above all else, make me want to kill everyone that was involved. I still had a collection of disks and VHS tapes once all cable networks went over to the I-Chip for users there. Everything that came before the revolution was considered to be an antique, even if it still worked. Now a days, everyone watched things internally, all they had to do was download it, it was the same with music because music was tapped straight through the central nervous system and into the ears. The user can decide how loud they want it to be by a simple, single thought. U-Chips were the clearest of clear pictures and allowed the audience to feel like they were in the middle of whatever they were watching. While watching a TV show about gardens, all the sights, sounds, smells and feelings were sent through the body with absolute realism, it was the ultimate in reality TV, escapism and it was the final step in virtual reality, it was called an ‘Absolute Reality”. Since everyone was afraid to travel for real, this allowed them to go wherever they might be able to dream of, there was even a ‘Moon’ app so that people could go and walk on it if they wanted to. Those of us without U-Chips never got to have not had dreams since they became a trademark of the company and the Suits. I thought it was better like that since I had always hated to dream since I didn’t like giving up control, even for a moment. Sometimes I would wake up with my neck on fire and sore, I would scratch at it and worry all day that I had been tagged the night before. Since the Suits could use dreams just as well as they used U-Chip data, they could hack into all dreams, not just the ones they owned to inflict nightmares on their opponents too. I had gotten used to them showing me my worst nightmares over and over again by staying awake. Just because they couldn’t find my body to inflict their tortures on didn’t mean that I was ever safe, I just didn’t have to deal with them invading and guiding my conscious steps through life like everyone else’s. All they were trying to get me to do was break down and see my doctor about a chip, to just give up and let them in.

My small, basement apartment had only one room that was filled with computer equipment that I had acquired throughout the years and stored on various shelves. I never had more than my dim desk light on usually so the clutter and debris of a lifetime was always shrouded in shadows and darkness, beyond me. To the untrained eyes it would look like a mess but I always knew where to find anything I needed, that was what was important to me. When you’re a rebel, you have to be ready to pick up, move on to somewhere safer and forget about everything that came before at a moment’s notice. It just was the way it was in the New Motherland as it was called. When I did sleep, it was in a chair, with a gun, in a place where I could see the front door and get some shots off, I had always been a light sleeper, now it was just worse, like I always had to have one eye open. It was a dangerous life to live but it was usually pretty boring, there were always hours upon hours of time spent in the darkness, staring at a screen, waiting for answers to somehow appear.

One of the other things they never tell you when you agree to the terms of service is that like any computer, phone or other gadget that has ever been created, U-Chips can be damaged by hackers and viruses at any time. There were apps that could act as protection but they were expensive programs to install. It was cheaper to download the know how to dismember another human being and cook them or find instructions about how to use a Mack-10 than it was to afford ‘health insurance’ once the chip was installed. Once your system was infected, the Suits came to ‘repossess’ their property. Used U-Chips were sold at a discounted price so they could make sure that everyone can get themselves the latest toy that the government felt no one could, or should live without. The problem with reused U-Chips was that now and then, people would pick residue from the former owner.

***Part 2 coming soon***

2/11/2012 4:40 AM

A Thought On Politics

A Political Rant.

To be perfectly honest, I just don’t care. But since New Hampshire is such a big deal in all of this I feel as though I should say something, I should give a nod as all eyes turn to the clowns and their debate here tonight.

My statement is… I don’t care.

Some of them have a good idea now and then but the rest of the time when they open their mouths, they sound like insane demons. I can NOT support any of that. It honestly scares the hell out of me. If I have any sort of political party that I would fall into, it would be anarchist. I would like to think that human decency would factor in to the big picture if there were no laws to keep us in line. Sure some people who cling to the machine and enjoy being gears within it would be lost, life would change greatly but it is hard to tell if it would really be for the worse. With all the corrupt mischief that happens in the world as we know it, let’s seriously consider what will really be the lesser of two evils.

I would rather debate movies or music, politics and religion have never made much since to me, so I try to avoid them as conversations. This time of the year though, it is hard to avoid and it is hard to know who to trust when it comes to forming opinions about any of the candidates. There are people who are sort of scary though, like the chick how had religious concentration camps to reform people who love others that they don’t agree with. The intense focus on this topic is strange and somewhat horrifying, like….really, this matters? All sorts of ideas and pretty words but like the current president, it seems like a lot of, saying what people want to hear without any plans to make them happen.

For instance the Gollum looking old timer who wants to legalize pot. All well and good but any other time he opens his mouth, absolute vomit comes spewing out. He has managed to unite some of us more impartial underground freaks who are just as likely to forget there is an election or just go and vote to be hateful and have the right to bitch. Everyone is just far too focused on that one point with this guy though. I might go with him though, we got DADT repealed and allegedly killed the big evil terrorist in this go round and maybe it’s best to just get one thing done at a time, take it slow. If we are going to wait for mental vegetables to feed us our common sense instead of thinking for ourselves then we have to take what we can get I guess.

My disinterest in politics goes back to my issue with patience; I just can’t sit around worrying about the lies fed to me by mutated faces on TV. I am going to love who I want to love, do what I want to do and rely on my basic primal human decency to know when is too much. Thanks guys but I have my own moral compass and it tells me to stay the hell away from all that craziness.

The rest are just too ridiculous, too insane. I don’t even know where to begin. Just, really, in your own time…. Look up the definition of Santorum, just do it. It leaves me wondering who these people are who think that this guy will be a good idea, who are these people who will vote for a guy who built his whole campaign around hate and spewing venom at people in the name of good honest family values. Really… who are these people? It really must be acceptable to live and be that completely oblivious, it is not a life that I understand, and it is not a life that I would ever want to live.

That is the basis of my value system, live and let live and mind my own business. If only others would share that, I think we could do alright. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired; I know I am not the only one. No one knows how to fix it even though everyone knows that it is fundamentally broken at its core.

We all have our ideas, beliefs and value systems. There is no way to make everyone happy, not all at the same time. The cycle continues and I think I will do like I usually do, stand back, watch the bloody massacre and decide from the winners after it is all said and done. Maybe by then we can evolve enough to put aside petty issues or even better, evolve enough to just stop caring.

1/7/2012 8:09 PM