Our Brother Madness

Our Brother Madness Part III

The sun had fallen behind the city streets, the foundation of men and who they were. Shadows darted between the skyscrapers, hidden messengers carrying news between giants. Dimitri and Ryan still sat in their lawn chairs, they were talking about Yester, and memories of old.

It always came back to this for them, music and memories riddled in their minds, loving memories of passing good times. They talked long of recent dreams, like they always did, it was their custom. To them dreams were everything, especially for Dimitri. They were his escape, an escape not even his bountiful drugs would bestow upon him. Dreams let him go to other worlds, let him escape this rotting place, this dying mind. Let him enter into a grace that was so unlike earth, for in a dream there was nothing but a perfect extremes.

Good or bad, no in between, and either way, the emotion was a thrill. It was intense.

Dimitri’s last pleasure, his last dish of love to feast from.

“Man, where the hell is that Becca? We’re going be late,” Ryan said, breaking the silence of contemplation.

As if his words were a master’s to a loyal slave, came Becca’s black car. She pulled up next to the curve and got out, she was wearing a white polka dot dress, something that looked like it was from the fifties. Dimitri’s friends loved things like this, as did he. He sometimes wished he was back in some different time. Sometimes he’d dream of being somewhere else

Sometimes he’d dream of being in a pitched battle of World War II. No feelings, no nothing, just the machinations of war and smoking death. Evil and good, only extremes, no in betweens. He would walk over the dead bodies, he would shoot the corpses that moved. He wouldn’t eat, he just keep walking, sometimes he was fighting the Nazis, sometimes he was fighting the Japanese. It didn’t matter to him, all dead bodies looked the same in his dream, blood-covered and motionless.

“Sorry it took so long,” She said as she came over into the light. She was a beautifully pale woman, now with a black lip-ring piercing her lower lip. Her eyes were a deep black, and Ryan loved them, he could get lost in any person’s eyes, as long as they were dark like Becca’s.

“You better be,” Dimitri said. “We were pissed.”

“I’m sorry!” She said in all seriousness.

Dimitri walked over to her with an angry look, but he couldn’t keep the smile down and he soon chuckled, “I’m just kidding Becca, we don’t really care. We smoked it all out of ourselves a long time ago, remember?”

“Oh shut up,” She smiled, a cute smile that played off her dyed-too-many times hair. Tonight, it was a dark purple, the color of Dimitri’s dream skies. “Get in, we’re running late.”

“No worries,” Ryan said as he got into the car. “The first bands usually suck anyhow.”

“True enough,” Dimitri replied as he got in the front passenger seat. “Ah well, I usually enjoy the shows even by the bad bands.”

“That’s because you don’t know how to tell music when your getting your ear bled on by a four-hundred pound spiked asshole,” Ryan laughed.

Dimitri shot his best friend a quick look and smiled, “Yeah but hey… that four-hundred pound spiked asshole got his ass owned in the pit by me.”

Ryan shrugged, “You’re a fearsome fellow.”

“Damn straight I am.”

“Oh you two,” Becca replied as she started the car, turning on the music.

The music was loud and it was screaming. It destroyed Dimitri’s ear and he loved it. He wanted more to come at him, to beat him, to batter him, make him crushed and cracked. He loved it so much, the mechanics of it didn’t mind him, it was just the music. All music consumed him, it made him who he was. It twisted his soul this and that, and dictated what he would become from the shaped cubes of clay.

“So what’s the plan after Yester?” Ryan shouted above the thrashing sounds of musical notes.

“Hmm,” Becca thought to herself. “Well, we can go out and about, maybe go eat somewhere.”

“Sounds good to me!” Ryan yelled, other then dreaming, eating was his favorite activity in life.

They drove on, Ryan and Becca talked on, but Dimitri regressed. He left what people called the world, into his own mind, deeper into his own thoughts, images. He stood on a cliff, room enough only for one leg to stand. All around a desert of red sand, thousands of feet down, stretching from sight to horizon. He was teetering, the sound of music pushing him this and that way, always on the edge of falling, and always with a question upon his red sand-blasted lips.

“Will I die if I fall? “He asked. “What’s down there for me? Is there a spiky bed or a feathered pillow? Do I die if I fall? If I fall? If I fall?”

“Dimitri?” Came Becca’s voice accompanied by her shaking hand, he had fallen asleep without realizing it. “We’re here at Yester.”

“If only,” He replied.

“What?”

“Oh nothing,” He smiled and stretched. “Sorry, must be having an odd dream.”

She nodded her head and got out of the car, Dimitri got out, Ryan was already stretching his bones. The night smelled of smoke here, so far downtown, bums carried around carts of abandoned trash and held out longing arms with open hands. The darkness consumed the area, and like blazing torches were the lamp posts, illuminating the darkness all around.

There were squat buildings everywhere here, skyscrapers in the background, eleven floor buildings here and there. Before them was Yester, an old club whose door handle had been lost on the inside for years now. The walls were spray painted with random images, the main image taking the form of a skeleton with a smile, a purple Mohawk running down his spine. It wore a blue jean jacket and in its hands, a long black guitar.

People milled in and out. All of them with some oddity to them for the most part. Whether it be spikes, piercing, Mohawks or dyed hair, it didn’t matter. Everyone had their mark, everyone was searching for that golden cup. To drink its elixir, to feel it slide down their throat and become what it promised.

Ah yes, to become unique.

The group walked in, and paid the three dollars to get in. The place was packed, a band was playing upstairs. Dimitri could hear the screams and they called to him, he waved bye to Ryan and Becca as he went up the staircase. Passing swirls of smoke, people with murder in their eyes, and the obese women in fishnets that had been set on a delusional path. He walked up into the second floor, and saw people violently dancing, saw the fists flying a thousand miles and it was wonderful.

As some people said, “f***ing thrashers. I hate their f***ing fists, what the f***!”

Dimitri’s eyes were a blur as he saw it. People getting punched in the faces, stomachs, even groins. Some people even bled and had to get out of the pit, part of their crimson soul dripping on the dance floor as they stumbled off.

Dimitri smiled and held out his hands, walking in, “Kill me.”

Right as he got in, the song stopped and so did everyone. He waited in the middle, they said something but he didn’t care. He wanted the fists. He wanted the blows. He wanted to bleed his crimson soul. And soon… he got his wish.

The song started slow, and the thrashers started swaying slowly back and forth. Silent, as if there was a funeral. Silent, as if looking into a storm inevitable. Then there it was, the sounds of murder, the sounds, the screams, the wonder, the beauty. A fist came at Dimitri, catching him in the stomach.

Dimitri screamed along with the screaming vocalist, dishing out all he could. He danced with fists flying, he felt them punch faces, he felt them punch others that he did not intend. As he was pushed along, he jumped in the air, kicking at nothing.

Kicking at something.

Yes here they were, Dimitri could see. The little demons that would chain him to his addictions, to this world, to this place. Each punch he made them bleed, another kick and he made them puke blood in pain. Sweat came off like rivers, and the angelic wrath which now Dimitri held, began to die down as he could not keep up the pace.

“Too much,” Dimitri huffed as he kept on going. “Too many drugs.”

“Too many drugs!” The red things yelled. “Too many drugs! Too many drugs! Too many drugs!”

“Shut up!” Dimitri yelled. “Shut up!”

He came at them again with a renewed spirit. His fists swinging every direction as fast as he could, he’d kick and jumped. Walking backwards with dance in his step, trying to cleanse this black pit of a mind. Burning of muscles began to slow him down, an ache in the side forewarned him.

Ah to burn. To burn.

To purify.

His eyes shone red, as he looked at the mirror of who he was. A compilation of those red things, of those little fiends. He punched and kicked and screamed, but all they would was smile at him. Smile at him even as they bleed.

Smiled, because they knew he would never be able to accomplish his deed.

End of PArt III