Boundaries

Before I get started, I’d like to ask the reader (that’s you) to consider something.  If your best friend needed your help, like life or death hinges on your reaction to the situation.  Where do you draw the line? You can probably think of ten variables that would change your answer so don’t even start.  I’m talking bare bones; at what point do you clap your hands together and just say “To hell with it!”  I don’t care how outlandish, improbable, impossible, or just plain retarded your limit is, I want you to clearly define where self-preservation takes over and beats camaraderie.  Say you’re deathly afraid of spiders and your best friend is captured by a giant spider.  How big does it have to be before you start looking on craigslist for a new best friend? Or however people find friends nowadays.  I don’t care if your answer is “giant grizzly bear/spider/squids” the point is you defined it.  I’m sure that this seems silly but it could one day save your life.  I never defined this boundary in my mind and it now ranks as one of my five worst mistakes ever.  Got it? Good, now I also need to ask you to reserve your judgment until the end.  Trust me; it’s going to get really stupid.



It started on a Monday about two years ago, mid-January.  I woke up at 6:00am to make it to the Pawn Shop I managed by 7:30 because I don’t like sitting in rush hour traffic.  The store doesn’t open until 10:00 but I figure the longer I’m on the grounds, the less opportunity disgruntled customers have to vandalize the place.  As I drove down the deserted street towards the shop I noticed the clouds and thought that they looked darker than the usual cloud cover that almost never leaves this city during the winter.



I considered turning around and heading home but I was already almost to the shop and figured that it was pointless.  When I pulled into parking lot of the shop, I saw Jordan’s bicycle with a jerry-rigged motor connected to it that Jordan named the “Liquor Cycle” rhyming it with “popsicle”.  He named it this because he got a dui and can’t drive anything else legally.  What the hell? Jordan’s never this early. Or on time for that matter.



As I pushed open the front door I was greeted with the sweet sound of the store’s burglar alarm, a sound as pleasant as a sandpaper massage.



“Jordan! Turn the damn alarm off!” I shouted over the beeps and whistles towards the back room where I was sure that Jordan was asleep.  Or hung over.  Or both.



Jordan’s head popped out from the doorway and disappeared a second later.  A moment later, the alarm stopped.



“Sorry, Vic, I didn’t figure you’d be here this early.  Or at all the radio is anything to go on.”



“So you decided to entice would be burglars with an unlocked door only to deafen them? Do you do this for science?”



“No, if I wanted to do that I’d play Nickelback on every stereo in the store, all a different song, at full volume.” Jordan responded, sounding distracted.  I looked around the shop at the twenty some odd stereos we had on display and felt a chill go down my spine at the prospect.



“So why did you arm the alarm after you came in? For that matter, what the hell are you doing here to begin with? You don’t even show up early when you don’t have a blizzard as an excuse.”



“I’m looking for a purchase form for a customer I dealt with a few days ago.”



“What. Why?”



“I need his address, can you help me out? Brad’s filing system is bat-shit crazy.”



“Jordan, we talked about this, you can’t hold grudges against customers.  Our job is to rip them off; people are going to say stuff.”  And would probably smash your windows if you had a car, my friend.



You see, Jordan is the only reason the shop doesn’t go broke; he’s always been naturally gifted at belittling people while making them desperately want his acceptance.  Perfect qualities for a pawn shop employee.  People come in here with all sorts of preconceived notions about the crap that they bring in to sell.  It is mine and Jordan’s job to break these preconceptions and then try to steal the item with as little money exchange as possible.  He’s also my only friend.



I met Jordan my freshman year of high school; I had just moved into town and knew no one.  On top of that, I was pretty fat, had terrible dry skin, and wasn’t a stranger to a twenty sided die.  I had joined the football team in an ill-conceived attempt to meet people at the new school but soon found out that there wasn’t one person I wanted to know on the team.  It had a lot to do with the fact that they kicked my ass at any given opportunity whether real or imagined.  This continued well after the season was over and during one of my ass kicking’s, Jordan happened across the scene.  Unlike everyone else who had walked around a corner and seen me on the ass end of an ass kicking, Jordan didn’t just turn around or start to laugh.



Jordan has always been shorter than most people our age, and at first glance seems to be pretty skinny until you look closer and realize that what little muscle was there was toned to a surprising degree.  He looked at me and then at the two linemen mid beating.  Calmly walked over to the scene and said “Hey, I’m Jordan, want some help?”  I looked at him for a second, not sure if he was serious, or even a real person.  One more punch to the head and I decided that it didn’t matter.  “Yes, please!”



The two stopped hitting me long enough to turn around and look at Jordan who was already halfway through a right hook that would have made Tyson proud, knocking one of them out cold.  Before the other could even react, Jordan had him by the arm.  He twisted it around in a way that forced the big asshole to bend over at the waist, arm outstretched while Jordan held his wrist with one hand and pushed his other down on the guys elbow.  It looked painful and judging by the yelp of pain that came out of the guy, I’d suspect it felt painful too.



“Now if you want to be able to play football again next year, I’d just stay calm.” Jordan said to the kid, trying his best to sound like an action hero and kind of failing, but I didn’t care.  “Now, I think that you owe my new friend here an apology; what’s your name, champ?”  He asked me, still holding the squirming behemoth with what looked like very little effort.



“Victor.”



“Apologize to Victor, jackass.” Jordan said as politely as you can sound while calling someone a jackass.



“You’re so dead as soon as I get out of this!” he screamed, his face turning red from anger and the position he was being held at.



“See, that’s not the kind of thing you say if you want me to ever let you go.” Jordan said, clearly enjoying this.  He pushed a bit harder on the kids elbow.



“AaahhhI’m Sorry! I’m sorry just let me go!” Which Jordan did.  As his prisoner stood up and turned to face him, Jordan grabbed his shirt and pulled it down so that he and the lineman were face to face and just stared at him for a few seconds.  This was apparently enough for the kid, his pride, and his elbow now wounded.  He said “you bitches aren’t worth the effort.” and turned around.



But before you go imagining him as some kind of hero for the downtrodden, just a year ago he bought a cadaver, meaning the pawn shop bought a cadaver.  Long story short I got charged with body trafficking and narrowly avoided jail.  That’s Jordan; he’ll either make your day a hell of a lot better or a hell of a lot worse.



Sorry for that trip down memory lane, but hopefully it gives some context for what’s about to happen.  Where was I… oh right, Jordan looking for the receipt.



“It’s more complicated than that.” he responded. Of course it is.



“Of course it is.” I said.  “Look, Brad will be here soon, he’ll find the slip; now explain to me what’s going on.”



Now the following is what Jordan told me, take it with a grain of salt, but I can attest that some of it is true.



Apparently, a couple of days earlier, Jordan had been working the front counter when a “Voodoo dude” walked in carrying “a big ass sword.”  After “besting him in unarmed combat” over the price and value of the sword, the man relented and sold it “like a little bitch.”  But before signing the paperwork, the man sliced his finger with the sword and muttered some “crazy voodoo nonsense” as he smeared his blood on the blade.



“And you still bought the sword?”



“Well the paperwork was already almost done. But wait, I’m not done.”



I’m paraphrasing Jordan because listening to him tell a story is a lot like listening to a Vietnam vet ramble about the one time he won the whole damn war single handedly and that the media just got it wrong.  No matter how it ends, you walk away from the event dumbfounded.



Anyway, he says that on his way home he saw the Voodoo dude driving at least three different cars that passed him.  Then he swears that when he got to his apartment complex, Voodoo dude was hiding behind one of the larger bushes in the front, but still very visible.  As Jordan got closer, “Voodude” (his retarded name, not mine) started softly singing the James Bond theme and holding his fingers like a gun. When he got to his apartment, the door was unlocked and the place was trashed.  After a little prodding, however, he admitted that the apartment was in the same state that he had left it, maybe even a bit cleaner.  The only thing that was different about the whole apartment, in fact, was the fact that over his bed, the sword he had bought that day was stuck in the wall and the word “Asshole” was written in blood on every mirror in the place.  Or at least he says it was blood, I’m guessing that in reality, instead of blood, it was nothing.  But the sword was really there, he had a Polaroid of it. I know, who uses a Polaroid anymore, right?



Deciding to believe that the writing was just from a party that he had thrown a couple of nights earlier that he hadn’t noticed (he likes to tell me that he throws parties that he doesn’t invite me to but he’s just giving me a hard time. I think).  He turned on the TV, Pulp Fiction was on and to Jordan’s horror, instead of Samuel L. Jackson, playing opposite John Travolta was Voodude.



At this point I stopped him, rubbing my eye sockets, feeling a Jordan induced migraine coming on.  “What are you getting at, Jordan; do you think that this guy’s stalking you? That he actually cursed you? Are you just having a bad trip?”



He looked at me with an expression that was half exhaustion and half pleading, clearly something was happening to Jordan, whether it is in his own mind or in the real world.  If you lose Jordan then you’ll have exactly zero friends.



“Ok, man, just tell me what’s going on, I’ll help any way I can.” Oh how I regret saying those last six words.  But, it at least seemed to perk him up a bit.



“I figure I kick open his door, put the sword that I bought from him to his neck and scream ‘release your curse Samuel L. Jackson’ on the off chance that it’s actually him.”



“Jesus you’re terrible at making plans, that was the most retarded thing you could have said and still been speaking coherently.”  I said, but was interrupted by the burglar alarm again.



“Damnit you two, turn that thing off.” we heard from the showroom.  Jordan punched in the code into the console on the wall closest to him and the god awful screech stopped.



“Brad seems oddly cheerful” I said sarcastically.  Seconds later, our bookkeeper Brad came into the back room.  “Mornin’ Sally” I said to him, “Jordan needs you to find a receipt so we can go harass a customer.”



“I don’t even know how to respond to that” he said, after skipping a beat.



“Good, now go stop Jordan before he tears every single piece of paper you have”



“what do you.” he said.  But as he was looking over my shoulder he saw Jordan thoughtlessly throwing folders behind him after reading the tabs and quickly leafing through the contents.  Stopping mid question he pushed me out of the way and stopped Jordan who I believe at this point was simply snooping through Brad’s files.



“Your filing system makes no sense!” Jordan responded, defensively.



“It’s alphabetical!” Brad whined.



“I guess I don’t know exactly what I was looking for.  I figured I’d recognize it.”



“What was the guy’s name?” Brad asked in an attempt to find what Jordan wanted and get us out so he could reorganize.



“Gene or Jack or Lewis or something. I can’t remember.”



“What day was it?”



“Uhmm.”



“Oh my god, do you at least remember what you bought from him?”



“Yeah! A sword.”



“I don’t see a sword here in the ‘S’ file” brad replied



“Well, I put it down as ‘big ass sword’ would that matter?”



“Maybe, yep, here it is, now do you need anything else or can I please throw you out of my office?”



“Nah, I’m good.” Jordan said and walked out to the showroom.



As I followed him out, he started grabbing random items off the shelves and putting them all on the counter where the guns are kept.  Before I could ask him what he was doing, the burglar alarm screeched as our mail man, Roy, came in.



“Damnit, Jordan.” Brad and I said in unison, and a few seconds later the screeching stopped.



“Sorry about that, Roy, Jordan’s being haunted by Samuel L Jackson or something” I said to the mailman.



“No problem, hey congratulations on becoming a reverend! I didn’t even know you were religious.” Not even a questioning look, a true professional.



“Thanks, wait, what?”



Roy handed me a stack of mail, the top one reading “Rev. Victor Nowell.”



“Jordan, why am I an ordained minister?” I asked.



“Oh, that, yeah, ha-ha, I’ve given less information signing you up for E-bulletins.”



The letter was congratulating me on my new title and gave me a quick rundown of things I can do now like preside over a funeral, cleanse a house, start a church, marry people, make holy water etc.  All in all it wasn’t the worst thing that Jordan’s ever done to me.  After an awkward silence, Roy left and Jordan went back to doing whatever it was he was doing.



A few minutes later, Jordan came up to me carrying a duffel bag and said “ok, you ready? Let’s go.”



“Wait, you were serious? I don’t want to drive anywhere, there’s supposed to be a blizzard today.”



“Then get Brad to drive, he has an SUV.”



“I won’t do it.” Brad said from the office.



“New plan, we go beat Brad up and take his keys.” Jordan offered.



“Fine, I’ll do it.”



We got into Brad’s Car and headed towards the house of Richard O’Lanergan.  “This guy doesn’t have a very voodoo warlock name, Jordan.” I said.



“That’s how he fools people.” Jordan replied.



Jordan sometimes says things that make me literally slap my forehead and bring my hand down over my face.  This was one of those face palmingly stupid moments that always make me question why I let him lead me around on these retarded adventures.  To be honest, it’s a combination of fear that Jordan will not like me if I don’t go along on his stupid escapades and fear that if I don’t go with him he’d die.  If I were a religious man, I would have prayed that this didn’t end up with me or Jordan dead or in jail.



We put the address into brads GPS and we drove off.  We passed a lot of cookie cutter houses and cul-de-sacs, nice cars in the driveway, typical suburbia.



The rest of the way the only sound in the car was Brad’s terrible music, I don’t even know what to call it, it sounded like Industrial Japanese techno remixes of Jazz music done by that guy who did all the sounds on “Police Academy”.  What seemed like forever later, Brad’s Gps told us that we had arrived at our destination and Brad came to a stop.  He turned around so that he could face Jordan in the back seat and me in shotgun.



“Did you guys even have a plan for how to go about this? I mean, let’s just say that this isn’t all a figment of Jordan’s drug fueled imagination.  Were you guys just going to go up there and ask nicely?”



“Well, not nicely.” Jordan said indignantly.



“Great, if you’re wrong then we wasted my gas coming out here; if you’re right then we’re pissing off a voodoo priest.”



“I’ve been calling him “Voodude” for short.” Jordan said. “Anyway, I’ve got a plan B, don’t worry.”



Those last two words sent a chill down my spine.  I worry a lot when Jordan says “don’t worry”.  No one would blame you for drawing the line at voodoo priests; no one would begrudge you for it.  Except Jordan.



Except Jordan.



And with that logic, I set out to ask a man I’ve never met if he put a curse on my friend and if he would please remove it.



Jordan, Brad, and myself ran towards what we assumed was the correct house and rang the doorbell.  Thirty seconds later, an elderly woman carting an oxygen canister behind her answered the door.



“Get him!” Jordan screamed and lunged towards the old woman and I was just able to grab him before he tackled her.



Looking up from this lady’s front step, still wrestling with Jordan, I said “Hello, ma’am, sorry to bother you but this wouldn’t happen to be the O’Lanergan house would it?”



She stared at us for a second before she answered “No.” and shut the door.  “She’s full of shit! I bet it’s Voodude casting a spell to make us think he’s an old woman!”



“Will you calm him down?” Brad asked as he gestured to a sign on the side of the house that read “The Marino Family.”  “Let’s get out of here before she calls the cops.”



After we put the correct address into Brad’s GPS and cursed for a few minutes, we started driving towards the edge of town where a much more appropriately terrifying house loomed on the horizon as the GPS made it more and more clear that the ugly two story house with boarded up windows and peeling paint was our destination.



Fighting the urge to turn back and say to hell with it, we parked in the driveway of a house that may have been worth a lot of money at one point in time.  But it looked as though it was abandoned decades ago except for the fact that the porch light that was on.  We got out of the car and walked up to the door and knocked.  After a few seconds the door opened to reveal a tall black man in his late sixties, he was bald except for a horse shoe of white hair that wrapped around the back of his head.  “Uhm, Hi, my name’s Victor, I own the Gold Miner’s pawn shop and I was wondering if we could come in and talk about a recent purchase?”



He looked unsure until he saw Jordan at which point he opened his mouth to reveal a smile that consisted or more empty space than teeth.  Then, in the most ridiculous fake Jamaican accent I’ve ever heard, said “Suuure, mon, come on in.” I wonder if Jordan knows that Jamaica and Haiti are different places, it’s also not New Orleans, maybe he doesn’t know what Voodoo is, at any rate this man doesn’t fit any of the categories.



He lead us through a maze of rooms completely bare of any furniture.  It was like a whole bunch of my first apartments all connected together except I was 70% sure this place didn’t have a heroin dealer living on the second floor.  Finally we got to a room with a fireplace, a few chairs, and a couch.  He gestured for us to take a seat and I noticed that he didn’t really move his arms normally, they kind of twitched. Parkinson’s probably.  As we sat down he sat down to face us and said “So, mon tharr be a problem with me sword? Is he mixing in a pirate accent?



“Not precisely.” I started but was cut off by Jordan.



“Undo your curse you Jamaican pirate voodoo bastard!” Subtlety, thy name is Jordan.



He smiled again and chuckled.  “Dis be only the beginning, matey.”



Brad interrupted, like an asshole, “Ok, am I the only one who doesn’t buy into the whole voodoo curse bullshit?”



“Yarrg, Mon, you be only understandin’ a small part of what really be going on.” He stood up and walked over to the wall and stared at it, like there was a window there.  There was window on the other side of the room though, making his behavior either more or less weird, I can’t figure out which one.  Without turning back around to face us, he continued. “I and I been all over da universe, me hearties, I know how and when everyone on earth is gonna go to Davey Jones locker and all dem lives be nuttin to who I and I sail fer.”



He turned back towards us and for the first time I noticed that his mouth didn’t really quite move with what he was saying, like when the audio is just off on a movie.



            “Who you sail fer?” I asked. Damn it.



            “Aye! Me captain! Him be nuttin like anything you ever seen.  Him Destroy countless worlds better dan Earth with nary a second thought. “This guy is nuts, run and don’t look back, screw Jordan, he shouldn’t be pissing off crazy voodoo pirates anyway.



            “So what are you some kind of demonic Silver Surfer finding worlds for your master to devour?” Jordan asked.  God damn it, Jordan.



“God damn it, Jordan.” I said.  And Voodude looked at me again.



“God? Ha! Him walked the plank!”



“Ok, for everyone’s sake will you please drop the Jamaican pirate thing?” I said.  Immediately I regretted that because the voice that came out of Mr. Richard O’lonergan was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever heard.  It was loud, too loud to be coming out of the form it came from, it sounded like a bear that learned how to speak English but couldn’t ever get over his bear accent.



“Nothing can stop him! Even now he watches you, Victor Nowell, you would do well to not anger him before the consumption, those who have not gained his ire shall be spared on his thousands of teeth.  Those who have shall be digested over the course of millennia and forced to endure every second. He knows that deep down that is what you desire and he will grant that desire.”



I looked at Jordan with an “I told you that you’d be responsible for a Lovecraftian apocalypse to befall earth” look that’s kind of hard to describe in words and he nodded in agreement.  He unzipped the duffel bag he had filled at the shop and pulled out a silver cross that I don’t remember being in the shop.  He also produced a Kid’s Picture Bible, two pistols, what looked like a replica Harry Potter wand, the sword he bought from the bear, and a medium size pump squirt gun, the clear tank revealed it was full.



“What the hell do you expect to do with this?” I demanded.



“Not me, you, you’re the minister.”



“Jordan, damn it, I’m not even Christian.”



“You went to Christian School when you were a kid, you should know how to deal with this!” he shouted



“Oh right, I forgot about “Intro to exorcism: the devil inside of you” in seventh grade. Also, is that a Harry Potter wand?”



“Look, this is Plan B; Plan C is punch Brad in the stomach and hope that Richard eats him first while we run.”



I flipped through the book, passing drawings of Daniel in the lion’s den.  I know how you must have felt, Dan, but I bet the lions weren’t bellowing about eternal pain and suffering inside the belly of a space eel or whatever the hell is going on.



Giving up, I decided to do what I do best, make shit up as I go.  I closed the book and hucked it at Richard’s head which got his attention, but little else.  Bad way to start this fight.



Not really wanting to deal with the public relations nightmare the shop would go through if word got out that I tracked down a customer and shot him in the head, I decided against picking up the gun right away.  That left the wand, the sword, and the squirt gun Oh yeah, this is going just great.



I grabbed the wand, hoping that maybe it was really a novelty stun gun or something, and pointed it at Richard.  “You see this thing I’ve got pointed at you? It uhh makes you sterile if I shoot it at you!” great threat to an elderly man, dumbass.  “and also I can probably stab you with it if you come any closer.”



“muah ha ha, I reproduce by infecting other life forms! I am the most fertile thing you’ve ever seen!” ok, it’s official, worst day at work. Ever.



            Jordan threw the squirt gun at me and I was just a half second from realizing that he threw it when it hit me in the face.  Thinking fast I picked it up and started pumping it to build up pressure.  “This thing’s full of acid! I’ll kill you with it!” I screamed.



“It’s not full of acid, you idiot, the tank is plastic.” Jordan said, fucking two plans up in the span of a five minute period.  “It’s full of holy water! I bought a bunch from some guy a week ago!”



Realizing that it would be both retarded to squirt Richard with the gun and to not squirt him with the gun I went with squirting him.  The water made an arch through the air and landed with a hiss on Richards face.  He screamed in pain as his face bubbled and began to melt, turning jet black as it did so.  The rest of his body was melting now too, forming a shapeless wad in the center of the room.



“Did that actually work?” I blurted out but before I could complete the thought I noticed that the puddle that was Richard O’lanergan was growing.  The black goop smelled like rotting flesh and funnel cakes and was beginning to shoot sharp looking tubes that took the form of a black widow’s leg, only it was 15 feet tall.  The slime seemed to harden when it took its final form and looked like rough obsidian when it did.



Six legs sprouted out of the puddle all together with its front two jointed differently with what looked like oven mitts at the end of them where the hand would be.  The body was flat and wide and seemed to grow from between the legs themselves and when all was said and done the body was about twelve feet long in total, with a scorpion tail curling out from the back that was probably six feet when uncurled.  At what I assumed was the waist the body bent up, leaving the mitted arms above the ground and resting them like a praying mantis.  The head grew from the top of the body that stood six feet off the ground, the head was shaped like an egg and had two clear shields that covered liquid filled cavities that I assumed worked as eyes.



At this point, a small crack appeared at the end where the mouth would be and the thing used its “hands” to pry it apart with a sickening crack and formed the tips into something like a beak.  When it had finished, it roared and some plaster fell from the celing.



“Well. I’d have to say that this is not what I would consider an improvement to the situation, would you, Jordan?”



“Eh, I kinda had a feeling that something like this was going to happen today, my horoscope actually said ‘scorpion demon threatens your life, if you survive, kill a Scorpio.”



“No it didn’t.”



“ok, fine, you win, now do you want a real gun to replace the super soaker?”



I looked down at my hands and then up at the monster that came into my pawn shop the other day and realized that yes, I did want a real gun.



Once I was properly armed, Jordan handed me the sword and gave me a look that was comically serious and said “I think you might need this.”



We turned around and I saw Brad hiding behind the couch, probably thinking something like “they don’t pay me enough for this.” and he’d be right, but he can also just shut right the hell up about it if he knows what’s good for him.  I brought the pistol up and put the head in my sights when Jordan shouted “No!”



“What? Why did you give me a gun if you didn’t want me to shoot him!”



“Bless the bullets first, Vic! You’re a pastor!”



“Oh damn it, seriously? That’s how this is going to pan out? I’m not sure I know how to bless bullets, Jordan, or if you even can.”



Jordan reached into his pocket and produced a pamphlet from some door to door Jesus salesman and said “Turn to the second page.” As I did, Richard started to spit a pink goo that had the consistency and smell of bubble gum but melted through the floor next to us where it fell.  “Time is not on our side here I would say, buddy.”



I turned to the second page and saw, circled in sharpie, a passage that said “The prayer to bless bullets” at the title.  I’ll spare you the actual prayer but rest assured, it was just as dumb as you think it would be.



When I finished the prayer I aimed at the things head and let off two quick shots that hit the chair behind him and the window on the wall opposite us. Hm, it’s not like shooting a pistol in a video game at all, thanks a lot Wikipedia.  I let off a couple more shots that missed and when one bullet ricocheted back and almost hit Jordan he took the gun from me and fired three quick shots into the things stomach.



It screamed and waved its three jointed arms with the oven mitts wildly and finally fell to the ground.  I could see that it was still breathing but it seemed temporarily defeated.



“Vic, the sword, stab him with the sword!” Jordan shouted and I obeyed.  I thrust the blade into the things body at such an angle that it pierced the vertical and horizontal sections of the body.  As I did this, the ground began to shake and the celling started to fall all around us.  A beam almost fell on me when Jordan tackled me which I thought was a bit more dramatic than it needed to be but it is what it is.  The whole house was going to come down and I was going to be damned if I killed a demon and got taken out by some sheetrock.  “Come on Jordan! We’re getting out of here!  I’m not dying during shark week!”



“Thanks for your concern, asshole.” Brad complained like a big complainy baby.



“Sorry, I must have forgotten you were there while you weren’t helping us fight the voodoo bear monster.” I said as I hurdled a knocked fallen bookcase. .  I finally found the front door and threw it open, took one step out and was hit in the face by the very same door.  Falling on my back I looked up at the door and saw that he had one of those springs that stopped it from opening too far connected to it.  I have never seen one of those on a wooden door before and in my newly concussed state, pondered this for a few seconds.  Then the world started to move around me, I looked down at my feet and saw Jordan pulling me out of the front door and onto the front lawn.  Oh and Brad made it out, too.



The house collapsed as soon as we got out and thinking fast, Jordan pulled a bottle of lighter fluid out of his duffel bag that he had grabbed and doused as much of the collapsed house as he could and lit it.  Ok, I said thinking fast but I think I meant the he was thinking like an arsonist quickly.  The house went up with a woomph and we heard a familiar bestial scream from the wreckage.



            We got to the car, Jordan and I wrestled a bit over who would get shotgun, he cheated but got shotgun none the less.  On the drive home I convinced Brad not to play his techno jazz fusion bullshit by taking the cd and throwing it out of the car.  We sat in silence for a long time, none of us quite sure what had just happened.



“So, did we, like, win?” Jordan finally asked, shattering the silence.  Everyone was thinking about what Richard said.  Yarrg, Mon, you be only understandin’ a small part of what really be going on.



            When we got back to the shop, I made an executive decision to close the shop early and go home.  I gave Jordan a ride so he didn’t have to take the Liquor Cycle. We didn’t talk.  That night Robert’s words roared in my sleep.



The next day I got an email congratulating me on becoming a certified Paranormal Investigator and warning me of the dangers that I may encounter, oddly enough “digested for millennia” wasn’t on the list.  I called Jordan to confirm that this was his doing, it was.



“Man, after last night, we can deal with any bitch ghosts. Also, I’ve watched those shows, it’s just a bunch of dumbasses screaming at a dark room.” Glad you’re back to your old self, Jordan.



            I would have argued but I was too tired, I figured that this was going to be more of a passing interest anyway.          The next day, I was at the shop by 7, fell asleep on a Barber chair in the show room for a couple of hours until Brad and Jordan showed up.  Jordan shook me awake and crumpled a piece of paper in my hand.  I looked down to see what it was, my eyes adjusting to being awake.  It was Richard O’Lonergan’s purchase receipt.  Jordan had shoved it in his pocket when we got to Richard’s house the other night.  There was a browning on the front that looked like someone had held a lighter underneath but then decided against it.  I turned the paper over and saw perfectly singed into the paper “Even now he be watchin ye, matey.”



I guess my entire point in sharing this story is to emphasize the importance of boundaries in friendships.  As far as my belief in some kind of God? I’m still by no means convinced but this whole ordeal proved to me that I only understand a small part of what’s going on…matey.  Also, if you ever need the services of a paranormal investigator or a pastor, I know a guy.