Jack In The Polyvalent Jungle

Jack In The Polyvalent Jungle

“Welcome, enjoy your stay”, says one of seven random hotel room key cards of various venues all past their expiration, but still very much active in other endeavors. So we begin the story of our last three or however many sleepless days and nights as I stare at all the hookers’ hotel cards. My name is jack. Welcome to the jungle.

Me and my girl Diane pull into the cookie cutter drive of a familiar friend’s place, Don Q. We step out into the cold, forlorn wind doing more than gentle nipping at our cheeks. Like franticly running for cover to a foxhole, into the bunker at the turn of a knob, one of the usual, plain, tarnished brass, discerning sort. It represents expectations, nothing glorious or anything.

After a short stay of uncomfortable social exchange with Don Q’s Family, Diane and myself all but recluse into the shadows of the rock that towers over the backyard for a quick pick me up before we roll back down the hill. By the good grace of our host, the family has left, and left us they have, with plenty of lines, wine, and thrills to be had.

There is so much jammed into this place by the end of this journey, I am befuddled to see these walls didn’t blow outwardly while simultaneously flipping to a reverse image of what’s usually seen on the outside damn near instantly turning it to the inside, before the roof comes down, “magically”, we’ll call it, falls back into place. What is it? Or did the wall blow out and this imagined obtuse, cardiovascularly abused, decrepit hell actually introspectively take shape? Only the few survivors still in this circus freak sideshow can truthfully answer that. We’re all inside out, letting it all hang out.

I know for myself, my brain is squirming like a worm dropped into mescal. I think, how would Hemingway see this vodka? 1.75 liter, is it 1/10 full, or 9/10 empty. Neither, it’s nearly gone, and when it is, all to worry is feeding my liver before it gets uneasy. Feeding time is always nigh. That’s how I believe Hemingway would proceed, so I react accordingly, justly.

This is not a simple journey into a sub-culture you may or may not be versed with. This is a dirty, dark room with repetitive hammering into your senses of the atrocities that normally go unnoticed all around you. There is no escape, unless you go blind.
Now that the foreshadowing is out of the way, I swat at my formerly known companions hand, and it wafts through. Shadows are after my cocaine again, shifty camouflage thief. I have to remind myself it’s not real before I digress further, but these figments of illusion are well blended into the environment, with their full body black cloud suits and funeral parlor cigar devil smirks. I wasted a might bit with the aggressive passing of my hand through that cold black cloud. Ironic isn’t it? I swat at ghosts that I think are going for the last line, and lose a portion because of it… Guzzle. Sniff. Back on track.

With vanguard at rest… God dammit, spoke too soon. “Strawberry shortcake” is on her way to stroll through the garden of love and hate. She knows her way, as do I. I am going to move my soon to be very cranky serotonin depleted Diane to bed. She keeps yelling at me in her sleep. It’s bad enough I deal with it when she’s awake, now this, for fuck’s sake. She is quite heavily sedated at the moment, and barely stirs as I upheave her corpse. I will have a half of her tranquilizer, too keep the shadows at bay, you know? Hell, she’s still alive and not sure if I can count to the amount of milligrams she ingested.

After all the trouble I have been through to get her these little candies and other tic-taccish sorts, I should have been laid three times over by now. I was not alone in procuring though, my good friend and host of the circus, Don Q willingly embarks with copasetic bliss. We crossed a nuclear body of water to get to a bar situated, no lie, right on top of the waste dump. A dump I was legally escorted out of some years prior for committing mutiny and actions of reckless abandon. In the process I took some staff with me. I was once a rock star employee at this dump. Yeah, I’m proud of that.

I am back in the wasteland now, with unfortunately misinformed Don Q. After we creeped like floating muskrats across the dinged floor, shimmying and shaking to the rhythm of some band who has shit in their horns, a rusty harmonica in this old coot’s throat they call a singer, an out of tune guit-fiddle being played by what I think is the inflatable pilot from the classic movie ‘Airplane’, and a guy on drums that looks like he died in the calamitous natural disaster that occurred in Johnstown, 1889, dubbed the great flood. I am from that area, and I swear I saw him in my living room when I was a wee little tot at the age of 4. Damn ghosts. I aint afraid a no ghosts. I will never forget that bastard’s ghastly face, and there he is, looking like he is stroking out, sweating profusely to the point it seems he has added a whole inch more of polluted water to this disgusting lake. He is playing well compared to the rest of his… Ensemble? Asshole. Forever. You Anglo-American Johnstown prick.

Coming out of this vivid recollection of what I perceive to be one hundred ten percent accurate, a mathematically impossible thing in this world. The world where these quite affluent pricks lie and have been systematically introduced to this… “music”, and now like it because they are brainwashed by the masterminds behind it all. The prominent family known as the ‘O’realys’, their methods a little more secret than ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’s’ recipe. I realize these old denture wearing, Tom Collins drinking, handicap sticker toting, perfectly healthy, 90/10 insurance, trust-fund forever, still collecting retirement from a business they never have even seen, dockers wearing, looking old excuses of what could have been a great lamp shade a long time ago if our past time villain, Buffalo Bill would of gotten to them. Even though they seem clueless, collectively through a checks and balance system they perfected after that famous tea event most of us real Americans could give a box of polligrip denture adhesive about. But not knowing exactly how long they have been staring at me, I wink at them in charismatic reassurance with my cartoon blue owl eyes.

That didn’t seem to put those civil war relics at ease, so I turn, shout overly loud at the bartender, “Troublemakers”! I then proceed to ask for three Sam Adams, and a Jack and coke with a fancy splash of Amaretto. Receive, tip very poorly, turn around to see them nearly motionless, but still thinking they are dancing like Travolta in ‘Saturday Night Fever’, and I am a challenger on their domain. I spin three hundred sixty degrees, and show them what it’s like to not have arthritis. Three Sams between my fingers, all in one hand, no arthritis, I yell louder than Harmonica voice on stage, “Thank you for your contributions at the Boston Tea Party”!

In between waiting for my next drink, because the first one went down like water as I was nervous about the old mob, I spot Don Q chatting up a mother/daughter duo. I should be single right now, as I am unsexed, picking up drugs for my passed out girlfriend, and these girls want to party. I see Don Q pocket a few Tic-Tac pills. Guess they were horny and had the hookup. A good combination.
I turn to the ol’ geezers and announce “my girl ‘Bama is raffling off tickets for polident at the front bar”. What they really heard was bitches dancing in water, Allah Hammer at the front bar. They bought it, hook line and… You’re welcome ‘Bama, just sent you at least eight more dollars.

“Yes, we have been introduced, my name is Jack, I forgot your name again”. “They are on drugs” I hear a cougar nearby say. God damn right we are, all the right ones. Her daughter in reply to my statement just repeats “what” a few times, and I blatantly ignore her rebuttal request. She isn’t all that much to look at, but I’d tie her up and get kinky under the right circumstances. She continues to sip her seasonal shit-on-a-rice-paddy draught beer, and says “what” one more time.

“Let’s smoke a cig Don Q, that drummer is looking at me funny, and we gotta get goin’ soon”. Don Q disappears again. The huge hired police officer looks at me questioningly. Not this time, I recognize him; it’s Heath, the officer who escorted me out years ago. The biggest, queerest piggy on this side of the radioactive pond. I am confident my disguise of freshly shaved two days ago will get me by this tree stump, badge wearing leader of the opposition, possibly in the ‘wide load popo’ division. He steps aside after exchanging an awkward stare with me. I guess he’s not use to seeing people without grey hair around these parts.
A putrid breeze caresses me on the face like an old woman without dentures and with gum rot as I step outside. The lake is nuclear, glowing (probably only to me), and permeating my nasal passages, removing the smell of gold digging dirty whores and cheesy curd-between-wrinkles smells from the previous climate. An upgrade, undoubtedly.

I see a guy eyeballing me, looks to be about as poor as me, maybe a few years older. God dammit, I know him. Bayne, ‘The Molester’. Nobody cares about this guy’s life. I tried to quickly talk to anyone nearby, but it was too late. I am sluggish after parachuting so much ‘Molly’ down my gullet. I begin playing a bas rich song in my head I often revert to for comfort in dire times of need. Times like this where in a linear world I would beat his ass when I found him moving like a slug, creeping his fat fucking fingers all over my ex’s ass after she passed out on the couch. In a believable linear world it would have been my ex-girlfriend listening to me, and staying away from this creep. But that is too unbelievable. All sane and logic, reason and trust, or apparently fucking on ‘Molly’ is a distant, far linear galaxy. I am standing here ready to skedaddle, politely nodding my head to him, and trying to reply with my Swahili clicking dialect to whatever he is saying. I think it is coming out understandable to him.

I give him my drink. If he is swallowing my booze I can make a break between gulps, and that’s how the dynamite goes boom. I see a girl walking towards me, and even if I don’t know her, I will introduce Bayne to her. I am sorry for her, he is a molester, but right now he is molesting my patience. Oh for crack and ice! It’s the whore of the hour, the town, she’s traveled far, and rode hard, all the way from her home to escape judging eyes, and this sexual deviant has tramp-stamped every trailer park from here to Kalamazoo. It’s Sharona, but never my Sharona, I assure you. First thing I do is say “Hello”, cordialities out of the way, “Bayne, I’d like to introduce you to an old friend of mine. This is Kristy Gulpton”. “She is a god fearing woman with a heart of gold”, the sarcasm being forked out like the devil’s tongue.

“Good timing Don Q”, we hit the door to once again traverse the floor which is strangely more empty than earlier. This must not be a popular song. Reminds of the Simon and G megahit, ‘Sound of Silence’, but it’s totally silent. Music to my ears. Shit, I lost Don Q again.

I decide it’s a grandiose time to say hello to ‘Bama. She looks exhausted. Or is that my perception of myself outwardly projecting. Sleep is not rewarded in this world. I decide it’s better if I slip out the back door unnoticed, before the denture gang I sent here earlier sees me. I don’t want any trouble.

Alright, alright, alright, as fate would have it, there’s Don Q in the distance chatting it up with a little dirty ditty. She is walking backwards… Beginning to wonder if I am living in a VCR, and the ‘Real’ human is rewinding time and really screwing with my AI… PLAY: Awww yeah granny , let me see them titties. STOP: I turn around just in time to look at the girl; she says “I’ll beat your ass too”!

That went well. We hop in the car somewhat overstimulated and in shock, and proceed to process the events as best we can. All that way for one point five milligrams, not a complete bust, but damn.
It is at this time I bestow a sparkling diamond of knowledge onto Don Q. “Even though we haven’t slept in days, swamp ass is a real disorder among multiple day benders. I recommend we shower when we get to the house.” Among my friends and acquaintances are anomalies, the people who don’t need to stop, ever. We are coined as ‘Party Monsters’, for our marathon qualities not athletically synonymous. “Yeah, I’m starting to chafe”.

“But fuck it” Don Q says, “Want to go to ‘Flip Iron’”? I mean, yeah, bar hopping sounds fun, and we can bounce off wall to wall boulder holders, possibly even pong some balls into solo cups. “Yeah, but first we need to pick up the girls. They need their medicine”. It’s the doctor in me, gotta take care of my patient, Diane. And I want to put my doctor member in her doctor member place. Don Q says, “Call them. Tell them to stop fucking, put some clothes on and get ready. We are ten out”.
It’s difficult to be in a hurry on this particular cocktail of medications. Most of them don’t come with warning labels, but if they did, most of them would most definitely say “do not operate a vehicle’. We hunker down and head for the rhubarb. Don Q is speeding, but very inconspicuously in his mechanical deal.