Vandal
This story is all too true.The World Cup Semi-Final match between Germany and the USA started at four. Four o’clock in the morning that is. The Red Irishman was in town with his girlfriend Ms Blue, they were on their way to work an organic farm just north of Babylon. They had come to my flat to stay up with me and watch the soccer. We were high. I had been on the chardonnay for I don’t know how many days. I gave the Irishman and Ms Blue a little bit each just to make the night feel like day.
I was proud of our boys. The US national team had never made it that far in World Cup competition. As a show of support, I shaved my head during the half. The Irishman helped me with the finishing touches. The US didn’t win the match despite my rough and tumble new look. I really did look like a criminal with my head shaved and my goatee all long and knotty. As the sun was coming up The Irishman and Ms Blue returned to their accommodations and I got ready for work. I was high.
It was a Friday. This was not the first time I had gone to work after spending the whole night up and laughing and entertaining and just generally high. Work was pretty regular. We weren’t even busy that day. I had lunch in the park and I saw Jeben there. He was with this girl that was from Texas but had just moved to Babylon. She was working at the advertising firm where Jeben worked. Babylon Adwerks was the name I think. Jeben said it was his last day working there and they were throwing him a little party. He asked if I wanted to come. I was in a ragged state so initially I said thanks but no thanks. I explained to Jeben why I couldn’t go and he understood. However he said that if I came down there and had a beer after work he would give me a ride back to my neighborhood. That sounded good to me, when you’ve been up for 48 plus hours the Muni always seemed a little grim especially in Friday rush hour. I said that I would be getting off around six thirty and he said things should be wrapping up over there around seven so it sounded perfect. End the day with a beer at a foreign ad firm and get a ride home in a car, I told Jeben I would be there.
By the time six thirty rolled around I was six ways from fried. I had been sipping from my bag of chardonnay all day and although I was alert I was feeling super frazzled and I really just wanted to go home. My girlfriend Jenny had been in the neighborhood of my office earlier in the afternoon. She was running some errands and she called me from the street outside my office. She had offered to take me home then but I told her about the going away party and that I should stay and work a few more hours. I kissed her goodbye and she drove off on her motorcycle. I wouldn’t speak to her till much later that night.
Jeben’s ad firm wasn’t far from my office, just about three blocks up towards the wharf. I stumbled that way with my shades on even though it was overcast and with my hard new look even though I was feeling particularly soft. Do you know that feeling? You know, soft around the edges and with all your nerves raw and exposed to the world. Maybe your soul feels about the consistency of warm Jell-o. It’s hard to keep it together after a lot of sleep deprivation.
When I got to Babylon Adwerks I was introduced around a bit and Jeben showed me to where I could get a cold Guiness. There was a lot of activity for a Friday night there. Mostly it was people hanging around drinking the spoils of Jeben’s departure. Jeben showed me to his desk. He still had a lot of stuff there. I helped him carry it out to his car and I sat around while he said his goodbyes. There were some cute Ad girls around so things weren’t boring. I was drinking and chatting but I began to feel a great sense of impatience and anxiety. Seven o’clock came and went, then seven thirty and now it’s almost eight in the pm. This wasn’t the quick in and out that Jeben had promised but he had the keys and at this point I wasn’t sure I could even make it home on the train. So I stayed around. People from the Ad firm were calling for a trip to the Crow Bar. Jeben felt obliged and like I mentioned I was in no position to strike out on my own so I agreed to tag along to the Crow Bar. I had swilled two Guiness at this point so I was feeling charming in a totally shattered kind of way.
I liked the Crow Bar. Nice dark bar with two nice pool tables and a great Gotham City kind of view out the back windows. The Crow Bar was one of a couple regular bars right in the middle of the titty district of Babylon Towne right up on high street Broadway. I decided to while away the evening and hopefully forget about my crushing late day anxiety with a relaxing game of pool.
I watched a girl from the Ad agency beat this guy really soundly right before me. She was being really nice and flirty after her big win. She was in fact really nice throughout our game. Now I am not in the habit of letting a person win at pool just because they happen to be female. I am not even really a big fan of letting a girl win in hopes of getting laid. I think equal rights and liberation and all that negate the chauvinism of letting girls win. So I played casually but not sloppy and I ended up winning. Well little Miss ‘flirt her way through the game’ was not happy about losing. I think she felt like flirting with me should have been an automatic win ticket. When I sank the eight ball, this girl who had just been laughing and talking freely with me gave me a dirty look, tossed her cue stick on the table and immediately turned her attention elsewhere. This irked me to no end. What a display of ugly behavior. I was a little hurt. She wasn’t even truthfully interacting with me she was just acting interested to get her way. And she wasn’t even polite enough to say good game or I’ll get you next time or fucking anything for that matter. She just dropped it down and walked the other way. OK, one human acting ugly like only humans can, big deal right? Just go about the rest of your night and forget that, I told myself.
I went over to the area where the Advertising people were sitting and drank another Guiness. The Ad people were freaking me out a little. All their conversations centered around what seemed to me to be shallow and superficial topics. These people, who make the ads, that make the modern cosmologies of our lives, seemed to really believe their own press. It seemed like there was a lot of gossip and backbiting flowing over the top of untold amounts of pints and cocktails. This girl leaned over to me and said, not asked but said,
“You are one of those guys that shaves his head cause your going bald.”
I couldn’t believe it, how rude and how untrue. I tried to explain to her that it was part of a ritual to show support for the US team in the World Cup match that I had watched much earlier that day. She wasn’t having it. It was more than I could handle in my fragile state. I stepped outside the bar for a smoke.
Out on the street the energy was just as ugly as inside the bar. Lots of well-dressed men filled the sidewalks. Their wide-boy gazes and ice grills lead their lust filled heads from bar to bar where the women of the titty district entertained their “gentleman” clients. I could hardly enjoy my cigarette over the smell of desire and desperation. Just as I was forgetting about the scene inside the bar the rude girl that had just insulted my ‘ritual of soccer support hair-style’ appeared next to me.
“Can I have a smoke,” she said.
“Sure,” I said, not wanting to repay rudeness with loathing.
She halfheartedly apologized and assented that my hair cut could be related to some kind of ritual. She was condescending. She said she was sorry and that she would like to buy me a beer. I said OK, mistaking her shit for sincerity.
It was getting dark. Inside the Crow Bar night had already grabbed hold of the scene and the fever pitch of sin and decay had everyone right where it wanted them. The rude girl beckoned me to the bar. She asked me what I wanted. I said I’ll have a Guiness please, like I always do when I approach a bar. Well it turned out that she only had enough money to buy herself a drink. I rolled my eyes and pulled out my wallet and paid for my own drink. As we were waiting for the beverages Jeben came over with these two friends and explained that they wanted to get some chardonnay. They knew I was high and they figured I could get some for them.
Now at this point I am still not on my way home. I didn’t know what time it was. I knew that it was nighttime and I was shattered and I wanted to be away from the bar and these people and the titty district and all that shit. I tried to tell Jeben’s friends that I couldn’t get them any drugs, that I had gotten the chards from a friend and I had no real connections. Just then I saw the rude girl pick up both drinks and head for the tables where the Ad people were sitting. She looked at me and motioned with her eyes that she would be over there. I finished my dealings with the two kids who wanted drugs from me that I didn’t have. I asked Jeben when he was leaving and pleaded with him to make it soon. He assured me he would be leaving after the next drink.
I headed over to the bad tables. I found rude girl but I couldn’t see any Guiness. I asked her where she put my drink and she sort of shrugged and said,
“I don’t know, its around here somewhere, you know people are getting a little grabby at this point in the night.”
Well that was it. That was my breaking point. I snapped. I have always had a temper problem but this was a bit more like a psychotic episode. I wanted to get away from these monsters. I grabbed my jacket and headed out into the street. Once out on the sidewalk I really lost it. I started telling everyone I saw in a loud voice~
“You better get out of Babylon before the fire go BAHN.”
To the bouncer of the nearest titty joint~
“You better get out of Babylon before the fire go BAHN.”
To the Japanese business men looking for a little action~
“You better get out of Babylon before the fire go BAHN.”
To the nearest unsuspecting bum
“You better get out of Babylon before the fire go BAHN.”
I started walking downhill back to Battery Street and I stated kicking things, first a sign, then some trashcans, and then a gap ad on one of those advertising kiosks. I was so very lived. I was pissed not only at the current situation but I was pissed at society for being so fucking ugly and I was pissed at all humans for treating each other with such lack of respect I was pissed at myself for not just going home after work. At the bottom of the hill I calmed down a little bit having spent some energy on kicking and screaming.
I headed back up the hill slowly hoping that I would run into Jeben as he walked back to his car. Sure enough just as I was about to cross the street to go back into the Crow Bar Jeben came out with the two friends, a guy and a girl, that he had introduced me to. They were the ones who wanted some drugs. I was calmer now and I told Jeben I had to get home. He was ready to go and they were walking back to his car right now. I thought I had calmed down but judging by the reactions I was getting from these kids I knew that I must have still looked a bit flustered. As we turned onto the street where Jeben’s car was parked the guy took out a flask and handed it to me. It was whiskey. If you are my friend you will never give me whiskey. It has a tendency to make me hot and mad. I was already hot and mad but I took a deep swig anyway. I think that was the last bit of foreign substance that my body and mind could tolerate.
As we rounded the corner to Jeben’s car he went over to some bushes and told us to go on, that he had to pee. Parked right under a streetlight, next to a swank office building, there sat a material symbol of all that was evil and wrong with our society. There sat a brand new four door, BMW sedan, champagne color. Who really needs a 60,000-dollar automobile? What better example of a broken society whose gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ seems to widen daily. This is what was going through my drug-addled mind. This is the real momentary lapse of reason in this story. I was feeling so damn destructive.
Much to the dismay of present company I ran from about 15 feet away and I kicked that car right in the door with all the rage and intensity that had been building up inside me. I kicked the shit out of it. I put a dent in that car that could be seen from space. I took out all that mad at society bullshit on that poor luxury sedan. Panic set in all around. Jeben’s friends look scared and he looked pissed. Jeben said,
“We better get out of here, everybody get in the car.”
As we are all trying to get into the car and get away, Jeben noticed a dude across the street, a concerned citizen if you will. He already had a little notebook out and was writing something down. I suggested that~
“You better get out of Babylon before the fire go BAHN.”
Jeben also raised his voice in hopes of scaring the guy off. We decided to fuck it and we got into the car. Just as Jeben started the engine a police car rolled by. The concerned citizen flagged the car down and within seconds they had pulled up behind us and turned on the lights.
BOOP
As the officers approached the car I got out and put my hands on my head and claimed immediate responsibility for what had happened. I didn’t want Jeben or his unsuspecting pals to get into any trouble. There wasn’t much to sort out. There was the witness and my confession and the dent. They took me away in the squad car. They charged me with Felony Vandalism because the car was worth more than fifty thousand. In the first booking station they were looking through my possessions. I saw them open my wallet where my tiny bag of chardonnay was tucked back in one of the pockets. I saw the arresting officer look in that pocket but by the grace of God he didn’t find the drugs. Man I would have really been up shit creek if that had happened. They took me downtown. Everyone that I had to tell what happened looked at me like I was an animal. I guess I was. I called Jenny. She called Will. He bailed me out. I used my shoes for a pillow in the drunk tank that night. In my mug shot I look like a hardened criminal what with the goatee and shaved head and not feeling particularly happy about the situation. I didn’t like jail and I never want to be incarcerated again. I got assigned pretrial diversion. I did fifty hours of community service and I paid restitution. I learned a hard lesson. Soon after that I left Babylon Towne.
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