Adios, 2010

Adios, 2010

It was cold and brisk at the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Cahuenga right below the sign that read "Raymond Chandler Square"...it was New Year's Eve in Hollywood and every amateur yodeler from the boy band choir with every sexually ambiguous reality show harpie was out for blood while the presence of vice cop squadrons circled like vultures looking for carnage to ingest...I came up behind him as he looked across the street to the news stand that was doing a brisk business in packs of smokes...he had his collar pulled up and his hat pulled down in the most un-incognito manner ever...I just missed bumping into a drunk couple who were busy arguing because the guy had spent their pizza money on new "affliction" clothes for the night "you want me to look good, don't you? I couldn't wear that ed hardy stuff from last New Year's Eve, baby, we don't need any pizza slices anyway, I'll get you a dirty dog when the guy comes out with the cart, lets get some more free champagne for now" as he burped that tell-tale belch the premeditated the vomit to come a lil' later...she lights into him, with slurring invectives on cue, "I can't believe you didn't keep enough for a fuckin' slice a pizza? you fuckin' moron, I am a fuckin' pregnant grad student, I need some carbs before I get more drunk on vodka and monster, maybe I should have slept with your best friend? my news years resolution is to go back to Florida and be a hand model or something and blog about what a shitty place LA is"...this is what Hollywood had come to, a bunch of reality show zombies, wolf packs of drunken girls stumbling down the street in miniskirts barefoot, holding pumps in their hands that they got behind in the rent to buy for NYE, as they are closely followed by roving bands of drunken young men trying so hard to swagger gangster with hair gel hats and matching jean shirt combos that lurch and leer at every open space they think is fuckable...I walk up behind my man and I tell him "you'll never make it across the street without someone spotting you, the jig is up, old friend, everybody here wants to tear you to pieces and forget they ever knew you, you have been the most bullshit year full of more bullshit and bullshit people than anyone has seen in a long time, you got it it coming, but I think I can help you out of here, you gotta do what I say though, no quick moves, turn to your left and walk slowly toward the black car parked at the curb right there"...he slowly starts to comply, which is fine, any more quick moves from this character and I will do him right here and leave him the light of the Greco's pizza neon signage to die in the piss and the scum the way he deserves for what he has done to everybody...no jury or court in the world would hold me accountable...he must have known, I could feel his sulk deepen with every step..."I just wanted one last smoke before we go, smoking has gone out of style, just like me" he whines...I flare my nostril, and tell him in his ear with a snort from over his shoulder, "smoking went out of style way before you came along, bub, you can't take credit for that fuck up, you want a sympathy party, it ain't gonna happen here, I got all the smoke you will ever need right in the trunk of this car" then I reach around him and pop the trunk while I put my hand in the square of his back and take one last glance around for the vice squad...I push him down into it and he spins in midair as if to face me, but I belt him good as he goes down into the darkness of the visquine lined trunk as I push his knees in on top of him...he tries to raise up, but I bring the lid down with force on his head and then I slam it again to get him to put his fingers in...the third slam is the charm as I hear the latch catch and I run to the front of the car and open the driver's side door and hop in...the engine is warm enough still so I just dump it in drive and move out smooth so as to make it through the sobriety check point...I am sober as fuck, but I can't take the chance that this yahoo is gonna try to bang on the trunk or something to attract attention...even though, me and him, we both know that nobody gives a fuck about the last ride he is taking...most of those cops would give me a medal if they could...I put on the right turn signal as I hit the 101 south entrance and I ride through the drunken dumb luck traffic to the 10 east...I head out on the 10 past Kellog Hill and through the IE to the lights of the Morongo Casino and the shadows of the Cabazon dinosaurs...I keep heading past the all wind turbines and hang a left to the high desert toward Joshua Tree...I keep going toward j Tree, but hang a inconspicuous left on Old Woman Springs Road...I keep rolling past the Integratron and then past the ruins of Giant Rock airport on the open dirt roads...I drive to a place I know where few people ever go...I wait for the signal..a phone call from a blocked number right before midnight...the phone vibrates like I knew it would and I begin by taking a shovel and a short pry bar out of the back seat that is sitting on top of 3 30 lb bags of lye...I move around to the trunk after sticking the shovel into the ground...the starlight is bright, and I drove the last 8 miles without headlights, so my eyes are well adjusted for work...I pop open the trunk and his gangly arms and legs spring out like surreal jack in the box toys...I start tuning him up with the pry bar section...not enough to disable him completely, but enough to take the last fight away...typically, in dealing with a piece of shit like this, I miss and pinch a couple of knuckles, I tried not to let it get to me so I did not lose the composure necessary to tune him right enough so he could still do what I needed him to do...I shut the trunk and took a long walk in the desert, looking at all the mystery that had passed me by, all my selfish actions that had gotten in the way of some sort of life that I couldn't understand, all the things people say and do that made this year so painfully reprehensible and corrupt with talks of what might happen and what really happened instead...I am no victim here, I wanted things to work out in ways I had never known, but that can make me a sucker for a good line now and then and I can purposely ignore the hidden red flags...some amazing things had happened in this last, beautiful and unforgettable things...but, there was the other things..the lines that should not be crossed, the reasoning that should not be applied, the way you can't say anything in your defense and you have to hold your hands at your sides while it works you over, works us all over...some didn't make it...but, that's only part of it, because every year only holds so much hope, but this year got greedy over it, took some from the future that it couldn't pay back...promised some in return for sacrifice that it wouldn't have ever made itself and demanded that we make first..it really was a year that thought it deserved a party and a send off, like it had done something special and gave so much back in hard times..but, people aren't as stupid as last year had figured, they got wise to him pretty quick and watched him pretty close, some even as seconds went by, all full of bullshit two faced promises that kept building on one another until the bullshit was piled so high an earth mover couldn't do nothing about it...I wasted a lot of time, but it was a good sized trunk and I knew he had enough air to last...I walked back to the car and looked up at the vast milky way above as I walked...I had walked a ways from the car and was surprised a lil' by how much time it took to walk around in the dark silence of the lonely desert in order for me to get my head straight..but, I was real straight about now and was steel in my resolve...I took that fucker out of my trunk as soon as I got back to the car and just as dawn was barely breaking above the purpled bruising of distant mountain ranges in this remote desert location...I threw him down next to the shovel after a good whack with the pry bar across the chops so he wouldn't mouth off...I had been listening to his bullshit for a solid year and his year was way past up now...I made him dig his own shallow grave about 3-4 feet deep...I hit him in the head with the shovel after I snatched it from him, he was too weak to put up any more of a fight...he motioned for a smoke as he lay there in the ditch...I hit him a couple of times more for good measure...then I quickly dug his teeth out with my bowie knife and put 90 lbs. of lye on him before I shoveled on more dirt, put the shovel down, pissed a long streamy piss on the mound, picked up the shovel and put some more sand on top, covered that with some rocks, and drove back through the desert to LA so I could be here with you...wearing the grin of my 2010 teeth necklace as I bask in the first morning light of 2011, singing "come on, baby, do a lil' dance for me" as I slowly go into a cold, noisy sleep...