The Moment He Waited For
Escobar stood confidently in the entryway of the new-age gin joint, hands akimbo on his hips, as if he'd never left the place. In truth, it had been over 3 months since his last sojourn to "Larry's Loco Limbo Lounge." Backlit by the bright blue nightlights on Colt Street, he sauntered in as a silouhette of chunky hair spikes, a headband and clearly fashionable clothes.
No one said a word or even looked up from their drinks or conversations, none as impressed with his entrance as much as Escobar himself; neither did he go unnoticed. Illuminated by the gauzy purple lights near the frontmost tables, his outfit came into high relief: thick, black, plastic-framed glasses with red lenses; a blazing orange-yellow-red tracksuit, white pinstripes in all the right places; and an inexplicable sign pasted to his forehead that read "No War!" The sign was a collage of cut-out letters (in the style of the cover of Never Mind the Bullocks Here's the Sex Pistols) which were stuck onto a yellow cardstock backing that had been cut into a sunburst pattern.
He stood by the bar, pretending to be inconspicuous, waiting to be noticed. Noticed. Wasn't that why he gave in to this urge again? Yes; the urge came to him more often now than it used to. It came to Jack Manny, really, as he pissed away yet another office workday, the venetian blinds drawn. Manny had worked for Johannsen's Polycarbonates, Inc. since putting in his 70-hour days during law school, and his routine had been dwindling to less and less every fucking day. Standing in Larry's, starting to feel the heat rise down there, he pushed away the laundry list of thoughts -- prune that tree in the backyard, pick up Ellie's dry cleaning, take the kids out to Kohl's to buy school clothes. He tried to remember how many years it had been since he first tried on the Escobar persona... 3? 4? Something like that. He figured that by now, they all expected to see him every few months: "There's Escobar again. What new insane revelation will he tell us? What entertaining visions and secret information will he bring back from the Underground?"
Walking the 8 blocks to Larry's from the parking ramp, the plan for the night had congealed. He decided to raise the stakes. He imagined dropping a few key hints that Escobar was not all that he seemed to be; that he might be, in fact, an undercover federal agent working counterintelligence. Manny's skin crawled delightfully as he imagined the possibilities.
Finally the bartender moved, having waited the requisite 5 minutes of disinterest. "Long time, man. What's the deal?" Escobar leaned in, wild-eyed, pupils dilated tenfold but not sweating and not shaking. "It's been muy loco, amigo. I'll tell you that nothing could have prepared me for the crazy shit I seen. Hey man, you heard anything I should know about? I heard some whacked-out fucked-up shit goin' on over here, man." It was a risky and possibly stupid thing to say so early in the conversation, and Manny knew it, but he was becoming less and less Manny very quickly. That was what he wanted, what he'd pined for over those 3 interminable months.
"What? Only thing I can tell you that might be fucked up is that I've had 3 other dudes in here lately going by the name of Pablo Escobar... but I serve them same as you, and never see 'em again." Escobar lifted his green drink off the counter, sipped it carefully, cradled it, set it back down.
"No shit, amigo? What can I say?" Don't freak out... just grin. Lift... sip... cradle... down. "Some weird mierda!" Oh, fuck... lift, sip, cradle, down. "So, you know, I gotta poke 'round tu casa a bit... but I'll catch ya for the next one, yo." Lift, sip, cradle, then walk away cool and slow.
He approached the dancefloor in the back, its scotomatous lights meandering on the wall behind an aloof "DJ" running the show from a Powerbook atop his platform. Two people groped each other -- the only 2 dancing at all, in fact. Male? Female? Escobar couldn't tell, but it was hot. He felt the old sensations getting stronger. Felt good. Mr. Mojo rising. Got to keep on rising.
But no. He got real cold, real fast. His vision had adjusted to the darkness in the back of the bar. In the dim non-light he saw, among the scattered half-empties on a table pushed up against the wall opposite the DJ, a stuffed novelty pillow -- the kind kids make in home ec class, he guessed -- with chunky spiked hair, headband, thick-framed red glasses, big dumb smile. He turned away in revulsion, catching a few people in the booths looking at him (before they caught themselves and turned back to their drinks). He felt like vomiting but instead lifted, sipped, cradled, and stepped closer to the DJ platform. A new track booted up and started to pump, getting a few of the heathens onto the floor, followed by a few more, and then a few more. In 30 seconds Escobar felt safer, surrounded by the friendly faces and their warm bodies, almost totally blocking his view of the table with the stuffed cabeza on it. Perfect. He started to groove and loosened up, setting his green drink aside for the moment.
At Larry's (and a few of the other fringe bars in town), it was common to see the younger set dressed up in costume, and that night was no exception. The walls were lined with at least 2 devils, 2 baby girls, a bull, and a teddy bear. A tall gray alien girl, wrapped in a trenchcoat, walked gingerly up to the dance floor. She thought twice about dancing, but opted instead to stay on the border zone between dancefloor and drinking floor, watching from the shadows and getting up the nerve to go for it. A man with his face obscured by the dark walls approached her, as did another man, then another. The patrons seemed oblivious, except Escobar, who approached as well. The first 2 men grabbed and tore back both sides of her trench coat, then reached in and ripped the alien costume from the midline of its abdomen (an apparent weak spot). Under the costume, the girl was nude and dangerously thin, and apparently African. Her mask fell off as the costume came apart, and she started to scream. The scream was quickly stifled by the 3rd man. They motioned to Escobar. He closed in. Was he drooling? This was, after all, the moment he'd been waiting for.
No one said a word or even looked up from their drinks or conversations, none as impressed with his entrance as much as Escobar himself; neither did he go unnoticed. Illuminated by the gauzy purple lights near the frontmost tables, his outfit came into high relief: thick, black, plastic-framed glasses with red lenses; a blazing orange-yellow-red tracksuit, white pinstripes in all the right places; and an inexplicable sign pasted to his forehead that read "No War!" The sign was a collage of cut-out letters (in the style of the cover of Never Mind the Bullocks Here's the Sex Pistols) which were stuck onto a yellow cardstock backing that had been cut into a sunburst pattern.
He stood by the bar, pretending to be inconspicuous, waiting to be noticed. Noticed. Wasn't that why he gave in to this urge again? Yes; the urge came to him more often now than it used to. It came to Jack Manny, really, as he pissed away yet another office workday, the venetian blinds drawn. Manny had worked for Johannsen's Polycarbonates, Inc. since putting in his 70-hour days during law school, and his routine had been dwindling to less and less every fucking day. Standing in Larry's, starting to feel the heat rise down there, he pushed away the laundry list of thoughts -- prune that tree in the backyard, pick up Ellie's dry cleaning, take the kids out to Kohl's to buy school clothes. He tried to remember how many years it had been since he first tried on the Escobar persona... 3? 4? Something like that. He figured that by now, they all expected to see him every few months: "There's Escobar again. What new insane revelation will he tell us? What entertaining visions and secret information will he bring back from the Underground?"
Walking the 8 blocks to Larry's from the parking ramp, the plan for the night had congealed. He decided to raise the stakes. He imagined dropping a few key hints that Escobar was not all that he seemed to be; that he might be, in fact, an undercover federal agent working counterintelligence. Manny's skin crawled delightfully as he imagined the possibilities.
Finally the bartender moved, having waited the requisite 5 minutes of disinterest. "Long time, man. What's the deal?" Escobar leaned in, wild-eyed, pupils dilated tenfold but not sweating and not shaking. "It's been muy loco, amigo. I'll tell you that nothing could have prepared me for the crazy shit I seen. Hey man, you heard anything I should know about? I heard some whacked-out fucked-up shit goin' on over here, man." It was a risky and possibly stupid thing to say so early in the conversation, and Manny knew it, but he was becoming less and less Manny very quickly. That was what he wanted, what he'd pined for over those 3 interminable months.
"What? Only thing I can tell you that might be fucked up is that I've had 3 other dudes in here lately going by the name of Pablo Escobar... but I serve them same as you, and never see 'em again." Escobar lifted his green drink off the counter, sipped it carefully, cradled it, set it back down.
"No shit, amigo? What can I say?" Don't freak out... just grin. Lift... sip... cradle... down. "Some weird mierda!" Oh, fuck... lift, sip, cradle, down. "So, you know, I gotta poke 'round tu casa a bit... but I'll catch ya for the next one, yo." Lift, sip, cradle, then walk away cool and slow.
He approached the dancefloor in the back, its scotomatous lights meandering on the wall behind an aloof "DJ" running the show from a Powerbook atop his platform. Two people groped each other -- the only 2 dancing at all, in fact. Male? Female? Escobar couldn't tell, but it was hot. He felt the old sensations getting stronger. Felt good. Mr. Mojo rising. Got to keep on rising.
But no. He got real cold, real fast. His vision had adjusted to the darkness in the back of the bar. In the dim non-light he saw, among the scattered half-empties on a table pushed up against the wall opposite the DJ, a stuffed novelty pillow -- the kind kids make in home ec class, he guessed -- with chunky spiked hair, headband, thick-framed red glasses, big dumb smile. He turned away in revulsion, catching a few people in the booths looking at him (before they caught themselves and turned back to their drinks). He felt like vomiting but instead lifted, sipped, cradled, and stepped closer to the DJ platform. A new track booted up and started to pump, getting a few of the heathens onto the floor, followed by a few more, and then a few more. In 30 seconds Escobar felt safer, surrounded by the friendly faces and their warm bodies, almost totally blocking his view of the table with the stuffed cabeza on it. Perfect. He started to groove and loosened up, setting his green drink aside for the moment.
At Larry's (and a few of the other fringe bars in town), it was common to see the younger set dressed up in costume, and that night was no exception. The walls were lined with at least 2 devils, 2 baby girls, a bull, and a teddy bear. A tall gray alien girl, wrapped in a trenchcoat, walked gingerly up to the dance floor. She thought twice about dancing, but opted instead to stay on the border zone between dancefloor and drinking floor, watching from the shadows and getting up the nerve to go for it. A man with his face obscured by the dark walls approached her, as did another man, then another. The patrons seemed oblivious, except Escobar, who approached as well. The first 2 men grabbed and tore back both sides of her trench coat, then reached in and ripped the alien costume from the midline of its abdomen (an apparent weak spot). Under the costume, the girl was nude and dangerously thin, and apparently African. Her mask fell off as the costume came apart, and she started to scream. The scream was quickly stifled by the 3rd man. They motioned to Escobar. He closed in. Was he drooling? This was, after all, the moment he'd been waiting for.
posted by B.O.R.T. at 9:51 AM
2 Comments:
Escobar (or Excobar as I call him) had a fairly interesting life considering he was a typical pedophile in the end. I guess it was just a persona that old Jack was putting on, but it really doesn't make his behavior okay. This, of course, is just my brief judgement of a man that might just be a great person if I'd give him a chance. But fuck chances, especially in this case. I can't deal with the stuffed animal heads and costumes like you. Yes, the willingness to give a man a second chance is truly just, but not if said man dabbles in the strange world of costume rape and animal head. Did this really happen in a dream? I had a dream last night- that an old man pulled up his boat to my dock and asked me to throw away his crack stash. I did. You're welcome.
well, by "the younger set" i didn't mean to imply that the character was a pedophile really, because in the dream i had the alien-african "girl" was more of a college-age type/"young woman" and so on. but still.
in any event, yes, unfortunately, i had that dream, although i seemed to be an innocent onlooker on the whole affair, which is always weird because then you're like "maybe this actually happened in a parallel universe, or maybe in another lifetime that my sould had or will have." but then again, freud or jung or somebody believed that all people in a dream represented the dreamer. most of us know better than to make to much of these things i suppose, but it was memorable.
but overall, i embellished the dream's story quite a good bit, really.
as far the old man pulling up to your dock... that's awesome. that might make an interesting story, too, who knows.
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