The Writing Of Johnny Pain
Spits and Migulapuddy tooled through the back alleys of Chicago's shady Westside, part of a gypsy caravan of beat up pick ups cruising from dumpster to dumpster, seeking out whatever they thought they could sell; mostly scrap metal, but they found all kinds of stuff: TV's, dishes, clothes... They sold everything to an Arab guy, who owned a stop and go, and his son sold it all on EBay, but the two crack head had no clue about that side of things. They barely talked to the Arab guy, tried to get in and out quick with the money, always in a rush to purchase their tickets to Suffragette City and fly away from the garbage. They got money, partied, crashed; got money, partied, crashed; got money, partied crashed...
Spits was driving a classic bum mobile, 83 Ford pick-up with dings and dents in it's dings and dents, and bondo covering bondo. Spits was too weird to do much else then scavenge the back alleys. He had never been able to work long at some place like McDonalds, where he tried as a kid to work at the counter; by then he had been to reform school and had a temper that he could not necessarily control and when a boss started yelling at him, he'd shoved the guys face into a vat of grease. He did four years for that one. Every time he got out, the less the world looked like it did when he was a kid, and more like a jungle where he had to do nasty shit to get by -- the crimes and the lies came easy to him. As easy as why he told himself he did crack, as he expounded one afternoon to Mugilapuddy as they sat drinking forty ouncers behind a 7-11, which they had been standing in front of for twenty minutes getting up the change for their afternoon boozer, before finally reaching the blessed four dollars and eighty seven cents t hey needed to get a big enough of a beer to get them going a bit: "Migil, crack makes you feel better than anything else on the planet. That alone makes it something to try to get, man. Anybody who doesn't just lacks balls." He said a lot of crazy things like that, though often after going through one of the dozens of treatment programs he'd attended over the years -- some seriously, and some lackadaisically, his rhetoric had occasionally changed and he'd talk about crack as a demonic substance that took his life and his soul straight to hell.
Psycho Hospitals that he'd ended up in here and there in his life had doctors who told him that he was a lot of different diagnosis, though they all said something about his illness coming from shooting meth up between his toes -- one guy told him that his personality was as much a victim as the black stumps that were once his teeth (meth-mouth came as a complete surprise to him and most; then he learned about it all too well as the phenom became responsible for a barrage of dental nightmares in their loose knit group of 'friend;' suddenly everyone's teeth turned black and rotted away'),
He was short and wiry with a bushy beard and crazy hair sticking up here and there and the general air of someone who was oily. People tended not to trust him to be alone in their houses.
Eyes always shifting this way and that, giving him the appearance of scheming to most people, . Behind his back some people called him the Schemer, in a way that implied the jest that no one would fall for his stupid schemes -- which while not entirely true, certainly was for the most part, and definatly among those who came to know him a bit. He was always asking for five bucks to get a rock without admitting to them that he was getting the money for drugs, and had a different see-through story every time... though he did tend to recycle after two or three days.
Spits especially liked Migulapuddy because he was mean looking, mostly. At six foot three two hundred and eighty pounds, Migulapuddy didn't have to do much besides look drunk and crazy to scare people, and since he was almost always drunk, and always crazy, this was fairly easy for him. Spits used him like a pit ball at times to intimidate other homeless people into letting them have first digs on dumpsters, making Migulapuddy growl and snarl and snap at the people as Spits told them, "I can't hold him for long. He wants to bite your balls off. Don't know why. Nobody can cure him of it. He got mine years ago."
Migulapuddy could stand to hang around Spits because he had absolutly nothing to steal. He knew how to be around criminals like Spits and slept with his bunghole to the wall at all times, just like in jail.
The amusing antics of the junkies picking through the garbage, moving quick and sloppy as they race to get the cash to score that next high -- which they hope as always will come before they start to get all sober and sick, was quite the sight to see that day. The weather hovered around negative four degrees and they danced from foot to foot to stay feel warm, practically juggling usable bowels, old plates, stained jeans and whatnot into the back of their truck...
In the corner of a green dumpster smelling of sour cottage cheese and dog shit, a fat rat was sitting on a mangled and brownish stained box of Captain Crunch cereal. The puffy grey creature seemed unimpressed by the scruffy men reaching around in the garbage bin as he munched away on the edge of the sweetened box, though it's red eyes were zoned in on Spits hand as he reached out to grab the box and toss it aside to look under.
Migilupuddy saw the drama unfolding and saved Spits another nasty rat bite (which would have been his tenth of the morning) by speaking up. "Spits, I believe that would be the rat that tore the chunk off my ear yesterday. Mean mother. He's got back--up under that pile that swarms out on ya. Word is, they is the ones got Micky, see?"
Spits backed away from the rat, jumped out of the dumpster and slammed the top down, causing quite a loud mettalic crash.
They had convinced themselves, through hours and hours of drunken conversations that brain washed as throughly as any Moonie, that Rats were behind the rash of people who were always disappearing from the streets. People they would see for years would suddenly be gone, usually dead or moved across town, though once in awhile sobered up... regardless of the truth of the matter, they were sure that the rats had come in a swarm and nabbed their fellow bums while they were deep into a dense, death-ike wino sleep.
After three hours of disgusting smells, stains upon stains covered their lovable bum costumes. The blue parka Spits had been wearing for the last few weeks, the one that he kept trying to remember which side had the wet vomit (though most of the time he forgot), was almost psychedelic with splashes of bright red spagetti sauce, chunks of oily meat, and specks of corn, peas and lettuce and plenty of unidentifiable uck. They took their loot, all the metal he could find, down to a smelter on the south side. Cash in hand they cruised out to Kedzie and North looking for the tell-tale gym shoes tossed over phone line, telling them where the open market was for the day.
He's seen the kid before who comes running up to the truck, "You wanna get straight?"
"Give me five of them. Here."
They spent all but ten bucks of their money on the drugs -- telling themselves they would eat breakfest later, though they knew more than likely they'd get another rock...
. As they started to pull away from the curb an all too famalier sound split through the cold, silent morning air. Spits looks in the rear-view mirror at the flashing blues and a cop's face he knows.
"It's that bastard Gildord." Spits wished like hell he hadn't traded his gun for a rock, completly forgetting that he had never actually had bullets, either, during the breif few hours it took him to hawk the stolen gun.
"Well, we lose." Migilapuddy said, taking philosophically the fact that he was being arrested for what was something like the sixtiety time in his life. "I could use a cup of coffee, anyways." He pulled the rocks out of a small clear cellophane, put them in his palm. "Guess I better swallow these, huh?"
Spits hand shot out to catch his arm before he could get the rocks to his lips.
"Give me my half -- that is two and a half."
"Oh, here." Migulapuddy handed him three.
"Thanks."
By then, the cop was looking in the window at them, and the drugs. He pulled out his gun, aimed in at them and yelled in at them like he was pissed, though he wasn't and in fact had a cold that made him feel like the whole act was a waste.... "You bums swallow those rocks and I swear to god, I am going to shoot you fuckers dead."
Spits and Migulapuddy did not believe that the cop would shoot them dead. They had been threatened with worse by cops, and indeed they could see themselves getting smacked on the head, but shot? As sick as they were at not being able to smoke the rock, they still both broke out laughing....
The cop had both hands on his gun and his nose was filling up with snot. He had already filled two White Hen plastic garbage bags with kleenex and their shift had just started two blurry hours before. His head was way too stuffed with thick, green mucus for him to snort the drippings back up into his sinuses. The end of his nose tickled. Before he could stop himself, his body convulsed and his nose exploded loudly... though it was not nearly as loudly as when his finger clenched on the trigger and BANG!!! went the gun!!! Before he could stop himself he was sneezing again, BANG!!! And again, BANG!!! And again, BANG!!! When the sneeze attack subsided, Cop 2 was a surpised to see the truck's door was filled with bullet holes, the glass window shattered, and inside Spits and Migulapuddy contorted, gory, blood and visceral covered messes -- eyes were blown out, hands ripped into flapping peices, brain matter on the ceiling... Indeed, even to the most casual of observor, it was obvious that they were very, very dead.
.
The cops partner, Cop 1, walked up beside him, handed him a puffs aloe scented cleansing paper cloth, patted him on the shoulder and said, "Looks like another drug related murder. It's like we can't stop it, Frank. We're out here everyday working our ass off for these scumbags and . . . hell, I'm going to take the day off, get drunk and scream at the kids, smack the old lady around. Probably end up taping myself screwing the dog and putting it up on the internet."
"The guys are still ribbing you about last night...
"Yea, better give it a rest. You know I'd kill myself without that dog."
"You and me both."
"What do you mean?"
"We have to talk... about Spot."
Cop 1 pulled his gun out its holster and aimed off his hip, into his partner's face as quietly asked him, "What the hell about Spot?"
"I think he wants a three-some."
The cop lowered his gun and laughed, "Oh, yea... he asked me about that too, and I said that I didn't think you were into it."
"Yea, you're right. I'm not into it."
"Is it... is it, me?"
"A little. No, a lot. Yea, yea... it's you."
"Oh. How long we got until that next batch of donuts is due to come out the oven over at Don's?"
"Two minutes, thirty five seconds, and counting."
"For God's sake, get in the car and hit the siren, we're gonna have to do a hundred down these fucking side streets to get there before that bastard Mallard starts hogging down all the creme filleds!"
"Mallard, that fat bastard's back on the streets?"
"Cops bust that damn donut hoarder every chance they get but the judges and the lawyers keep sending him back out to continue his sick ways... going into dunkin donuts and swallowing down entire trays of bostom creams without any consideration of the people behind them in line who are there for the warm ones, too... My god, the tears... can't hold back... the tears." Cop Two's eyes filled with tears at thought of thousands and thousands of missed Boston Cremes with the insides as warm as creamy come.
The Guardian Saint of the Streets, the Ghost of Bob the Wino Knight, had had enough.... Since his death by freezing and subsequent reincarnation as an eight year old alcoholic lesbian and then death by satanistic ritual, Bob had discovered that in the spirit world he could get drunk as ever and never, not once, get a hangover. He was pretty sure this was heaven. That morning he had stumbled across two of his old buddies working the dumpsters for rocks, like he had done when he was a young, ambitious man... before the four decades of pure begging. Seeing the cop shoot down his old freinds irritated him a little. They were notorious for doing so in Chicago, where a cop was indeed jailed for killing a homeless drunken guy who splashed his windsheild cleaning water on him while he was off duty (indeed, the reputation was unwarranted, though lived strongly in the bum-myths spread around burning barrels in vacant lots throughout the west and south side),.
The Ghost of Bob The WIno Knight reached into the head of a truck driver and twisted a small, pulsing vein. The trucker, Bilford Damdyson, was in the middle of turning right when his body began twitching and flopping like a fish out of water. The steering wheel straightened when he let go and the truck rolled slowly across the intersection ...
Cop one watched in stunned silence while Cop two quietly wept over the lost Boston Cremes -- that his mind had now filled with warm come...
The ignored Semi truck did not go away, however... the behemoth of metal slowly drove up and over the scrunching police car, blowing out the window in a spectacular splash of glass shards splaying the sunbeams all this way and that. Cop one and Two were smushed down into a substance that they would have inevitably compared to the jelly in strawberry donuts.
The fat grey rat, still sitting atop the stained Captain Crunch box, suddenly jumped down into the street, looked this and that twitching its whiskers frantically as it hesitantly moved, a few inches at a time, out into the middle of the street, where it sniffed a chunk of bloody flesh, which, after it passed inspection, the rat took home to his kids, who he was trying to get used to eating human flesh, because of course, though it is hushed up, rats have been trained by the government to eat bums, and they indeed have some kind mutual respect agreement with the CIA that involves huge cheese factories in Malaysia, in return for a promise to one day be free market capatalists, and to avoid all islamic ties...
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