Psycho

Image: MRZ

This story was inspired by a pool we skated, called “Crazy Train”. The home owner had built train tracks in the backyard. The train wagons were big enough for a child to sit on and he would let the kids in the neighborhood ride them. When we skated the pool, the trains hadn’t been running anymore and the train tracks had been overgrown by weeds. However, the old train wagons and the rusty tracks gave the backyard an eerie atmosphere.  

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All stories on my blog are entirely fictional and based on nothing but my imagination.

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“Hey Dad, the skaters are here. I’m gonna let them in the backyard”. The house was quiet. The morning sun cast dim light through the thin white curtains that had yellowed over the years. Slowly, he moved over the worn carpet, maneuvering around stacks of old newspapers, broken children’s toys and cardboard boxes of clothes that hadn’t been worn for a long time. His foot struck an empty soda can. He kicked it out of the way and it rolled under the kitchen counter.

He liked when the skaters came by. Especially Vance. He was a famous skater. He liked Vance. He opened the front door. Five guys with skateboards stood in the driveway. He was disappointed. Vance wasn’t there. “Hi Randy how are you man?” One of them greeted. “Good, good man. I’m gonna let you through the side gate.” He opened the gate and they followed him into the backyard.

Weeds had long taken over most of the backyard. Rusty garden tools and broken kitchen appliances were fighting for space under a rickety shed. Piles of old trash cans and buckets were stuffed into a corner. They maneuvered around an ivy-laden wheel barrel with a flat tire. Rusty train tracks winded – barely visible – through the grass. A kid- sized train wagon sat forgotten under a palm tree. He remembered when his dad had built the train tracks for him, when he was a little boy. He would sit in the wagon and his dad would push him through the backyard for hours. He should ask his dad to fix the tracks and get the train wagon running again.

Image: MRZ

The pool sat empty in the back of the yard. He hardly ever walked back here. A puddle of dark green water had formed in the deep end. When he was young, he would spend long summer afternoons swimming in the pool. His dad taught him how to swim and how to hold his breath. He would dive to the bottom of the deep end to retrieve small stones that his dad would throw into the pool. Now, the pool had been empty for decades. “Enjoy the pool guys. I gotta go back in the house. My dad and I are working”. There was no need for him to stay when Vance wasn’t there. He rushed back to the house.

Image: MRZ

A black widow had spun a web in the corner above the small kitchen window. He sighed. With a pair of tweezers, he reached for the spider and pressed it onto the kitchen counter. He watched as it franticly flailed its long legs trying to escape his relentless grip. With a sharp scalpel he carefully separated the spider’s head from its body. Its legs instantly froze and the spider’s body contorted into a small black ball. It always amused him when they did that. He thought it looked funny. He skewered the spider’s head onto a tooth pick and dropped it into a big glass jar that was half filled with insect heads, each mounted on its own slender pin. A smile played around his lips as he gazed at his collection. He liked how their little eyes were staring at him.

He sat at the small kitchen table. Tools and metal parts were spread out. Oil had left dark stains on the weathered wooden surface. He ignited the soldering iron. He liked the smell of melting metal. His dad had showed him how to build things. Together they would fix broken tools and kitchen appliances that people had thrown out. That was a long time ago. He dropped the solder and it rolled under the table. He slammed his fists on the table and stood up. He stomped to the living room window and moved the yellowed curtains. The skaters were sitting on the shallow stairs. Laughing and cheering each other on. He was mad that they didn’t bring Vance. He closed the curtains and hurried back to the pool.

“Hey guys. My dad said you gotta go. He doesn’t feel good and wants to take a nap”

“Uhm okay… I guess we’ll pack up then…” one of the skaters shrugged. They grabbed their skateboards and once again forged their way through grass and weeds.

“I’ll see you next time. Tell Vance I said hello”. He waved as they got into their cars.

Back in the house he eased into one of the two comfortable armchairs that sat side by side in the living room. “You know dad, last time, I told them to bring Vance.” He looked over.

“Oh, you dropped your napkin dad.” He murmured softly as he leaned forward to retrieve a crumbled tissue from the floor. He offered it to the figure in the other armchair. Stillness. The figure seemed frozen. Its limbs were shrunk and appeared like weathered tree branches. Its skin had turned into a dark-brown layer of dry leather. Every evidence of life had long since left. Hollow eyes were sunken deep into the recesses of a bald, frail skull. Its gaze fixed upon an invisible horizon. For a moment his hand lingered in the air. Confusion flickered across his features. “You’ve fallen asleep again dad. I’ll let you rest.” He quietly stood up and retreated to the kitchen table. With a sigh he retrieved the solder from the floor and ignited the soldering iron. The smell of melting metal filled the kitchen.

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Thank you MRZ for the images

Thank you Ozzie Ausband for proofreading and making my writing better – Blue Tile Obsession

The Ranch

Image: Ozzie Ausband

This story is inspired by a pool we used to skate, called “Cakeless”. The pool sat in the backyard of an old ranch. Every inch of the property seemed to be covered in trash. You would find broken microwaves next to a set of old car tires and a pile of torn umbrellas. We pulled countless children’s toys, beer cans and a broken deck chair out of the pool. You could hardly walk on the deck without stepping in dog feces. Flies and mosquitos would gather around us. The smell was appalling. One day during a session we heard screams coming from the horse stables. I remember getting goose bumps. It sounded like out of a horror movie. The owner said it was their donkey…. The screams, the filth and the spooky atmosphere made me come up with a story about the ranch.

They split the lanes of asphalt heading up the freeway. The truck burned past slower vehicles. Music from the radio purred softly in the background as they talked about the pool they would be riding.

The announcer’s voice cut through the conversation. Somber tone. “Last night a woman was reported missing in Pacoima. This increases the number of women who have disappeared from the San Fernando Valley to eight within the last six weeks.”

Adam frowned, switched lanes and asked for his I-Pod. “Let’s listen to some music.” Isabelle turned off the radio and connected the I-Pod to the stereo system. “Are you okay?” He asked, glancing over to the passenger seat.

Isabelle stared out of the window. The scenery had changed from seemingly unending urban houses and paved streets to a more rural landscape with old ranches and dirt roads. To her right she saw a long stretch of flat dirt, fenced off as a construction site. A green tarp was caught on a fence and billowed in the wind. Dust was everywhere. Desolated wasteland.

“I’m really not looking forward to going back to that place.” She replied quietly. “It’s filthy and this guy, Danny creeps me out”. She turned and tucked a strand of her blond hair behind her ear.  Adam nodded in agreement. “Yeah, Danny is a bit weird.” He tried to cheer her up. “Come on, it’s going to be fun. It’s an empty pool and it’s for free”

They turned onto a dead-end road. An old metal gate sat open to their left, leading to a long dirt driveway. The barking of dogs announced their arrival. Moving along the gravel path they slowly approached the run-down ranch house that loomed in the shade of big pine trees. Trash, broken kitchen appliances and discarded children’s toys covered every inch of the muddy yard. Any evidence of a cozy home had long since disappeared. They parked next to an old horse stable and got out of the truck. Flies quickly gathered around them. The smell of musty hay was pervasive. It mixed with the stench of dog feces and overflowing trash cans.

A tall man approached, raising a soiled hand in greeting. Filthy clothes hung loosely from his body and tattoos covered the dark skin of his face and arms. He looked like a rumpled rag. “Hi Danny How have you been? I’m sure you remember Belle.” Danny nodded in Isabelle’s direction. A shiver ran down her spine as their eyes met. Danny rushed past them towards the horse stable and stated: “Just do your thing. I gotta take care of the horses while my dad is in Mexico.”

They maneuvered around the piles of trash to the back of the house. Isabelle paused and looked down as her foot struck a hard object. From under her dark blue Vans the lifeless eyes of a shattered doll’s head stared at her. She involuntary recoiled and turned her head. Danny stood beside the horse staple. His eyes were resting on her. He winked with an evil grin, spun on his heel and disappeared into the horse stable. A chill crept down her back and made her quiver. With quick steps she hurried to catch up with Adam who had almost vanished from her sight.

Image: Ozzie Ausband

The big kidney pool sat abandoned behind the house. It had three feet of dark green water. A swarm of mosquitoes hovered in the deep end and the pungent smell of dog feces hung heavy in the air. An old car tire protruded from the murky water. Empty beer cans floated on the surface next to a broken deck chair. No one had sunbathed here in a long time. Adam and Belle went to work. They set up the pool pump and started pulling the trash out of the filthy water. Their friends Richard and Gregg came to help. It took the whole afternoon to get the pool ready.

The following day, they returned to skate. Adam sat on the bed of his truck as three cars pulled up in front of the metal gate. Isabelle, Richard and Gregg quickly pulled their skateboards out of their trunks and the four friends, once again forged their way through trash and refuse.

The pool was great. It was fast and fun. They were flying through the shallow end and did tricks on the big face wall. Danny came out of the house, a beer can in one hand and a big blue ghetto blaster in the other. A serious voice resonated from the speakers:

“A victim of the San Fernando Valley kidnapping incidents was found dead south of the Mexican border. Evidence indicates the involvement of a human trafficking circle.”

Danny quickly changed the radio station, sat on a plastic chair and opened his beer. A sudden scream pierced through Rammstein’s “Du Hasst”.

“What the hell was that, Danny?” Adam felt goose bumps on his neck.

“Oh, that’s just our donkey. He screams like that sometimes” Danny replied and quickly turned up the volume.

“That didn’t sound like a donkey to me.” Isabelle whispered in Richard’s ear, grabbed her skateboard and climbed into the pool. Richard nodded in agreement and cast a furtive glance at Danny. They kept skating the whole day and cheered each other on as they tried new tricks. None of them noticed Danny reaching for Isabelle’s backpack that sat in the shade of a sun-faded umbrella. Swiftly, he fished out a set of keys and tucked them into the pocket of his dirt-stained shorts.

The sun started setting when they walked back to their cars. Laughing and talking about the session and the great pool.

“Oh no, I think I left my keys by the pool.” Isabelle frantically dug through her backpack.

“Do you want us to wait for you?” Adam leaned through the open window of his truck.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” She replied and headed back towards the old ranch house.

Grant Taylor, Me, Ozzie Ausband, Rick Stine – Image: Atiba

Early the next day Adam, Richard and Gregg gathered in front of the metal gate.

“Where is Belle?” Richard asked.

Adam shrugged: “I don’t know I tried calling her but she didn’t answer. Maybe she’s still sleeping. Let’s go skate”

The old ranch house laid dark in the morning mist. It was quiet. Too quiet. No dogs, no horses, no Danny. A sense of unease crept upon the three as they walked down the long driveway. The front door of the house stood wide open.

“Danny?” Tentatively… Adam squinted into the open door, eyes adjusting to the gloom. Silence. He turned around and looked at his friends. Something was wrong. Richard and Gregg put their skateboards down and slowly followed Adam into the house. It was dark. Barely any light came through the dirty curtains and they had to use the flashlights of their phones to find their way around. The air was stale and smelled of cold cigarette smoke and human excrement. Empty beer cans and cigarette butts were carelessly thrown on the living room floor. A bowl with remnants of what seemed to be Fruit Loops sat on the coffee table, covered in a dark green mold. Next to it a used adult diaper. Old newspapers and magazines were stacked in piles all over the stained carpet. Gregg’s glance caught on a faded magazine cover. The title was written in a foreign language. The cover showed a naked woman kneeling on the ground, her hands tied behind her back. She was looking up at a tall figure with a head wrapped in dull black leather. The face misshapen with a long snout and pointed ears, bizarrely reminiscent of a German shepherd. With a zipper as a mouth, chrome teeth formed a grotesque smile. In disgust Gregg turned away and hurried to catch up to his friends. A long hall way led deeper into the house.

“Danny?” The three had reached an open door at the very end of the hall. The windows of the small room were boarded up with plywood. A dirty blanket laid on the floor next to a stained mattress. A pair of handcuffs tangled from a hook in the wall above it. Adam felt a wave of terror sweeping over him. They had to get out of there. Anxiously he turned around and signaled his friends to move when something got caught his gaze. Nausea welled up in his stomach as he picked up the object from the dirty carpet. Isabelle’s dark blue Vans shoe appeared in the beam of his flashlight. The friends looked at each other. Panic. Then the front door slammed.

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Thank you Ozzie Ausband and Atiba for the images

Thank you Ozzie Ausband for proofreading and making my writing better – Blue Tile Obsession

One Block From Hell – Desperate

This story was inspired by something my friend said to me. One afternoon as we drove through my neighborhood, we passed a stretch of abandoned stores. Dirt was piling up on the sidewalk, people were selling drugs and a homeless encampment had been built from cardboard boxes and worn-out tarps. No one seemed to care. The block had become a no man’s land. As we drove by, he stated flatly,  “You live one block from hell.” What he had said, stuck with me and stories about that desolated sidewalk began to develop in my head.

Another day, a pool hunt had brought us to the east end of the San Fernando Valley. The area between the I-5 and the 170 is mainly industrial. Gritty. We were driving up the I-5 ramp when I saw a woman on the side of the road. She had messy hair and with her short skirt and high heels she looked clearly out of place. It was obvious that she was a prostitute. She climbed up the embankment and quickly vanished from my sight. Since that day I’ve been writing about her and she has become a recurring figure in my stories.

The sun grinned maliciously as it scorched its way through the San Fernando Valley. Cars crawled down the streets in the early afternoon traffic. Windows closed, air conditioning running. The sidewalks remained empty as people sought shelter in their homes. A stretch of barricaded buildings sat in neglect on the side of the road. Faded signs in barred windows advertised goods in foreign languages. The goods were long gone and the stores had been boarded up with thick planks. The rats had left the sinking ship a long time ago. Trash and dirt cluttered the sidewalk. No one cared to pick it up. On the corner building mocked a sign: ‘Safe Harbor Urgent Care’. Its windows were shattered and the once vibrant paint obscured by graffiti expressing thoughts of anger and territorialism. This hadn’t been a safe place for a very long time. On a small set of stairs sat a thin figure. She crouched in the entrance of what used to be a liquor store. Her blonde hair hung messy over bloodshot eyes and colorful make up ran down her cheeks. Her shirt was sweat stained and her short skirt barely covered pale skin. She lit a cigarette with a small green lighter and rubbed her leg. Her shins were bruised and her knees had fresh red scabs.

Last night had been rough. She had a couple of the usual un-showered, filthy ones looking for quick relief on their way home to their wives and kids. She had gotten used to the smell and the taste. It wasn’t a big deal anymore. The night went slowly and she hoped for a couple more “customers”. She smelled vodka when the guy in the old Toyota truck rolled down the window. Usually, she stayed away from drunk ones but she needed the money. He took forever and kept pushing her head down into his lap, not letting her up for air. When he was done, he refused to pay her. He reached over, opened the passenger door and told her to get out of the car. She insisted on her money. He laughed and pushed her out to the streets. Her knees hit rough asphalt. Blood ran down her shins. She picked herself up and screamed at the receding truck: “Motherfucker!”. The truck disappeared in the darkness. Her knees burned. She felt her eyes water. With dirty knuckles she rubbed the tears away. “No… don’t be weak.” She scolded. She took a deep breath and ground her teeth. “Fuck this guy.” She picked up her purse and went about her business.

The sun started setting and tinted the sky a dark red. Cars inched by the small set of stairs. She caught her reflection in the windows and barely recognized the pale mask that stared back at her. She lit another cigarette. How did she end up here? She came to Los Angeles, full of dreams. She had followed a man that she loved and it was great for a while. They didn’t have much but it was all they needed. She remembered how they would drive up Mullholand at night and park at one of the overlooks. They would sit on the tailgate of his truck and watch the lights. A million diamonds, just for them. She would rest her head on his shoulder and he would put his arm around her and kiss her. Then things went sideways. One cold winter morning he told her he had met this woman and was leaving. A world torn apart. She tried to make it but she quickly found a friend that numbed her pain. Solace came in powdered form. She lost her job in the little coffee shop and soon, the brown venom, throbbing through her veins became her entire existence.

She threw the cigarette on the ground. Her head swam. She felt her throat tighten. “Don’t be weak.” She swallowed the tears, reached in her bra and pulled out a couple of bills. Solace. She lifted her aching body off the stairs and staggered past the ‘Safe Harbor’ sign. When night came, she returned to the stairs. The streets lay deserted. People hiding from the squalor. She crouched down in the corner of the store entrance and began to melt the brown powder on a dirty spoon. She had been living in hell for long enough. “Time to go to a better place”, was her last thought before the needle punctured her skin and darkness settled over her.

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Thank you Ozzie Ausband for proofreading and making my writing better – Blue Tile Obsession

Sixty Days

– Image: Ozzie Ausband

We drained a big kidney pool on Ozzie’s sixtieth birthday. While cleaning the yard we found an old key chain under one of the broken deck chairs. The key chain had a sixty-day AA token on it. The homeowner didn’t know whose keychain it was and how it got there. The rusty AA token inspired me to write this story and of course we had to name the pool “Sixty”. A couple of weeks later we set up a session with some friends. Coincidental, the day of the session was exactly sixty days after we found the pool.

 

A soft knock on the door made him look up from the round wooden kitchen table. Silence. Then another gentle knock. He looked down at his glass and saw his reflection in the dark brown liquid. His eyes were red and hollow. Deep furrows carved through his forehead and the hair of his beard had grown grey.  He took a sip. The sound of the ice cubes softly chiming against the glass gave him a strange feeling of comfort. Slowly he slid back the heavy oak chair an stood up. The kitchen was dark. The only light came from a few sunbeams that crawled through the small window. He peeked through the transparent curtains and saw a man and a woman standing at his door. What did they want from him? They didn’t look like the usual “we want to talk about Jesus” people. The man had short grey hair and wore blue jeans and a “Scorpions” T-Shirt. The woman’s grey sweater said “VANS” in big white letters and her shoes had torn laces. The man pulled up a piece of paper and put it under the door mat before they walked back to a silver truck and drove off.

He sat back down at the old kitchen table and swirled the glass with the brown liquid. He loved Jack Daniels. They were old friends… Late afternoon came and the setting sun tinted the kitchen a cold grey. His arms rested on the table holding his glass in a tight grip. He emptied his drink and stood up. His head swam. He staggered to the front door and picked up the note from under the door mat. It said something about his empty swimming pool and skateboarding. He didn’t quite understand. He would deal with it in the morning.

The next day he called the number on the note. A man picked up and explained that they were looking for empty swimming pools to ride their skateboards in. In return they would keep the rain water out and do yard work for the homeowners. The man sounded nice and he agreed to let them come by in the afternoon. The man and the woman came with a big gas pump, several buckets, brooms and a shovel. They marveled when the saw the big left-hand kidney that sat under the shade of an old pine tree. The green plaster had suffered from years of rain water and scorching sun but the deep end was perfectly round and the pool had beautiful river rock coping.

– Image: Ozzie Ausband

It took them a couple of hours to pump out the water and scrub the thick algae layer that covered the bottom of the deep end. When they were done, they knocked on his door. “We found this under one of the garden chairs by the pool.” The men held up a rusty key chain. “It has a sixty-day AA token on it. We thought you might want it back”. He startled. He hadn’t seen the old key chain in so long. He didn’t even remember when he lost it. “Oh, thank you, but it’s not mine. I don’t even drink. I have no idea how it got there.” He didn’t know what else to say.

The sun set and night laid its dark veil over the house and the pool. He sat on the kitchen table and ran his fingers over the token. He remembered how his friend gave it to him. Sixty days sober. He thought he had made it, but life took a different turn. He lost his job. One drink wouldn’t hurt. A bitter smile played around his lips: “That’s what they always say.” He sighed and emptied his glass. He put the token in a drawer and grabbed a whisky bottle from the kitchen counter. Days went by in a blur. One like the other. Bleak and dull. The bottle in his hand remained a steady companion.

– Image: Ozzie Ausband

A week later the man and the woman came back with some friends. He watched them through the living room window. They would push their skateboards down the waterfall, trying to get all the way to the top of the face wall. When someone hit the coping, they would clap and cheer. They sat on the stairs of the shallow end, laughing and joking around. They seemed happy. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt happiness. It was hard to recall the last time he felt anything. That night he took the AA token out of the drawer. Sixty days didn’t seem such a long time. Maybe he could do it again. It might be worth a try. He put the token on the kitchen table, grabbed the open whisky bottle and emptied it into the sink.

– Jake / Image: Ozzie Ausband

It was a sunny December morning. Ten skaters gathered around the shallow end, taking their turns. A little speaker box played “The Eagles – Greatest Hits”. He sat in a chair on the deck and watched the skaters fly through his pool. Sixty days really wasn’t that long. He smiled and poured a brown liquid in his glass. “Does anybody want some iced tea?”

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Thank you Ozzie Ausband for the photos, proofreading and making my writing better – Blue Tile Obsession

Apartment Number Three

I live in one of the neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley where the streets are used as a public garbage disposal and gangs are marking their territory by tagging every surface capable of holding spray paint. Every morning homeless people dig through the trash cans in front of my kitchen window. Drug addicts, roaming the streets like zombies or passing out on the side walk, are not an unusual sight. For a while we had a young homeless man squatting in the laundry room of our apartment complex. My neighbor told me that the guy had been coming to the property for years. The former tenants of apartment number three used to cook crystal meth and he would buy drugs from them. The old tenants are long gone and the homeless guy hardly ever comes back any more but it made me wonder what was going on behind some of the apartment doors in my neighborhood.

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It was the morning of New Year’s Day. He had spent the last night in a U-Haul truck pulled over on the side of the road in the outer part of the city. The night had been cold and uncomfortable but he didn’t mind. It was what he had to do to move forward. He started the truck and turned on the heat. Sipping strong black coffee, he steered the truck into one of the poorer neighborhoods, deep in the San Fernando Valley. The sidewalks were cluttered with empty beer cans, old take-out containers and broken furniture parts. Graffiti adorned house walls and street signs. He sighed and parked the truck in front of an old apartment complex. At least he had found a place to stay. He didn’t have many options. Here, the landlord didn’t care about his bad credit as long as the rent would be paid in cash every month. He opened the door to the small apartment. It was dark and the air smelled stale. The brown linoleum floor was dirty and worn. As he turned on the light, a cockroach quickly scuttled and disappeared under the stove. Not a good sign. It didn’t take him long to move his few belongings. When night came, he lay on the old mattress in the corner of the small room. He stared at the ceiling. Tomorrow morning, he would start his new job. The first day of his new life. This time he would do it right.

“Hi my name is Chad.” A young man had just come out of one of the apartments. It was six in the morning and the winter sun crawled up behind the hills. “My wife Linda and I live in that unit.” He gestured towards a dark brown door with a rusty sign that displayed the number “three”. “Nice to meet you. I moved into number one yesterday.” He shook Chads hand. “Welcome! You should come over and watch the game with us on Sunday. Do you like football?”. He didn’t care much about football but Chad seemed nice and he didn’t have anything else to do. “That sounds great. See you Sunday.”

The next few weeks went by. Dull and bleak. He hated the monotonous work in the factory, but he needed the money. The only silver lining was the evenings he spent with Chad and Linda. They had become good friends. Their apartment was warm and cozy. They would hang out there, talk, eat and listen to music. For the first time in in a while he felt somewhat happy and content. Then spring came and Chad and Linda informed him that they had bought a condo on the other side of the hill. He helped them pack up and move their things into the big truck when they were ready to leave. “I’ll follow you soon.” He waved as they drove off. He had planned to save up his money and get out of this neighborhood. He glanced at apartment number three. The curtains were closed and it lay dark and quiet. No music, no laughter, no smell of Linda’s carne asada tacos. It seemed like Chad and Linda had taken the light and the warmth with them.

Summer came and the mid-July heat had forced life to a halt. One boiling Sunday afternoon he watched a skeletal-like figure walking up the driveway. Her blonde hair hung in messy tangles over her sweat-stained shirt. Her pale arms dragged a dirty suitcase across the rough asphalt and she disappeared into apartment number three. In the following days he watched strange men knocking on her door. They would rarely stay for much longer than half an hour and right after one left the next one would already walk up. One evening – bored and lonely – he knocked on her door.  A pair of empty eyes looked at him through the door slit. “Hi I’m…” he stammered. “Come in.” Before he finished his sentence, she had opened the door and walked towards the bed that sat on the other side of the room. Her name was Leila and once again he became a regular visitor of apartment number three.

The place had changed since he last visited. Nothing remained of Chad and Linda. Gone were the fun evenings they had spent there. Dim lighting couldn’t hide the squalor. It was hot and smelled of sweat and kitchen waste. The lumpy, threadbare mattress was yellowed and stained.  The sheets on the bed had short black hairs on the pillows. She wasn’t very good, but he felt a little less lonely when he was with her. One night – he was putting his jeans back on – she handed him a little glass pipe. She grabbed a green lighter from the night stand and signaled him to put the pipe in his mouth. It was the first time he smoked crack and he really liked it. It became their little ritual and in the following weeks he would bring all the money he made to apartment number three. It became the small price he paid to forget about his sorrows.

The sound of sirens woke him up one night. An ambulance had backed into the driveway and two paramedics carried a lifeless figure out of apartment number three. He stepped outside as they pushed the stretcher past his door. “What happened?” He asked. “Overdose. I hope it’s not too late.”, mumbled one of the paramedics and paced towards the ambulance. Leila never came back and nobody came to pick up her belongings. Apartment number three remained empty.

He knew something was wrong when he got the fevers and muscle aches. It had started a couple of days after they took Leila´s body away. He should have gone to a doctor but he didn’t have insurance. He caught his pale reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Do you want to know anyway?” Winter came and he developed a cough. He simply thought he had the flu but the coughing never went away. He would get nauseous and began waking in soaking wet sheets. Night sweats. When he started getting dark red blotches on his legs, he knew what it was and he knew where he got it from. “Damn it Leila”.

One morning, on his way to work, he saw that the door of apartment number three stood open. Just an inch. He thought someone had moved in after all, but when he came back that night, the door was still open. Strange. He walked past the apartment and for a split second he saw a pair of eyes glittering in the dark. The following weeks, the door remained open and every once in a while, he would see a pair of brown eyes peeking through the slit.

One cold December evening when he came back from the factory his nausea was particularly bad. He walked up the driveway and right in front of apartment number three his stomach started cramping and forced him down to his knees. With convulsive heaving, he vomited thick yellow bile. “Hey, I’ve got something for you.”, a voice announced.  A young man had come out of apartment three and stared at him. Long filthy dreadlocks hung over his shoulders and his clothes were torn and dirt stained. The man pulled him to his feet and guided him into the apartment.

A candle was the only source of light in the room. Empty soda cans, tissue papers and rotting food had been carelessly thrown on the floor. It smelled of excrement. The man sat him on the bed in the corner. There were no sheets and the mattress had dark yellow stains. “You got some cash?”, the man asked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. The man went to work. With Leila’s green lighter he melted light-brown powder on a rusty spoon. He barely noticed the dirty needle that pierced through the skin of his forearm. It was immediate relief.

The worse his symptoms got the more regular he sat on the filthy mattress. Torture loop. It became his existence. Once again, he carried every dollar, he made to apartment number three.  Life punctures the skin.

The morning of New Year’s Day was cold and quiet. The sky was steel. The clouds growled on the horizon. People slept from the night’s revelries. The door of apartment number three stood wide open. It creaked on its hinges. His thin body lay on the bed, a needle in his forearm. Blank eyeballs stared at nothing. No life lived here. His lips were blue and contorted into a grotesque grimace. A week went by before they found his body. The police came and sealed the door. Once again apartment number three remained empty.

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Thank you Ozzie Ausband for proofreading and making my writing better – Blue Tile Obsession

The Motel

This story was inspired by a day I was painting the Pink Motel pool, AKA Fishbowl. Tom, the manager had asked my friend Ozzie and I to help paint the Fishbowl for a video shoot. The job took several days and on the last day Ozzie couldn’t make it so I ended up going by myself. It was a Saturday in Mid-June and it must have been 110 degrees. I was about to put the last layer of paint on when Tom told me he had something to do and would be gone for a couple of hours. I was completely alone on the old motel property. I remember it being very quiet and giving me a strange feeling. Behind the motel is a hospital and you can see the building from the pool. As I was painting, I heard screams coming from inside the hospital. The screaming went on for several hours. I knew it must have been a patient, probably going through a schizophrenic phase, but it made the whole situation feel like a scene out of a horror movie.

 

The San Fernando Valley sweltered under a mid-July heat wave. The sun hung high on a cloudless sky. It scorched everything under its angry rays. Silently the old motel rested between railroad tracks and the Sun Valley Asylum. A big sign once welcomed its guests with glowing letters: “AIR CONDITIONED”, “REFRIGERATOR”, “TV”, “CAFÉ”. Relics from its heyday in the nineteen fifties. Now, the sign was long weathered. The walls of the old building – once vibrantly glowing in pink – were sun-faded and thick wooden planks covered the windows of each of the fifteen rooms.

He was sweating under a black winter coat. The holes in his wool hat exposed a red, sunburned balding head. Life had carved deep furrows in his features and his skin had grown leathery over the years. He limped down the deserted road, a clumsy boot on one foot and the remnants of what used to be a woolen sock on the other. He had been roaming the streets ever since they threw him out of the shelter a couple of weeks ago. One night, Henry had told him that the new guy, Frank, had talked behind his back. Henry coerced him into teaching Frank a lesson by beating him up and biting off his lips. The shelter workers didn’t believe that it was Henry’s fault and asked him to leave. He sighed and looked down. Frank’s blood had formed a dark brown crust on his jacket. At least Frank would never speak ill of anyone again.

He startled when he saw the weathered motel sign rising in front of him. He immediately recognized it. For years there had been rumors about the old motel and the Sun Valley Asylum. At night some of the old guys in the shelters would tell stories about how the motel became abandoned after guests kept disappearing. Rumor had it that at night, the wardens of the asylum would come down to the old motel abducting subjects for their experiments. He was about to turn around and walk off in the other direction. “You stupid coward, you should at least look at it, now that you’re already here”. Henry screeched in his high-pitched voice. “Henry please…” he squirmed but Henry’s squeals stung in his brain like a million sharp needles. He kept walking.

The old motel loomed under the afternoon sun. An overgrown path led past the sign to the rear of the building. He squeezed through a hole in the ivy-tangled metal fence. The back of the motel lay in the shade of big palm trees. He shivered. The temperature seemed to have dropped by several degrees. Under the trees sat an empty pool in the shape of a huge fish. Behind the pool stretched a graveyard of abandoned cars from the nineteen fifties. The rusty hoods of the once glamorous vehicles morbidly gloomed in the setting sun. He walked around the pool and sat down by the shallow end in the shade of a big king palm. From here he could overlook the entire backyard. Behind the property the Sun Valley Asylum rose high into the sky casting grotesque shadows over the motel. The barred windows of the multistory building looked like dark eyes maliciously staring at him. He felt his skin crawl and had the urge to leave, but exhaustion overwhelmed him. Heat and dehydration had taken their toll. His foot hurt and he wished he still had his other shoe. He wasn’t sure what happened to it, but he was almost certain that Henry stole it the night he was sleeping in the wash behind the freeway.

He leaned back against the palm tree and closed his eyes. He would rest for just a couple of minutes. Sleep crept up onto him and lay its heavy hand on his shoulders. Afternoon became night and tinted the sky a dark blue. A scream pierced through the silence, startling him back awake. He looked around. It seemed to come from inside the asylum. “Time to go.” He muttered to himself as he lifted his aching body off the ground and inched towards the metal fence. Another scream cut through the night. His heart hammered in his chest and he started walking faster. He had almost reached the fence when a strong hand grabbed his shoulder. He spun around. A pair of light grey eyes glittered in the dark. A tall lanky figure stood in front of him. The man was dressed in white and a lab coat fluttered loosely around his grotesquely slender body. Embroidered letters on his chest said: “Sun Valley Asylum”. “It’s time to go, Sir”, whispered the figure and brandished a pair of leather restraints.

“Henry, help me” he sobbed. Then he felt a long needle gouging through his skin. Henry’s malicious laughter thrummed through his brain and it was the last thing he perceived before darkness settled over him.

His head swam. He opened his eyes. A bright light hurt his brain. Blurry silhouettes moved around him. The hollow sound of hard soles on a vinyl floor and the clacking of metal instruments echoed in his ears. It smelled of alcohol and disinfectants. He tried to move but thick leather restrains cut into his wrists.

“Welcome back, Mr. Smith” the warm voice of a women seemed to came from one of the silhouettes. “We were worried for you”. The silhouette leaned over him and slowly became a young woman in white scrubs. She smiled. “You have to keep taking your Haldol, Sir. It’ll help you feel better. Remember, we’ve talked about this before?”. She started removing his restraints and helped him sit up in his bed. “I’ll get you some breakfast. You must be hungry.” Still smiling, she walked out of the room.

He started recognizing his room. He remembered that he’s been in the hospital for weeks. They have been giving him pills that made the bad voices in his head go away. He remembered the bed with the soft pillows and the nurse that would always bring him the blueberry yogurt that he liked. Relieved he leaned against the head of his bed and closed his eyes. There was no asylum and there were no evil experiments. He was safe. He was home.

“Hihihi” someone was laughing. He opened his eyes. The room was empty. “Hihihi” there it was again. Then a sharp, high-pitched voice crawled up from deep inside his brain: “You little wimp better get out of here.”

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Thank you Ozzie Ausband for proofreading and making my writing better – Blue Tile Obsession