Ray's Fear Page
Fear and Large Spiders in New Mexico
¡Chinga!
The rest of Quando Prandimus
This was written during my most recent attempt at college. The assignment was to write of an actual event in our lives. Well, I had no wish to "share", so I concocted this Beatesque piece and passed it off as a real experience. Ms. Fiero, if you happen to be reading this, and hadn't figured it out already, I apologize...it is original, but entirely false. ;)
FEAR AND LARGE SPIDERS IN NEW MEXICO
The stupid truck kept boiling over. Every 250 miles, like clockwork. I set my
watch by it. The thing was, there wasn't anything I could do about it, except stop every
240 miles, water the stupid thing and let it cool for half an hour or so. Cheryl's father (a
man with a really bad hairpiece) said that this meant that it was running well. Of course
they drove the U-Haul and were probably in Pheonix by then. In an air conditioned house.
Drinking iced tea. In a pool. This is not paranoia, they admitted to it later.
I'm not sure where this place was; it was just there. Cinderblock and sheetmetal,
and an old silver Airstream trailer in the back of it. (Airstream trailers are required by law
between El Paso and Blythe. They all go to New Mexico and Arizona to die.) "Twilight
Zone" episodes occurred in places like this. Giant ants laid seige to it (I know, I seen the
movie). Peter Fonda and Dennis Hoper stopped here for gas (I seen that movie, too. Don't
waste your time). The sign said "Esso", but I stopped anyway.
I watered the truck and parked it. Then, despite my better judgment, I entered the
store. A surly fat man (Santa's evil twin, from the look of things) stood guard over a truly
excessive amount of pornography. Perusing the outdated merchandise, I chose a Coke
and a moon pie that hadn't exceeded its "Sell By" date by more than a week. Happily I was
able to pay with exact change as the fat man had only a passing acquaintance with soap
and water. I don't want to discuss the men's room.
Returning to the truck I sat in the shade of the passengers side and read (of
course) Kerouac. Once again I decided that all those Beat guys needed to have gotten
jobs. Who were they trying to kid ? After about twenty minutes of sugar, caffeine, and
dead ne'er-do-wells, I decided that it was, indeed, time to go. I had a girlfriend to go and
fight with.
I opened the drivers side door, tossed my book on to the seat, sat behind the
wheel, placed the key in the ignition, and then , for the first time in this ritualized
operation, looked up. Looked up into the eight beady eyes and poisonous fangs of a huge
tarantula.
There should be a law that prohibits bugs over the size of a dinner plate. This
puppy had its own bug area code. It was the result of atomic testing, no doubt. It must be
stated here that in my career as a guy, I have placed myself in several situations that have
tested my physical courage, and came out looking good. Despite my rather unimposing
mien, I am not a weenie, and I have documentation to back this up. My military training
included the use of explosives and static line parachuting, and I have an arrest record, as I
enjoy arguing with members of the law enforcement community. So in the face of this
jumped up bug...I completely panicked.
My body refused all commands, I was frozen to the seat. Blind fear seized my
mind and I knew that this fell creature would end my life. A scream began in my gut and
was working its way up. Just as I was about to scream...
THE SPIDER LEAPT!!!
...right out of the window, scuttled under a candy bar wrapper and then ran for the desert.
It'd probably been as frightened as I was.
I sat still for a while, breathing deeply, and waiting for my heartbeat to return to
double digits. Then I put the truck into gear and pulled out onto the highway. As I lurched
down the highway I decided to fly home. There are no bugs at 30,000 feet.
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This is a story, which a few of my imaginary friends and I are writing round-robin style, through e-mail. The name of the perpetrator proceeds the section for which they, and they alone, are guilty of. I'll be adding the new sections as they appear.
One other thing..."Chinga!" is used as an interjection in my part of the story. It's a Spanish expletive, which I won't define here on my page in order to avoid weird things happening with search engines.(If you really want to know, check the Alternative Dictionaries, I'm fairly certian you'll find it there.) Now, since I am a victim of the Louisiana public education system, I assume that everyone knows at least as much as I do. This appears not to be the case, as Laura Ann took it to be the protagonists name, so we're all just running with that now. If you do speak Spanish, we don't mean to offend, just enjoy the joke.
¡CHINGA!
Ray Latiolais:
A fog had come in during the night, plastering everything with a sheen of
moisture. It gathered in pools, and rolled off of the cheap plastic raincoat that the corpse on my doorstep was wearing.
Chris, ever the early riser, had rolled me out of bed...the only sure method of getting
me out of it....and handed me a bagel and a cup of coffee. After the first long sip, Chris dropped the news on me.
"There's another dead body on the doorstep."
The bagel stopped.
"Who's this one from?"
Chris sniffed peevishly.
"As if I have ANY knowledge of your sordid comings and goings.", then more seriously, "It looks like that awful Crips and Bloods thing you fell into last summer...do becareful."
Chris left in a swirl of silk, and a cloud of CK One. I hate that stuff. I heaved myself
off the floor, into my wheelchair, and began rolling towards my office.
"Wear you legs!" shouted Chris from the kitchen,"You know what happened the last
time!."
"All right! All right!"
From the office phone I dialed Ortiz, an old classmate who was in Homicide now. I
began strapping on my legs while the phone rang.
"Homicide. Ortiz."
"Ortiz, it's me. I've got another one."
"Chinga! Have you looted the body yet?"
"I haven't even seen it. I'll give you first shot this time."
"There'll be a unit there in a couple of minutes. I won't be long after. DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!"
"Heaven forfend. I see you soon, Ortiz."
I hung up before she could say anything else. As I was making my way to the front
door, Chris stopped me.
"DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!"
A conspiracy yet. The deceased had $439.26 in cash, four credit cards in three
names, an American Airlines ticket for a one-way to Kansas City, and a .38 revovler. All
of the clothing had been "sanitized"...all the labels removed. There was also a tattoo on the
right shoulder that matched the one on my right shoulder. I hoped Ortiz had forgotten
what I looked like naked.
The sun came up. It was going to be a long day.
Laura Lawrence
A long humid day, the sun doing little to disperse the pre morning fog.
The corpse on the doorstep, wrapped in plastic, looked like it was ready for the
microwave.
Before I could persue that thought, the familiar sirens of the day shift wafted thru the neighborhood.
I hate sirens.
I hate them more in my neighborhood.
The corpse now owned $239.46. Carefully, I wheeled myself back inside clutching the
cash since I had forgotten to get dressed. As Ortiz's mustard colored'78 LeMans chugged
up the street and came to a fitful stop behind the squad car, I had just pulled my last clean
Harley t-shirt over my tattooed bicep.
Close call.
It wouldn't be the first.
More sirens. The ambulance was on its way. Ortiz stood on the front step , a Swisher
sweet dangling from her red-painted lips. With practiced efficiency she examined the
baking slab as the uniforms gave her room.
"CHINGA"
The way she barked my name still made the little hairs behind my ears stand at attention. I
reeled myself closer to the front door.
"I GOT SOME NEWS FOR YOU"
Kim Corpening:
She whirled through the doorway, hair swinging wildly as she made her way into our
poor excuse for a living room. Her eyes blazed back at me when she realized I wasn't
following, and in a huff of smoke and annoyance she spit, "Close the door and roll your
ass in here, Chinga. We have some things to discuss."
As I reached back and pulled the door to, a few members of the descending horde
glanced up from their papers and powders and donuts questioningly. I tried to look as
confused as possible and rolled my eyes, muttering something about broads and death and
not enough coffee. I wheeled myself into the living room, and gave Chris that please-
leave-the-room-I-have-important-stuff-to-do-now look that had gotten me in trouble so
many times in the past. Gathering up the latest Reader's Digest in one hand and a bottle of
beer from last night in the other, Chris stormed out of the room. I was not sure of much
lately, but I was damn sure I was going to personally pay for this little fiasco with Chris as
soon as things died down. Perhaps "died down" was a poor choice of words...
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Ortiz ran her fingers through her messy black hair and plopped down on the couch,
springs whining and groaning. She looked rough in this light, and I could tell that she
hadn't been getting a lot of sleep lately. She tossed a folder down on the table, and its
contents spilled out, covering our collection of old cigarettes and losing lottery tickets.
She pulled out five polaroids and spun them around so that I could see them. At first I
thought they were all of the same arm, five perspectives of one frighteningly familiar
tattoo.
"And baby makes six, Chinga. Do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into?"
Breck Sullivan:
Ortiz really makes me sweat this one out, staring at me and watching me squirm.
"Look Chinga, I remember things..I am not the dumb broad you often wish I were....."
Great, as if things aren't bad enough here, she is on a real roll about identity crises..What
have they been doing to her at the precinct, I wonder.
She must have heard my thoughts, cause she gives me this LOOK...
"I know about your tattoo..I know about ALL the tattoos, I know about the gangs, the
money, the numbers...I also know you have been out of it for awhile. But, I would say
someone knows you and wants you out for real...Better tell me the rest, NOW!"
At this point, Chris comes back in..kinda quiet, but obvious..I get the feeling she and
Ortiz have talked about this before..a lot...Probably while I was lying mostly dead in the
hospital after losing my last battle AND my legs in the whole mess.
And maybe they do both deserve an explanation..
Problem is..I can't give 'em one, "cause even I don't know..
"Ortiz, it is not what you think..I have NO clue what is going on here..I been outta this
one for at least, what, 5 years..I don't know the game anymore and I cannot give you any
more. I'm kinda tired of the dead bodies on my doorstep every morning myself...."
Man, the look this earns me makes me wonder if I should just make something up to
satisfy this woman....
Mark Pinson:
...Nah, that wouldn't help the situation at all. I assumed, at this point, that I had as
much interest in getting to the bottom of this as Ortiz did.
Boy was I ever right, but for all the wrong reasons.
Besides, I made it a policy to never lie, unless I really had to, or, I was getting paid
for it. I had looked down to avoid Ortiz's icy glare, I was just looking up again when she spoke.
"Chinga, there's something I should tell y--", she was interrupted by one of the
donut-eaters on my doorstep.
"Hey Ortiz", he yelled, spewing crumbs and powdered sugar, "we got a name on the
gun! Guess who?"
It was then that Ortiz told me the part I hadn't known, about the game of deadman's
tag being played out, mostly on my doorstep. Every one of the guys had been found with a .38. The trick was that each .38 was registered to the next corpse-to-be. Cute, huh?
And I was next.
I sweated then shook. Then shook and sweated. I tried to convince myself that it was
from either too much beer last night, or not enough coffee this morning. Ortiz looked at
me with a mix of curiosity and revulsion.
"You know, I really should take you downtown. Except I don't know if it should be
for questioning or protective custody."
"Well, if I am next, Ortiz, you know I'm safer out on my own than locked up at 37th
Street."
"Yeah, except the last time you played you started out with legs, you shithead!"
Still, I knew she wouldn't force me to go downtown. She would have me tailed
instead. She picked up the polaroids and left, telling me to give her a call if I thought of anything she should know. I promised I would.
I watched Ortiz drive away, trailing a cloud of blue smoke. I turned around in time to
catch of glimpse of Chris leaving the living room, padding down the hall, and into the
bathroom. I heard the door snap shut and the lock click into place. Then the sound of the
tub filling. I knew that it would be 2 hours ( at least ) before I saw Chris again. Damn, I
had to piss.
I decided that when this was all over, if I was still alive, I would take Chris out for a
special dinner ( Chop's House for steaks ), and then dancing ( Djinn's Joint). No, I don't
dance ( the legs, remember ). Chris dances - with a lot of guys - I watch and drink myself
into a different state of mind.
I tried to take my mind off bodily functions by reviewing the morning's events. I
thought about that plane ticket. Kansas City? And then that I remembered them.
They had left here about 3 years ago to set up shop there. You know, the usual stuff:
the loans they got their names from; money laundering; guns; drugs; TATTOOS!
If there was a connection between here and Kansas City, that connection had the
names Juicy Little and, his brother, Juicy Big.
Lisa Clarizia:
The Doublemint twins we called them. Because they were twins and their last name was
Doublemint. They got beat up a lot in school. You know you're pathetic when you can't
even win a fight on a short schoolbus.
And then I remembered a little something else. Their mother.
Big Mama Doublemint.
She's the one who gave me my tattoo. The one on my right shoulder.
I wheeled myself out the door and down the ramp to the side yard. I whistled for Mamuk,
my Alaskan malamute. As near as I can tell, his name is Inuit for 'dipshit'. He's what they
call an 'assistance animal', rescued from a pound where he'd been dumped after causing his
previous owner to lose the Iditarod. Seems he couldn't contain his amorous inclinations
for the dog in front of him, or for funny shaped rocks long enough to concentrate on the
race. They got that trained out of him at the assistance center. Mostly. I'd have taken my
van (it has hand controls), but apparently whoever left the second corpse on my doorstep
decided that he really needed a new set of wheels and took mine.
So the van's on blocks for now.
I slapped Mamuk's harness on, and gave the command. Soon we were wheeling our way
down fifth street, on our way to Big Mama's Tattoo Parlor. We made it in five minutes.
Mamuk's fast when he's got his mind on his work.
Big Mama was sitting behind the counter, smoking a Virginia Slim and eating a glazed
donut when I came in. "Hey Big Mama", I said. She looked me over. "CHINGA", she
snarled, spraying me with bits of donut. "You ugly as ever. Too bad they no cut off you
face instead of you legs. You had nice legs, but someone done whupped you with the ugly
stick". She ashed her cigarette in her cup of coffee.
"I'm fine, and how are you Mama?" I said, while pushing Mamuk off me. No, it wasn't
THAT. He was licking off the donut bits.
"What you want here?" , she said, eyeing me suspiciously. "You come for another
tattoo?".
"No thanks. I didn't come here for that. I don't think I want another tattoo from you".
"Why not?", she bellowed, jumping out of her barcolounger. "Ain't my work good
enough for you?". Her face was as red as her muumuu. Bits of honey glaze flaked from
her mouth.
"It's not that Mama. I like your work just fine. It's just that I thought you only used
tattoo patterns once - never giving the same one twice".
"WHAT YOU TALKING ABOUT CHINGA?!?!", she barked. I rolled up my sleeve,
and exposed my right shoulder. There it was. My Papa Smurf tattoo. "Funny, Mama. I
thought *I* was the only one in these parts who had one like this. But there was a dead
man on my doorstep this morning who had one just like it".
She glared at me. "I ain't the only one in this city who got a tattoo needle Chinga. What
make you think I done that?".
"Because", I said calmly while stopping Mamuk from eloping with an ottoman "ain't no
one else in this town who makes a Papa Smurf with a tail. Everyone else knows that
smurfs haven't got tails".
Mama's ample chest heaved, and her skin turned a bright magenta. "GET OUT!!!" she
roared.
"AND TAKE YOU DAMN DOG WITH YOU!!!".
"Tell Juicy Little and Juicy Big I send my regards, Mama", I said as I wheeled myself out
into the glaring light of the street. Was she angry because I had insulted her knowledge of
German-import cartoon characters? Or was there something more to this?
Coca-Cola Red:
"The jumble of thoughts meshed with curiosity fell away like a burlesque curtain when Mamuk's familiar yelp pierced the silence somewhere behind me. Ready to shoot an apologetic grin to the owner of the leg that had become a victim of Mamuk's amorous tendencies, I turned around.
"Stangely enough, when I saw the scene it was clear as a glass of Absolut with a twist - but it still surprised me. The biggest woman I had ever seen was pulling a bloodied icepick out of Mamuk's silent skull. The dog dropped to the sidewalk like a sopping wet blanket and it stayed where it fell.
"Her eyes found mine - and the flash happened. I never can see it coming - perhaps the reason why it is such a successful experience. Those black eyes of hers reaching right through my gaze and grabbing a squeeze on my sensibility. It happened before when a mugger pushed a .45 into my neck while rushing a nervous hand into my pockets in search of his daily pay.
"It begins as a giddiness...then graduates into a system wide alert - an alert that still is sent to my missing limbs - and those longmissing portions of mine tingle as if they had never left - phantom pulses of what it felt like to be able to run fast away. The feeling then lasted but a few gloriously hideous seconds and my strong arms went to work, redirecting the weapon away and into the punk's abdomen, feeling him squeeze the trigger in a panic and solving my immediate problem.
" But this time the feeling decided to hang around for a little while - and I had this choke-ugly ogrette to thank for it. She didn't stop smiling while she stared into me, unblinking and energetic. The icepick found what looked to be a usual home in her long yellow raincoat, stained and crumpled over what looked like someone else's shoulders, someone massive.
"Obscenely huge breasts pushed away a shredded black leather vest that barely managed to do it's restraining duty. She was tall - but her bulk made it imposible to think of her as such. I suddenly wondered what company had the deviant perversion to make capri pants in her size.
" "Yer dog was fucking my leg." she said in a raspy hiss.
""He does that sometimes," I managed to say after a moment "but aparently it's not gonna be much of a problem now."
"The woman turned her head back and laughed a whiskey and Winstons deepened throaty laugh that made the echo of my legs fade away. I had made up my mind and decided to hate her. My hand cuddled an old friend stashed in the folds of my jacket pocket as she began a quick walk toward me. From behind me an icy frozen hand ran it's way gently but surely over the curve of my shoulder.
"She turned me around forcefully and stared straight into my cerebrum. The evil liquid of her eyes took control of my senses.
""Wanna go to dinner?" she asked in her stickiest voice.
""Sure, why not."
Jennifer Sykes:
"I had no choice! She chained all of my self-control to her spiked leather choker, and I was dragged to hell in less than five words
"In thirty long strides, I found myself inside of Mom's Gynecologist's--her favorite sit-down eatery. The name said it all. The aura of the place left me feeling violated. A waitress named America came to the table wearing little else than her lover/uncle's stained Farm Aid IV t-shirt. Something told me that this was her Sunday best.
"She looked to the canine-killer.
""Hey, Vinyl, who's your bastard friend?"
"Nice, I thought. Vinyl.
"It was easy to recognize that a slick synthetic name was never given to a more fitting recipient. Images of how things obviously slide right off of her cold blue skin and her equally embalmed character were floating dangerously in my head when V herself took them away.
""Not my friend. My victim."
"America nodded as if she had seen this all before...like I was just the
latest in a chain of unsuspecting fools.
"This was not a comforting feeling.
""Listen, I have to go scoop my dog off of the sidewalk. It's been nice."
"I tried to get out as quickly as possible. I slammed my chair into the table and turned quickly to go. I heard America swear under her breath. Vinyl was coming after me. I knew it. I could feel the air part to two sides as if it too was afraid of her wrath.
"I wouldn't let myself think of it...the door was three feet in front of me. I ran my fingertips lightly down the poorly-tinted glass and grabbed the cold metal to push it open. I felt the warmth and static air of the outside brush across my face.
"But I wasn't free.
"Her sharp black nails dug into the flesh beneath my jaw. I could feel her full, deeply-painted lips against my ear. Her hot, humid breath melted across my face and drained straight through to my heart.
"She hissed pure evil, "You haven't had a drink yet."
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