Underground
Short Story
by Joshua Willson
“Welcome to the underground! In the ground six feet under
where the worms and maggots dwell and where the tree roots grow free and
where the remains of the human bodies are reduced to worm meat. Evil
lurks here! Life in the underground is fast. In this high rate of speed
people will crash more than finish the race.”
I wrote this while remembering my childhood. Today is one year after my mother’s death and a few
months after my dad drank.
My memory starts in the kitchen. The kitchen had empty Budweiser cans
piled up on the floor, on the counter, and on the microwave oven. A
cockroach was feasting on some cereal soaked with putrefying milk in the
sink where the dishes laid ennobled.
The radio news man was saying, “be warned last night a
young lady was rap-”(click). I turned off the radio in mid-sentence and
started to walk into the living room. I kicked some beer cans out of the
way while walking into the living room .
Inside the living room the TV was on and the VCR was on
pause. The paused porn movie had a women act like a rape victim. Taking
a closer look, I could see the actress’s head dripping fake blood.
Before driving to the club I drove by a Baptist church being demolished
with the sign, “please give donations and save our church” still in front.
Then my memory fades hours ahead where I am waiting in line
get into a club. My shirt smelled of vomit and marijuana smoke because some idiot
decided to throw up on it, but as for the smoke smell well that was my
fault. I had a brown beard with brown eyes and brown hair. “Damn it!”, I
kept dropping my wallet because my pants were in their last thread of
life. When finally after hours of waiting I entered the club and I hoped
my friend was there.
Inside the club, there were half-dressed women, alcohol drinking,
ecstasy use, and illegal drug dealing occurring underneath the black lights
that illuminated everyone’s eyes and teeth. On the dance floor people
danced erotically and erratically and somewhere among the confusion my
friend was dancing.
One problem with the dance floor was I couldn't’t find my friend, so I
asked around the to discover that she had left with a man. Ten rum and cokes later, the door opened and I thought it was her, but
it was an old man with a thick beastly brown beard. The old man sat
about six tables away and I could see the old man’s greasy motionless
unwashed hair. His trench coat was rotting off his back, but what was most
interesting was the old man coughed out golf ball size lugies into the
trash cans that was near him. Then the old man started to massage his
homeless, battled, bloody, broken hands. Then Hope, his real name was
Jason Crawford but everyone called him Hope, he was one of my friends,
but not the first one I had mentioned, called me to his table that was
behind the old man. When I passed the old man, the stench of dumpster
juice (liquid collected in the bottom of a dumpster) hit my nose.
Hope was tall with red hair and freckles all over his white arms.
“Look dude that man used to be one of us in school”
“Hope you are not one of us!”
“Dude get out of here! You can do better. You don‘t have to live life
as a ghoul.”.
“What about you? You’re here!”
“I am here to save people like you from a social-clique system. Think
people in this world never throw away a full beer they put it in the
refrigerator, but think uneducated people equal half full-half empty beer
that are ready to be drank or thrown away. My hypothesis is you
changed to fit into your surroundings like a lizard .”
Before I spoke, a man crashed through the club doors bleeding from his
head. I took a closer look and discovered it was the person, my friend
left with a few hours ago. Then another man walked in the club right
after him. This man that walked in was at least between six foot eight to
seven foot tall. This huge man had a shirt that said, “the 800 pound
bench pressing club”, if that does not say how big the man was; then take
this for example the guy he was fighting was six foot two and two
hundred fifty pounds and also a Golden Gloves champion boxer but still
looked like a toy compared to the huge man. The Boxer was fast and hit the
giant with good shots in the face and drew blood . I guess the huge man
was sick of being punched because he grabbed the Boxer’s neck and
lifted him off the ground. The Boxer’s feet were a foot above the ground and
in a moments notice the huge man swung his arm violently. “Crack!”. The
Boxer’s neck was broken. Then the huge man threw him three feet my
direction. The huge man tried to speak but couldn't. I looked closer at the
huge man’s throat and found a scar and remembered a story about a
prisoner, who was just released, with his vocal cord crushed. He then went
to the back to wait for the cops to come.
I went to the bathroom to wash my hands.
I walked out the bathroom door and then to my table. The room was hot
so I took a drink of a nice cold paper-cup of water that tasted like
mint. After I drank it two men came up to me laughing. One short man and
one tall man with purple saggy pants and blue shirts, the tall man who
had a tarnished silver cross necklace and said, “Hey kid we put some
l.s.d in there for you! Hope you like it.”
I walked to the bathroom, and then club restroom turned
into my bathroom and I looked into the mirror and saw my mother tearing
blood out of her eyes. With a few blinks the mirror vanished
and the restroom was back again.
I walked back to my table and Hope said, “I called the cops one hour
ago because of all the drug dealing in the building, they are going to
pay with there gizzards”. I was about say something but ....
All of sudden, the police crashed through the doors one by one while
they pointed their guns at us. At this moment, the people had the look
of deer trapped in the high beams of an automobile. Everyone then
understood that it was time to run. Through all this confusion, the drug
dealers who didn’t want to be arrested shot into the crowd at the police.
One of the bullets hit Hope in the throat, the blood flung out of his
neck at every heart beat and spilled on to the floor. Hope hit the
ground and his body started to shake violently. Hope's body became
lifeless.
I escaped in time with my heart pounding blood into my body in such a
fast rate that my lunch hit the floor. The drugs I took made it hard
for me to walk.
“Where was Talon?”, Talon had pale skin with pitch-black clothes, no pants on just a fish net over bottom half that covered her front,
but with a pale white ass in the back. “Where was that blue eyed
vampire?” It didn’t take long for me to find her. Talon was laying face down on
her stomach with her legs spread apart while her head was bleeding
profusely. When I got closer, I found white ooze slimming down her right
leg. “shshShe wawawas raped!”
I checked for her pulse only to feel her failing fighting heart slow
in pace. Then I ran to the club for the police. “Help! Help!” I cried
with a little trouble because my heart was raging and my body was
shaking. When the policeman came to scene, he asked me questions like how old
is she? “sssSeventtaeen!" Then policeman asked " Son! Son! Are you
listinga toa me? arer you stoned?
“Yes !” - “Can you hlp hare?”I asked,
“I am trying kid, could you tell me what she was on please?”
“Okay, yes, she had two pills of x, three shots of jack and a shot of
rum and coke." I said with the confusion whether it was me that did
those things or her. Then he told me to go in the car to keep warm.
I realized then that it was snowing and the temperature was at
freezing . The cop put his coat on talon’s bruised, bluish, bloody body. The
Policeman then checked her heart rate and turned her over with his hand
on her head to make sure not to further injure her neck. Then the cop
grabbed for his breathing mask in his pocket and slipped on his gloves.
First, he tilted her head back to open her airways and gave her two
breaths about five seconds apart. Second, he put his hands on her chest
and pushed in fifteen times and then checked her pulse. Finally, he
realized that the Colorado winter had claimed another life and gave up any further
attempts to save her life.
He covered her with a trash bag. Then the cop said, “Son, I don’t do this much. I am going to let you
go, but if I see you are high on this street again I won't let it go.” I shook my
head and he drove me home. I walked up my driveway and kicked the beer
cans to the side in my yard. Then I stopped and saw my mother talking
to me in the kitchen about something. She said, “come on go to the store
with me.” I remembered this just as it happened, my mother was going to
die while driving to the Diamond shamrock a few miles up the road. “No
mother I don’t want to”, I said neutrally because I was sleepy and
wanted to rest. “Okay, I'll be back soon are you sure you don‘t want to go.”
she said with her playful voice. “Yes, am sure I don’t want to go." I
said while watching the TV.
Seeing my mother walking to her death was enough I had to say
something, “Mother I want to go. God damn it don’t go I need you. Dad needs
you. He is lost without you and he forgets that I am alive. I can’t stand
having my father on my side and never talk to me, so please mother wake
father up and make it better. I need my father back!”. The tears ran
down my face and I realized that the vision was gone and I saw my father
pick up his beer cans into the trash bag while crying. I wiped my tears
off my face and helped pick up the beer cans. The memory fades.
Today: (Ring Ring), the alarm clock wakes me up and it is time to wake
up to work at McDonald's.
“Will you have fries with that?”
“no thank you”
The clock strikes five and it time for me to go and I think.
Work today started at 4:30 am
With the splendor of the stars on the dark morning sky
That is trapped by the brutal reality that I have to work today.
Tomorrow the alarm clock will sound the monotonous tone
And will be forced up to turn the lights on and be blinded
while feeling around for my clothes.
I think!
That today I will work eight hours
and tomorrow I will work eight hours.
my whole life will be trapped in eight hours.
Underground© Copyright 2004 Joshua Willson, printed with permission.
