dontravis.com
blog post #362
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| Courtesy of documentjournal.com |
Here’s
the rest of my interpretation of Mark’s story.
*****
Adapted from a Story by Mark Wildyr
A couple of mornings after that, a noise
outside my door woke me up. I always sleep buff, so I was as naked as the day I
squeezed out between my mama’s thighs when I jerked the door open. Old Dooper
stood there with a spray can in his right hand, his mouth open in surprise. His
eyes had white showing all round them deep brown pupils.
I glanced over my shoulder and seen what
he was up to. He’d been bombing. This big old white butt now decorated my front
door for all the world to see. He hadn’t fancied it up or nothing. Anybody, but
anybody who seen it couldn’t help but know it was mine. Hell, I done him
the courtesy of camouflaging his down at the railyard with graffiti. Course,
maybe he would’ve too, if I hadn’t caught him in the middle of it.
I come to my senses in time to dodge the
paint he sprayed at me. Knocking the can from his hand, I grabbed his ratty
shirt and jerked him inside. When the door slammed shut, I whirled to ask him
what in the hell he thought he was doing, but he lit into me, arms, knees, and
elbows churning!
I act tough, but I ain’t no street
fighter. Can’t keep from closing my eyes when I see something coming! Old
Dooper was a battler, and he give me everthang he had, and then some. I was in
trouble inside of thirty seconds. He was mad and wasn’t gonna give me no break.
One set of bony knuckles caught me on the chin and another whopped me up the
side of the head. He musta growed another arm, ‘cause a third set slugged me right
in the belly. I went down for real.
I couldn’t a been out more’n a minute or
so, but when I got sos I knew where I was again, my naked ass was tied to the
bed, belly down. I shook the cobwebs outa my eyes and fixed on my right arm.
He’d lashed me to the bed frame with my clothesline. My clothesline! He cut up
my freaking clothesline! Then I figured out my legs was lashed to opposite
sides of the bed. Didn’t take a Wall Street lawyer to figure out what was going
down.
“Now wait a minute, bro! You can’t do
this! I never done nothing to you!”
“You put my butt right up on the wall down
where everybody can see it. You call that nothing? ‘Sides, I ain’t your bro. I
your worst nightmare.”
“Dooper, you can’t—”
The shit he couldn’t! He crawled between
my legs laid into me ‘til he let out a whoop.
After my breathing got easier, I started
to get mad. Sure as shit he’d brag up what he done. Anybody who could read
graffiti’d know about it. My blood started rising.
“Get off me, you bastard,” I said in a low
voice. “You better get outa here. I get loose, I’m gonna kill you!”
“Don’t see how,” he said. “Took you fair
and square.”
“Took me by surprise. Fair fight, I’d take
you clean.”
“You ain’t no fighter, Dangle. I din’t
even work up a sweat.”
I twisted my whole body the best I could
hog-tied like I was and dumped him on the floor. Mistake. He got up and started
slapping at me.
“You son-a-bitch!” I yelped. “I’ll tell
everbody—”
I don’t know what else I was gonna do,
‘cause he whopped me a good one right on the temple and night time come
crashing down in the middle of the morning.
It musta been some time before I come to.
When I opened my eyes the sun was coming in the west window right square in my
face. I moved… and groaned. My muscles was sore, and my bung hole hurt. Still
flat on my belly, I rolled over and set up. At least the fucker untied me
before he left. I’d kill the son-a-bitch when I seen him again. I started to
get up but fell back on the bed when a shadow moved.
Dooper was still here! Black as a raven,
he leaned against the wall in the corner of the room, looking down his nose at
me. My adrenaline started flowing. I come offa the bed and took him by surprise.
Guess he figured I was still groggy or weak or something. Barreling into him, I
mashed him flat against the wall. Don’t know why his spine didn’t break, but it
didn’t. He got his wind back fast and started whupping on me. He backed me
clear across the room. I might be a better tagger, but he sure as shit was a
better fighter. I got downright scared. He beat me so easy before, wasn’t no
doubt what was gonna happen this time. He was hurting me with them bony
knuckles.
Desperate, I sacrificed an old kitchen
chair I’d bought for two dollars at a yard sale, splintering it to smithereens
right over the top of his head. Son-a-bitch staggered, shook his head, and
started for me again. But he was hurt, so I had time to take a chair leg, only
piece I still held in my hands, and slam it across his ribs. Something popped
real loud, and he reeled back onto the bed. I run for the door but hesitated
when he didn’t get up and take after my butt. Besides, I was buck necked! He’d
flopped belly down on the mattress, black ass shining at me. I shrugged off
enough of my terror to edge over to him, careful to keep outa range of them
long, ropy arms.
“Dooper?”
“Uhhh.” He made like he was gonna move,
but that petered out, so I got braver. I poked him with a finger. He mumbled
something. Figuring it was payback time, I used them same binds he’d made me
helpless with to lash him to the bed. He didn’t even try to fight me off.
“Dooper, you son-a-bitch, you gonna get
yours. I whupped your ass, now I’m gonna do you like you done me.”
He tried to struggle, but didn’t put much
into it. Remembering how he’d swatted me, I took to slapping his head and
calling him names. He took it. Didn’t put up no fuss at all. Figured he was
beat fair and square, I guess.
When it was over, I crawled offa him and
started mending fences. “Dooper, we cool now? You know… even Steven?”
He went stubborn and wouldn’t talk. I poked
his ribs, but he just laid there. Plotting his revenge, probably. I looked over
his shoulder. His eyes was half closed, his mouth open. And there was blood
trickling out of it.
What the shit? I took a closer look.
Dooper was out of it… bad. He was breathing all right, but he was gone
somewhere in la-la-land. Man, the fucker was hurt! I remembered the snap when I
waylaid him with the chair leg. A rib! Bet I busted a rib! Damn, old Dooper was
in a bad way!
I tore around the place getting my clothes
on and yelling I’d get him some help. But I come to a dead halt at the door.
What would the cops think?. The place was a wreck from where we’d been
fighting. We was both beat black and blue and bloody. And this big, white ass
was painted right smack on the door. Not only that, but I had all my paints and
supplies in the house. The cops was gonna bag the two biggest taggers in the
state and a couple of perverts all in the same haul.
What was I gonna do? Dooper needed help
bad! After about fifteen seconds, I hit that room like a tornado ripping
through it. My best paints, the piecebook with my plans and designs in it, and
a few clothes was all I could salvage. Stowing them in my bike’s saddlebags, I
tore off down the road for the nearest pay phone.
I blurted out that somebody needed help
and told them where before slamming down the receiver and racing back to watch
from an apple orchard across from my place. Seemed like it took forever, but
after a while, a black-and-white crawled down the driveway and drifted to a
stop. Two cops, one thin with a doughnut of spare flesh around his beltline,
the other with a respectable beer-belly, got out and approached the place with
hands on their pieces. They jabbered over my painted door before finally going
inside. Shit! I’d forgot to untie Dooper; his ass’d be staring them right in
the face.
A little later, an ambulance come down the
drive at a snail’s pace like it had all the time in the world, and that worried
me some. Maybe old Dooper was dead meat. But when they hauled him out on that
stretcher thing they use, he was covered with a sheet except for his head, so
he was still breathing. As soon as they took off with siren wailing, I headed
out.
Albuquerque was done for me now; I was in
big trouble. Mayor Dude had my fingerprints from when I was busted for tagging
four years ago. And they had lots of my paints and custom tips. No telling what
Dooper’d tell them. Not only that, but the two cops was still in my shack
nosing around. For sure, they find my stash of weed and the meth tabs I keep
for when I need a lift. I was baked chicken around here.
I pedaled my bike through the unlighted
back alleys until I got out of the south valley. I was burned in Albuquerque…
probably in the whole damned state. Too bad. I liked it here. Got hot, but like
they say, it’s a dry heat. Didn’t bother me none. And the winters was good. But
the cops here ain’t queer-friendly, and that’s what they’d figure I was. Shit, maybe
I am, come to think on it.
Man, I sure hoped old Dooper come outa
this all right. Wonder where I’ll end up, and what adventures I’ll find when I
get there.
One thing about it. I got my art to live
for wherever the I end up.
*****
Can’t
exactly call it a happy ending, but then Mark doesn’t always head in that
direction. A lot of his writing has elements of sorrow and tragedy in them.
Hope you enjoyed the story. Let me know.
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on
writing. You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Note the change in the Email address because I’m still getting
remarks on the old dontravis21@gmail.com. PLEASE DON’T USE
THAT ONE.)
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
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links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
