REAL LIFE/REAL DEATH Chapter Eight

"GURLY'S"

It was broad daylight, but the neon lights were still on. They were always on. The first thing that caught your eye was the big pink neon lights. They twisted themselves around until they formed the image of a woman on her hands and knees, her ass hung in the air in a provocative manner. Directly above this hung another neon light that spelled out the word “Gurly’s” in an elegant blue cursive.

This place had no class.

I grabbed Jennifer by the wrist and dragged up to the front double doors. The bouncer nodded at me.

“Who’s the girl, Frank?” he asked.

“A friend.” I replied.

“She got any ID?”

“Yeah, Charlie, here you go.” I grumbled, and promptly fished twenty bucks out of my pocket and handed it to him.

“Thanks, Frank. Have fun.” He smiled.

Charlie was a big guy. He used to be a body builder, but now his muscles all turned to fat. Still, I wouldn’t want to get in his way. I was upset about losing the twenty bucks, but I didn’t hate him. He was just doing his job. Besides, it helps to keep people like him happy. He and I, we had an understanding. I take care of him, he takes care of me. He’s saved my drunken ass on more than one occasion.

The first thing I felt after entering was the thumping bass from the music. It reverberated through the walls straight into my chest. As we entered the club the music became louder and clearer. I didn’t recognize the song. It was some pop song, I imagine. I never pay attention to stuff like that. It was pretty empty, not that many people come to a strip club at four in the afternoon. I quickly glanced at the stage and saw some topless girl dancing for some old, wild haired guy in front of the stage. I didn’t recognize the girl, she must have been new.

I took Jennifer over to the bar and sat her down.

“Hey Frank, who’s your new friend.” the bartender asked.

“Shut up, Pete. It’s not like that.” I snapped.

“No offense meant, mate. Didn’t mean anything by it, still, apologies all the same.”

What I said earlier about this place having no class? I was fucking wrong, cause one thing Gurly’s did have, was Pete. Peter Poppins was the coolest cat in town. He wore a tight, black, short sleeve collared shirt that revealed tattoos running up and down both arms. His jet black hair was slicked back and his face was covered in various piercings, but they didn’t cover his ladykiller smile. Together, with his white tie and suspenders and his round rose tinted glasses, he looked decidedly out of place in this joint.

“Don’t worry about it, Pete. I’m just a little edgy right now. Is Jesse in today?”

“Yeah, in the back office, just a sec.” Peter walked around the bar into the back of the club and promptly reappeared a few second later. “Head on back,” he said.

“Thanks, Pete,” and leaning in close I asked him, “Keep an eye on the girl for me, okay? She’s not from around here and she may be a little disoriented.”

“Sure thing, bud.”

“And Pete, no funny stuff, okay? I mean it. She’s…special to me, alright?”

“You got it,” he said, reigning in his smile to a half smirk. Peter was a skirt chaser, but he also knew when to respect another man’s wishes. I knew I could trust him to look out for her.

I made my way to the back room and was greeted before I even entered the office.

“What brings you in today, Frank? Sandy’s off tonight,” boomed the thick, bass voice from inside the office.

Jesse Gurly, was the biggest, blackest, meanest motherfucker in this whole city. He owns the strip club, but I know that ain’t the only way he makes his money. He’s never done anything for free in his entire life, and he’s probably got more blood on his hands than any coroner down at the precinct. And he’s probably the closest thing I have to a friend.

“I’m not here to see Sandy; I’m here to see you.”

“What do you need, Frank?” I couldn’t stand the way he said my name, like it tasted bad coming out.

“I need an alibi. For today.”

“You expect some trouble coming your way?”

“Yeah, well no. I mean, I already had some. I just need to get my bases covered so I can think this one through.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Cops, I think. I don’t know. I haven’t figured it all out yet. I was just on this case last night and now—“

“Last night?” He cut me off, “So you were a part of that massacre, huh?”

“Yeah, I mean no. It’s complicated. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but somebody thinks I did. I just need to get somewhere so I can think things though. I can figure this out. I just need time.”

“And you're sure that someone’s after you?”

“You think I’ve just been drinking too much. That what your saying, Jesse? Course someone’s after me! I just left a guy half dead back in my apartment!”

“Alright Frank, alright. I think I can help you out. I just hate to see you get in over your head.”

I didn’t mean to snap at him. I never mean to snap at anybody. I just get angry when I can’t figure things out. He was right, though. There wasn’t anybody after me. They were after the girl. But I couldn’t tell him that. Can’t risk it. He’s too connected. He was true to his word, though. He said he’d cover for me. He even set me up with a place to stay at Sandy’s. God bless him for that. She might be just what I need to get my head straight. I was going to owe him big time for this.

I went back to the bar and Pete and Jennifer talking. A little too comfortably from the looks of it, too.

“We’re leaving,” I said as sternly as I could.

“Awww, c’mon Frank. You don’t have to go so soon. She was just telling me about New York, I’ve never been there, ya know? Stay for a while, have a drink. On the house.”

I never could say no to a free drink.

Let's talk about art.

Remember the first time you saw the film The Boondock Saints? You had just caught up on Quintin Tarantino's filmography and were still riding high on The Matrix wave when this movie came out of nowhere and stumbled into your possession. Naturally, you thought this was the coolest movie ever because, well, you were eighteen and violence was cool. But then as you got older the movie lost some of it's shine and you started seeing it for what it really was, a collection of action sequences designed to exhibit extreme shootouts and executions. The story development was contrived and nearly nonexistent, and the characters are mere props set in place to hold the guns. This movie is pure fourteen year old child fantasy. Not to say that it doesn't have entertaining moments, there's a spark of clever film making in there, and there is some genuinely funny dialog, but as a whole, the film lacks substance other than a petulant statement that killing bad guys is cool.

At least, that was my experience with the movie. But what I find more interesting is Troy Duffy's experience with the movie. Troy Duffy, for those of you who don't know, is the writer and director of The Boondock Saints, and his story is a sad and amazing tale of self destruction.

Duffy was a musician who moved to LA in order to pursue a record contract for his band, The Brood, while bar tending. Eventually, he wrote a movie script and astounded media agents when it was bought by Harvey Weinstein for quite a large sum of money. Weinstein was building Duffy up to be the new golden boy, and was gearing up to make his movie with Hollywood stars, land a record contract, and be the new bad boy of the entertainment industry. After a few months he lost it all, got blacklisted from Hollywood, and by some miracle barely got his movie made. How did he manage that? For the whole story, I would recommend the documentary Overnight. If you're on Netflix, it's a free instant view right now. In a nutshell, Duffy was an uncharismatic, foul languaged, loudmouth who was so convinced by his own genius that he put off everyone he met. He successfully alienated all his friends and arguably ruined their lives. Every challenge he faced was met with cries of "they'll all be sorry!" and "you'll come crawling back!" It's quite a scene, man.

Obviously, The Boondock Saints was eventually made and went on to be a large success on the DVD market, which is a testament to the films likability, although Duffy didn't make a cent on the DVD sales due to signing away all the rights. Likewise, for the last five years, Duffy has been trying to get the sequel made, which apparently is set to be released this November.

The Boondock Saints is a frighteningly accurate portrayal of Duffy's personality. The movie's adolescent glorification of murder, under the guise of Catholic symbolism and morality, is the same attitude that every narcissistic teenager shares. This is all representative of Duffy's perpetual state of arrested development. Every decision he makes is driven by his paranoia that everybody thinks he's a bum instead of a genius, so he's going to prove them all wrong and shove it in their faces.

Troy Duffy is a perfect example of why I can't separate the art from the artist. Art is about communication, and when you make a piece of art you are communicating your thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Even if your thought is no deeper than, "Baby, baby, I love you, baby!" -- it's still a thought which other people share and connect with. So when examining a piece of art, I don't think it's unreasonable to get a feel for the creators personality. Likewise, when a creator does something that I disagree with or find appalling, or is just plain old despicable, it does affect how I feel about his art, because any piece of art should be representative of his beliefs.

And if it's not then he's a hack and a liar, in which case I have no interest in his art.

REAL LIFE/REAL DEATH Chapter Seven

Well, I've been out of town for a week and I haven't gotten nearly as much writing done as I'd have liked. But I do have a new chapter to update. I'm not too happy with the way this chapter ended, but the point of this exercise is to just write through all that and edit it later, so that's what I'm doing. Anyway, here's chapter Seven.

“THE TEAM”

I was sweating.

It was pretty cold out, but I was sweating. I had spent the whole drive desperately trying to collect my thoughts but I was just too damn shook up. I shouldn’t have left my apartment with that guy there. Once the cops found him I’d be the prime suspect. No. The cops had to be the one’s who sent him. But why? They were grilling me just beforehand. They had to know something. Maybe somebody else was looking for the girl. The friends of the corpse from last night? Could be. Maybe the girl’s friends. But why? Goddamnit I need to get this all sorted out.

I swung the car into a parking lot and slammed on the brakes.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Tell me what happened last night. No beating around the bush.”

“I told you, it’s hard to—“

“Don’t give me no shit, I nearly got killed because somebody is looking for you. I’m sick of this shit, start talking.” I really didn’t mean to curse at the girl, it just came out. That happens when I get angry.

She took a deep breath, “Well, like I said, we were going out on patrol. The Watchman, he operates a neighborhood watch, but he wanted to expand out, cover more sections of the city. He said it would be good publicity, for us to make ourselves seen and stuff. We wanted people to know we were serious, that we put the costumes on for a reason. Sergio, he was Azul Amigo, he was especially into the idea. He did a lot of local theater back in New York and loved the performance of being a superhero. I mean, he did a lot of work for the homeless shelters and stuff, but he just loved making a show out of it.”

“Where was everybody else from?”

“Well, Watchman is local, I think Super Citizen is too. Pieces is from somewhere in California, Captain Kick is from Orlando, and I think Ombre is from Indiana or something.”

“So, you guys actually all got together as some kind of team?”

“Yeah, I guess. Like I said, Watchman really wanted to something big. He had been doing some interviews with some journalists and had a couple articles written about him and other Real Life Superheroes. So that’s what last night was going to be. We split up into pairs and patrolled the surrounding neighborhoods, everyone was real excited, we had walkie talkies and everything. Azul and I were one team, cause we already knew each other. Pieces and Ombre were another team, Watchman and Captain Kick were together, and Super Citizen was by himself. He was kind of weird, I don’t think anybody wanted to be on his team anyway. But he seemed like he already knew the area and it wasn’t a big deal to him. So that was it, we all went out on patrol, but…things didn’t go so well.’

She stopped, I thought she was trying to gather her thoughts or start crying, but to be honest, I couldn’t’ve told you either way.

“We got a call, on the walkie talkies. Watchman said there was a drug deal going on. He was actually seeing a drug deal. He wanted us to be on our guard. We were supposed to take up positions surrounding him and keep our eyes open, so we could identify anyone in the area if we needed to. Sergio and I were at the hotel. I don’t really know what happened next. Someone, Super Citizen I think, interfered. I don’t know if he started attacking them or if he was just found out, but Watchman was yelling something into the walkie talkies, but it was so hard to hear him, and then… then we heard the gunshots.

Azul and I looked for someplace to hide, but before we could even move, a guy came running out of the alley next to us. He was carrying a briefcase and a gun. He was running from someone and didn’t notice us at first, but as soon as he did, he knew who we were. He was surprised and started firing at us.”

I thought she was going to start bawling at this point, but she remained calm, almost completely detached from the whole story. It was making me uncomfortable.

She went on, “Sergio was hit immediately. I hid behind a dumpster. There were two more gunshots. Peeking around the dumpster, I could see that the other guy had been shot. Somebody else came out of the alley and took the briefcase. Then he ran off. I don’t…I don’t remember much of what happened next, until you showed up.”

I took a deep breath. I knew what we should do. We should go straight to the cops. She could tell them everything she just told me, and then she can go back to New York City, minus one friend. But it wouldn’t be that easy would it? This whole costume club would be a real mess. Media, lawyers, all kinds of crap. Hell, they’d probably institutionalize her. Then there’s still the matter of the lummox we left at the apartment. I just needed more time to think, to figure it all out, whatever it was. Fuck it, I’d already made my decision.

We were going to Gurly’s. It was still early in the afternoon, but Gurly’s was always open.

REAL LIFE/REAL DEATH Chapter Six

"SAYING GOODBYE TO THE BOTTLE”

The bastard was big. He was real big.

The door swung around on its hinges, sending shockwaves through the walls. A picture frame shattered as it hit the floor. The big bastard lumbered through the doorway, he didn’t look to be in any particular hurry. That bothered me. Worst of all, I couldn’t fucking breathe.

I guess I was having some kind of panic attack. I could feel my lungs aching, but they just refused to inhale. I wasn’t scared, not really. I’ve been living each day as my last for the last decade or so, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of regret. Maybe that’s what was bothering me. I should have called Anne. I knew Grace, my ex-wife; I knew she would never talk to me, but Anne…I could have done more for Anne. I did feel bad for this Jen girl, too. I mean, she seemed to be in a tough place right and I hadn’t been able to do shit for her.

FUCK! Some gorilla just broke into my home and all I could do was tense up and feel sorry for myself. There was no way I wasn’t going to die.

The brute sauntered through the room. And he was a brute, too. Sloping brow, big chin, hands the size of Christmas hams. He noticed that I was struggling to breathe and gave me a dimwitted, black toothed smile. He didn’t care about me. He was here for the girl.

Jen was panicking. On one side of her, I was dying, and on the other side this creep was closing in on her. She didn’t even make a noise, she didn’t scream, cry for help, nothing, she was helpless as I was. We deserved each other, I guess.

The big bastard knocked the whole table over, and it took me with it. I laid there on my back gasping for air. The big guy grunted something. I finally heard a scream. Anne was screaming. I could see through the chair legs that the big guy was wrestling hold of her. She wasn’t making it easy for him, I’ll give her that. She desperately tried to squirm out of his grasp, but his hands were like vices on her arms.

That’s what was happening, but that’s not what I saw. All I could see was my own hand, wrapped in it’s own vice like grip around the bottle of scotch. Air finally surged into my lungs like scotch into a glass, which was soon to follow. I staggered to my feet. I could see the big fucking mongoloid looming over Anne. Fuck him.

The bottle came down hard on the back of his head, but not as hard as I wanted it to. Glass shattered and big piece stuck out of his head, giving his hair a bloody part.

Anne dropped to the floor.

“FUCK!” He yelled.

He clumsily backhanded his fist in my direction. I didn’t dodge, but he still missed. Thank god. I wasn’t so lucky the second time. He spun around to face me, blood splattering the walls as he did. He landed a solid punch in my gut and I found myself once again gasping for air. I doubled over and clutched my stomach, which helped me avoid another clumsy fist. This dick was angry and swinging wildly, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t have the strength for a fight and just let myself fall over. It was a sorry sight. But before I could give up entirely and just let myself die, I saw her.

The red fabric clung to her body like a wet bathing suit. Her blonde hair cascaded down her back, her bangs hidden by her mask. She had something in her hand. With frightening precision she brought her heel down on the back of the thug’s calf. He cried out in pain and dropped to one knee. He tried to get up and turn around and nearly lost his balance. But before he could react, she held her occupied hand out about a foot from his face and sprayed something into his eyes.

He roared like a beast and blindly charged straight ahead. She deftly sidestepped his lumbering attack and guided him headfirst into the brick wall.

“Anne…” I muttered as she tried to help me up.

“No, it’s Night Cat,” she said, “My name’s Night Cat.”

“My eye’s hurt, what did you spray him with?” I choked out.

“Pepper spray,” she said nonchalantly. Looking at the unmoving body across the room, she stiffened up, “We should call the police, and maybe an ambulance.”

“No,” I spat, “Police…the police…the ones who sent him.”

“What, how do you know?”

“Just…a hunch,” I mumbled. It was really hurting to talk, “We have to go.”

“Well, we have to call 911! We can’t just leave him here!”

“Fine.”

I didn’t have the strength to fight a 300 pound goomba and I certainly didn’t have the strength to fight her. I tried to gather up anything I thought I might need while she dialed the police. This was real fucking bad. I ripped the phone out of her hands and hung it up.

“Are you crazy?” She screamed.

I threw the old clothes at her, “Put those back on. We’re leaving. We need to get somewhere safe until I can get my head clear. And take off that fucking mask!”

That last bit just slipped out, but she took the mask off and got dressed.

“Where are we going?” she asked timidly.

“Gurly’s.”

REAL LIFE/REAL DEATH Chapter Five

It's been a while, but after finally getting Zero's Heroes up and running, I've been able to devote some time to Real Life/Real Death. So here's chapter five, it's another short chapter in which we get a very brief glimpse of the other heroes from Night Cat and a very large dose of self loathing from our main character, Frank.

Chapter Five

“CRACK”

I was ten hours sober. I don’t think good when I’m sober, too many thoughts jumbling around in my head. Admittedly, I was also shaken up by the run in with the cops. I wasn’t thinking straight and I was angry, but not as angry as I was about to be.

I opened the door and there she was, sitting on my couch playing with her hair. Her long blonde locks tangled in between her fingers. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I thought I was going to cry but felt like I was going to throw up.

“…Anne,” I muttered.

She turned around and the wig fell off. I hated myself so much I could’ve blown my head off right then and there.

“Oh, it’s Jen.” She stated, “My name’s Jennifer.”

“Right,” I said as I walked past her, making a bee line for the kitchenette. I set the bag of groceries on the table and pulled out the bottle of Scotch. She just sat on the couch, staring at me while I downed a few swallows. The bottle came down on the table a little harder than I wanted it to. She was nervous.

“Are you hungry?” I asked, trying to break the tension, “I got some food.”

“Um, okay. Yeah, actually I am.”

I microwaved some pizza. We ate in silence. My mind was a mess. What was I going to do about this girl? Did I even have a plan? No, I didn’t. She clearly doesn’t seem all that stable. Did she kill that guy? Is she a killer? Fuck, is she going to kill me? I could kill her if I needed to. I tried to think back to last night. I took a swig of scotch. I think better when I’m drinking.

The whole scene was kind of surreal. She was on top of that guy, beating his face to a pulp. Was he moving? I don’t think so. No, he was dead by the time I got there, I remember that. The night was still kind of a haze, I needed more time to think about it, but I was having a hard time focusing right now. Too much stress, I guess. I took another drink.

We continued to eat. She just stared down at her plate, nibbling at her pizza, as if she was afraid to eat it. Fuck me! It wasn’t until just then that I realized she was wearing her costume, only without the mask.

“You want some clothes?” I asked.

It shouldn’t have surprised me when she put the jeans and sweater on over her costume. I gave her the smallest belt I had; it barely kept the jeans up. It didn’t look all that natural, but she seemed a little more relaxed, which made me more relaxed.

We sat in silence and ate our pizza until she finally blurted out, “I didn’t kill him.”
The words were slow and deliberate. It seemed like she had been practicing those words all morning.

“I didn’t kill him,” she repeated and then emphasized, “the guy in the parking lot.”

I paused, unsure of what to say. I guess we weren’t going to be beating around the bush anymore.

“Why don’t you tell me what did happen,” I said.

“I’m not sure,” she hesitated, “You wouldn’t understand. It seems like so much needs to be explained.”

“Why don’t you start with why you’re wearing a costume?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she chirped, “I’m a superhero.”

“Do you have any…powers?” I asked.

“Of course not, I’m a Real Life Superhero. We’re just regular people who have been inspired by comic book characters to take a more proactive social role.”

“You need a costume to do that?”

“Well, duh. It’s a safety measure.”

“Yeah, okay, I get it.” I lied. This girl seemed to be a little emotionally unstable, so I didn’t want to push any buttons that I didn’t need to and decided to just get to the facts, “so you’re a superhero. Fine. What happened last night?”

“Well, it all started with this guy called The Watchman. He operates out of this city. He has been trying to get a group of us together for a while now. I guess there’s a lot of crime around here.”

I couldn’t really argue with her about that. This place is a shithole.

“We all came in over the weekend and went on our first big patrol last night.”

“How many of you were there?”

“Seven, including me. The Watchman, Super Citizen, Captain Kick, Pisces, Ombre, and…Azul Amigo. Poor Azul…”

I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. She tucked her head under her arms and to hide her sobbing. This was taking to long. I sat at the table, silently waiting for her to get herself back together. I was just reaching for the bottle of scotch when I heard the loud “CRACK” of my door being kicked in.

Meet Puppets

Last thursday I had the extreme pleasure of meeting the band that has probably been the biggest influence on me personally. I speak, of course, about the Meat Puppets.

They were in St. Louis for a show, and beforehand, were hanging out in Vintage Vinyl, promoting their new record. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the show. Thankfully, I've seen them live before, so it wasn't that big of a soul crushing experience. I was happy to be able to see them in the record store though, because this was the end result:I usually don't go for signatures on my stuff anymore(there was a time when I did) because I don't like talking to artists unless I actually have something substantial to say, and I don't feel the need to improve my self esteem by proving that I once stood next to someone famous.

But mostly, it's because I generally make a fool of myself when I don't have anything to say. And naturally, after shaking Curt and Chris's hands, all I could manage to sputter out where the old standards, "This has got to be my favorite album of all time, " and, "the new album sounds really good." It was all terribly embarassing, and I can only take comfort in the fact that to them I was just another forgettable gushing fan, which I'm sure their more than used to dealing with.

Still, I suppose everyone deserves their own little sentimentalities(that's a word I just made up, I think), and this one is mine.

Oh, and the new record, Sewn Together, is good. It's still 2000's Meat Puppets, but there are flashes of different era's of the band sprinkled throughout the album. It's about as close to 1980's Meat Puppets as 2009 Meat Puppets can be, I suppose. Plus, how can you hate a record that looks like this:

Wowie Zowie

Believe it or not, I've been fairly busy for the past few months. Busy, of course, in relative terms. I mean, yeah, I still have time to play through Half Life 2 and read all of Akira, but I haven't done a whole lot of writing. And the reason for that is:This is the "vanity press" I created for myself. It's nothing fancy, strictly online publishing, for now, as an easy outlet for self publishing comics online, which is a fancy way of saying, "I'm making a webcomic." I don't have the money nor the inclination to venture into print publishing at this point in time. This project has been in production in one form or another for over a year now. It's been a long, slow road, but it's nice to see some payoff from all that work. But it's been a busy couple of months. Aside from doing some massive editing to the scripts I wrote over a year ago, it's been kind of a headache coordinating the creation of the website. But I really don't have much complaining to do, because it's no more of a headache than I let it be. I'm just glad to be able to say that the website it up and running. It's an ugly skeleton of a site right now(I can't stop cringing over the various typos), but over the weekend it should be tuned up to satisfaction and, starting Monday, we start updating full time. Two books, each updated twice a week. It's going to be a challenge. We've been working pretty far in advance, so I hope we can avoid any delays. Being punctual is important, ya know.

As I am typing this up, I realize that I haven't talked much about the contents of the actual comics themselves(not just here, but to anyone really). Not because I'm secretive over my ideas(which are nothing special) but more because I'm just loathe to talk about myself. But I guess I'll try to give a good description here of what we're trying to do.

Many, many months ago, I teamed up with my friend Tim, and we began working on two books. We want to write these books in a style similar to Stan Lee's Marvel of the early 60's. I think this approach lends itself easily to the webcomic format. Each book has it's own story and themes, while both tell a larger story of the universe wherein they're contained. On the surface, this sounds exactly like what Marvel and DC are doing, and I'll save you an intense lecture on everything they are doing wrong, but I think our approach different enough. The biggest, and most important thing we are doing is writing these books in volumes(or seasons, album, tomes, whatever). I'm not interested in spinning wheels and maintaining brands like the big companies do(not because they're evil, they have to do it), so we are writing toward endings. I wouldn't mind doing more volumes, of course. So that leaves us with my book, Zero's Heroes, and Tim's book, The Celestial. We are both working with various superhero archetypes throughout our books. Zero's Heroes is a team book about a bunch of dysfunctional losers who are overshadowed by every other superhero in town. On the other end of the spectrum, The Celestial is about the worlds most powerful and popular superhero and the challenge and weight of responsibility she faces.

It's both exciting and stressful, but I'm fairly sure I'm just using the stress as an excuse for why I haven't been more productive. Though, I can't predict whether or not people are going to be interested in my book(and I think it's a waste of time worrying about it), I'm fairly confident with what I'm trying to do, and I think I'm a pretty good learner. Just keeping busy, and actually DOING it, has improved my writing tenfold.

So, it's going to be a great relief once we get the site completely done(as much as that can be) and I will be able to start working on other projects, like returning to Real Life/Real Death.