I’m a Scumbag
“Our dreams give us a moment of redemption.
Then reality returns.” ~ Unknown
By Artemis J
Jones
Can this be the end? I can
barely breathe and penetrating pain through my abdomen has frightened any
movement from my limbs. A paramedic is trying to talk to me and she is staring
at my face, commenting and asking me questions.
“Sir, sir what is your name?
Can you hear me? Do you know what happened to you? I’ll keep the blanket on
you. You need to stay warm, your oxygen levels are low.”
The ambulance is loud, the
sirens are blaring, the road it travels on is bumpy and straps hold me on the
gurney. I am on a path to be saved – the promise I made, and the lie are the
same and must be protected. The lights
inside the ambulance flicker then it stops, there is no attendant. Everything
goes black.
My eyes
close, but I can still hear voices. Other voices, a man’s voice, distant
laughter. My tongue begins to swell, I am gasping for air. The paramedic
returns and talks to me. “Sir, I’m going to put a tube in your throat.” I gasp for air ….
***
Bright light comes for me, and
I am in a room, it pushes through the cracks between the curtains, over the top
of the valance and it pushes right up to my eyes, forcing them to open. Night
and darkness are my comforts. But I want something, life, my eyes now open
reflexively.
A nurse comes in my room, she
greets me as sir, and she does not know who I am.
“Sir, do you know where you
are? What is your name? You were brought
in a few moments ago. You’re in really bad shape. There was no ID on you.” she
continued with “We’re giving you blood, and we need to stich your abdomen.
You’re on an IV for fluids and here is your pain button. Right now we will make
you comfortable”
I fade out of consciousness …
the light recedes. My mind wants it back … knowing I must follow the path that
light illuminates or face certain death.
***
My eyes open, giving me hope
to travel on the path of light towards what I seek. Memories take over and
control my thoughts. There is clarity in
my mind, but it’s not welcomed. I’m thinking about a name, my name. I’m yelling
and fighting with a woman and her visual image is clear in my mind. I slap her,
she swings at me, she is screaming, “Stop … stop!” At that moment, a man comes
into my memory, vague, distant, and large. I continue to think about the
memory, when a nurse and a sheriff’s deputy come into the room. The path of
light fades, but remains faint near the top of the valance. Now I am
tensed-stressed.
The nurse checks me and says
nothing. The image of a deputy now comes
before my eyes in black and white. The deputy introduces himself.
“Sir I’m detective Robert
Moreno of the Hendry County Sheriff’s department. I’m investigating your case.
You were found at the intersection of 9th Avenue and Everett Street.
A deputy found you lying on the road face down, with your head up on the curb,
unconscious. You had multiple contusions, bruises and stab wounds. There was no
ID on you and we need to establish your identity. Sir, do you know your name?”
“My name is Denny … Denny
James Franklin.”
“Do you know your address?
Where do you live sir?”
I stare at him, confused for a
moment. I’m getting flashes of different places in my mind- a house with
bricks, a trailer. The numbers 489 flash in my mind. I’m looking at a house,
with 489 on the front ….
I blurt out, “I live at 489
Ninth Avenue.”
“Do you have family? Is there
anyone we can call for you?”
“I have a girlfriend. We live
together at the address I just told you. I’m not sure of her name.”
“Do you want us to call her?
Do you know her telephone number?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure I
live with a woman, a young woman. She has Auburn hair. Can I rest? I mean, I
need to rest. I’m tired.”
The nurse leaves the room.
Detective Moreno is silent for a moment, but stares at me, and then he begins
to write on a card.
“Mr. Franklin, I will leave
you my card. Your case number is on the back of the card; my name and number
are on the front. Call me if you can think of anything that will help us
determine what happened to you.”
I watch as the detective
leaves the room. There are bandages covering my abdomen.
Looking down the length of my
body, I notice there is a long bruise across my chest, wider up near my left
shoulder. Moving my hands around, touching my chest, abdomen, and sides, I feel
tender, sore spots. I stop moving my hands, I don’t want to know more, but the
memories come back and, at the same time, I see myself from above the bed,
staring down on the havoc of my condition. Delusional? Now I ache for the
bright light, to give me salvation, but my eyes are closing again.
Who am I?
Some scrawny-ass pussy that everybody beats up? Someone beat the shit out of
me. Why? And … who the fuck stabbed me? I can see and hear people talking about
me in my mind. “He’s funny, Denny is so
funny.” Girls are laughing. They’re
young and one is familiar. The girl with Auburn hair; someone calls her
Jennifer. Yeah, that’s it, Jennifer is my girlfriend, a little plump, with
auburn hair. A smile comes over my face, an impulse, sudden. I am looking at
her boobs. They are nice! My smile continues, Jennifer is my girlfriend and she
has nice boobs, large and firm. She is laughing and looking at me and then the
memory is gone.
I’m still looking, gazing at myself from
above. There is no mirror above me, but I see myself in a vision. My head is
oddly shaped. I see how I look and I’m ugly, with grayish eyes, bald, but not
in a sexy way. My hair is growing back, but I look more dirty than sexy as
specs of keratin push through the dermis wrapping my skull. There is no
intimidation that emanates from me. When people look at me they’re not concerned.
I am obtuse. I can remember a woman saying that to me once. “Denny you are
obtuse.” By definition, I’m simple,
undiscerning. Then why did someone stab me and beat me?
Tears well inside my closed
eyes, and a reflection of myself from those tears, lays witnesses to my
receding life. I beg for the light-I lie to get it back-I force my eyes to open
with every ounce of strength that possesses me.
Slow
flashes of light and sounds surround me. The darkness remains my comfort, but I
hope the light will return. People are in my mind now and they all have
identities. There is Bo, he is in the trailer. The trailer always has the
curtains closed. Bo has beakers, vessels, glassware and tubes in his
kitchen. There is a glass coffee table
in his living room, which is very small. The chairs in his living room are from
old cars, bucket seats. Bo works in a junkyard. There is also the memory of
Jennifer. I know I like Jennifer. I see her laughing, playing with me. She
keeps telling me ‘You are so funny.’ Why did Jennifer and I fight?
The memory of Jennifer’s
brother and father come clearly to me. I am afraid of her brother, but her
father really scares me. He is quiet
and he always watches me. He says very little to me, but I always overhear him
talking to Jennifer. He says stuff like, ‘Why are you with him? He is almost
forty years old. He doesn’t own a car. How fuckin’ lazy is he?’ stuff I do not
like to hear. One time he came to see Jenifer, because she had not answered his
texts. He came over walked in the house without knocking and he was pissed. I
looked at him with a smile -felt his dissatisfaction - his presence disturbed
me. I tried to bullshit him more with a handshake, but he refused to accept my
lie of friendship.
Memories continue to flush out
of my mind. They are vivid and purge everything that I wanted to believe about
myself. My mind is pulled into catharsis, which I want to go away. I want to be
something good, but I am not. The light dims, and begins constant flickering,
my eyes open and shut rapidly. “Give me one more chance!” I plead, “I will be different this time.
***
My reality is in
darkness. The night is a shield for the
clandestine behaviors of a thief and a drug addict. I know now how I earn my
money and where my customers are and my moments of opportunity, to steal
anything I want. TVs, I-phones, maybe a car.
I also have opportunities to sell what I have stolen, do some part-time
drug deals and skim off some extra goods
for myself. Those thoughts bring comfort.
Detective Moreno comes in the
room. Adrenaline pushes through my veins to my limbs and they are tensed,
ready.
“ Mr. Franklin, You are indeed
Denny James Franklin. I was able to make a positive photo ID from our records.
I went to the address you gave me. It was not on file with motor vehicles, but
I went there to see if anyone there knew of you. The house was empty. Someone
had recently lived there, but most of the belongings were gone. There was a
picture of you and a young woman who had blonde hair, but the photo had been
partially burned. It was in a dish on a small table, next to a reclining chair.
Behind the chair was a broken lamp on the floor and the lamp had blood on it.
Do you know anything about that?”
“No, sir,” I answer quickly
and try to change the direction of the questioning with a question of my own.
“What color was the chair?” I ask.
“The chair is light brown. Mr.
Franklin, do you know anything about the lamp?”
I’m silent. He knows more
about me than I know about myself and I am scared. He stares at me with
determination in his eyes. I’ve seen that look before, in other people,
dealers, police, Bo, and Jennifer’s father. When those eyes of determination
meet their mark- I need to turn away- but they follow me into my psyche. I
close my eyes, but I feel the weight of their stare, fixed, focused and
demanding.
“Mr. Franklin, the blood on
the lamp wasn’t yours, we tested it. The sample gave us a DNA signature that
did not match you, or anyone in our database.
“Am I being charged?” I ask
Detective Moreno and then I assert whatever strength I’ve got for a moment. I
use it to look back at him, and I stay silent. My instincts reveal themselves
and I know I’ve done this before. I wait for an answer. Detective Moreno
vanishes.
***
The fight started long before the lamp was
broken. I was at Bo’s to get some goods. He had finished cooking a batch
the day before and it was ready. I tested some samples.
“You’ve hit the jackpot my
friend. Where did you learn how to make this? We can cut this stuff and still sell it for the same price.”
Bo gave me a few specs of goods to sell and threatened me as I
walked out of the trailer. “I better see some money tonight, Denny, or I will
put you in the crusher tomorrow.”
I leave the trailer to go
visit my customers. They all want samples, some get a hook, some do not. I need
some for myself. Bo’s stuff is by far the best it has ever been. I make a
little money and I leave the old abandoned building we met in. I see a blue
F-150 down the street with the engine running, but no one is in it, or nearby.
I jump in, drive it up to Everett Street, shut it off and get out. I start
walking down Ninth Avenue and Jimmy, a neighbor, stops me. He wants drugs. I’ll
him some and then I head for my house.
When I first walk in the door,
I greet Jennifer. She smiles. Everything seems fine. She is cooking some chili
and we have it for dinner. I remind myself to make her laugh at something,
anything, and it bolsters my hope that I may get some tonight. She starts talking and asks me about Melinda, one
of her friends. Melinda is blonde and has a way better figure than Jenifer, but
she’s less intelligent, more silly and boobish. Impulse forces a smile on my
face. Melinda will laugh at anything and that is how I tagged her more than
once. Jennifer shows me an older photo of Melinda and me, and tells me she came
around that night, wondering what we were doing. Then her we changed to you.
“She wanted to know where you were.”
She asked a lot of questions-
well not really- but the same questions over and over. We started fighting.
Jennifer lit a match to the photo and placed it in a dish next to the chair. I
put it out.
“I’m leaving,” she said. “You
have no job and you’re an addict and a dealer.”
“Come on baby,” I reply.
”Let’s go play in the bedroom”
“No, and I mean it!”
I go to grab her and she
resists, so I slap her and put my hands around her neck. She screams. In
seconds, her brother walks in the front door with a bat in his hand.
“Let her go Denny!” he yells.
I grab the lamp, letting
Jennifer go, and swing at her brother It breaks, cutting his arm. He looks at
the blood, swings at me and gets full contact right across my chest. I fall
backwards into the kitchen. I get up and run, as he pursues me out the back
door. Jennifer’s father is there, and yells to her, ”Get in the car!” He has a
knife- a fishing knife. He comes towards me. The look in his eye has a strange
sense of desire, but not for pleasures that I know or understand. We struggle
and he stabs me several times, but I escape and run.
I’m running down Ninth Avenue
toward Everett Street thinking aloud, “Where is the truck I stole?” I see it on
the other side of the intersection and begin to cross. Tires squeal and a car
hits me as I cross. My body flies through the air, but the drugs and adrenaline
keep me conscious. I land, unable to move, with my head on the curb. My eyes
are open, my heart is racing, and blood is pumping out of my body. I hear
sounds of a car leaving, tires squealing. Next, I hear footsteps from very
heavy boots. I hear Bo’s voice.
“I want my money Denny.”
My hand is under me as I lie
face down. I can feel the blood soaking into my skin. Bo puts his foot on my
back pushing some air from my lungs. He reaches into my back pocket, takes my
wallet, and walks away. My flared nostrils, imbibe the smell of the street and
the sewer nearby.
Slowly, now, goes my heart.
Eyes remain open, but no light will enter now. Two juvenile delinquents take a
photo of me, laugh, and then walk away.
“Mr. Franklin you cannot be
saved. Your hope for redemption has been declined-you’re mine!”
END
“I’m a Scumbag” © Copyright, Artemis J Jones, 2014
