. T w o

Ok. Imagine this.

You walk into a room. It's cold, and dimly lit. The scent of beer and stale sex clings to the air. You hear small scraping sounds, and you realize there must be mice in the shadowed corners. A few ripped and mismatched couches are strewn around a small coffee table. Overflowing ash trays are laying in just about every inch of free space. A random metal-rocker-looking person is unconcious on one of those couches. His hand has fallen onto the coffee table, with a lit cigarette in it, burning yet another hold in the dirty wood. Kicking away a few random piles of garbage, you manage to make your way to an ancient swivel-chair. You sit in this. With all these revolting smells and the less-than-suicide-worthy decor.

And you hope to God that you don't die.

This is what I had to deal with. This was my home. In reality, it was some rundown home in the slums, that I bought for 100$ from some woman who looked half dead. It had this room I've just got finished describing to you. And it had a few bedrooms off of it. And that was my entire house. I had a mini-fridge for food, and a firepit and grill in the backyard to cook with. Not that I complained or anything. This was home for us. Me and the rest of the band, that is. It was something that we all managed to buy together. Like our first Creative Movement or something. And we all lived there. A shabby little shed in the backyard doubled as our recording studio (a two-bit computer and our set of instruments).

I sat in this sad house now; glancing occasionally at Devon (that unconcious stoner, who was also our bassist), and trying to finish writing this song I had been working on. I had named the song Out Of The Gutter, a kind of ode to the jackass who had called me a poseur. The jackass who lived in some mansion in White-bread-central, who referred to himself as "punk". Now children, it certainly doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who the real poseur is. So, anyway, I was sitting there, in this basic shit hole, and trying to write a song in one of my many notebooks, using this really shitty pen that I had to keep shaking and stuff to try to get it to work. But it kept dieing anyway, and I really couldn't get out two words without having to shake it or something. Finally, I ended up hurling the fucking pen at the wall. I stood up, kicked Devon, and yelled, "I'm pissed!" into the rather dark room.

"I'm glad." Devon's voice made me jump, and I fell over some random pile of garbage onto the floor. The hard, crusty floor, I might add. Just sitting in this dump was making me even more pissed. I growled at Devon and climbed my way to the front door. As I stepped out into the bright, summer afternoon, I had this thought. This really shitty thought. You could be having the worst day ever, and you could live in some dump, and you could have the shittiest life imaginable; but the world didn't care. It kept going on, having rather nice afternoons, and crisp evenings and stuff. And no one really gave two shits about what you did. It's like, if no one knows your name or who you are, then you don't matter.

It was all really quite depressing. So I decided to try not to think much about it, and started walking down the street. Random Pitbulls barked and snapped at me from spiked collars and heavy-duty chain leads; not one managing to startle me. I was too deep in thought. I wasn't really thinking about anything. It was more that I was trying to think about something important, but something was nagging at me. A random line of Marilyn Manson lyrics nagged at the back of my every though; eating at me until I finally stopped and screamed at it, "What the fuck do you want!?"

As someone in a beat-up black pickup truck sped by me, I sat on the side of the road. Right there. On the side of this shitty road, that was dearly in need of repairs, and I didn' get up. Instead, I focused all my energy to figure out what this line was. I've got my lunchbox and I'm armed real well. It didn't take long for this to register in my mind: I really did have my own backup. I had my band, my friends, and a small but steady flow of income. I really was armed pretty well. To hell with the rest of the world. No one cares about what they think, anyway. I had everything I needed already.

This was really quite moving, in all. In less than an hour, I had had two, count 'em, two major thought processes. This was really quite unusual for me, to say the least. I worked on a one-though-per-moment basis, and anything more than that was too much for me. I must have had a Creative Movement. I decided that I really must tell the band about it. They would be pleased.

In the short time I had been mulling about in the street, the warm afternoon had turned into one of those crips evenings. Darkness pushed itself into each corner of the already shadowed neighbourhood, and set most animals off into their nooks and holes. Though humans are animals, this time of night brought people from their little holes and nooks and run-down apartments. At this time of night, it was custom for each corner to be lined with a hooker, and each street given way to a babbling drunk. There really was only one bar in the entire area, and at this hour it was packed. You would be lucky if you got to catch a peek of one of the stripper-type waitresses; let alone order yourself a drink.

"Fifteen 'bucks." The voice wasn't mine, and it was used in a tone that suggested alot more than a close friendship. The voice came from a snazzed-up woman in a leather pumpkin-colored mini skirt, black tank top, and three-inch knee-high black boots. Her hair was tousled in a way that suggested even more than her tone did - matched with her darkened eyes and pumpkin lipstick. She carried a small leopord-skin purse; with items in it that are best left to the imagination. This, children, was one of our certified whores. "'C'mon, hunny. Only fifteen 'bucks. And you can have me a-ll night." The fact that she wobbled with every step she took towards me, and the distinct smell of liquor on her breath, made me have another idea.

"And what can I do with you all night?" I asked her with a slight tone of innocence in my voice. At best, I looked around 15, rather than the 17 everyone knew me to be. If there was one way to lure a hooker, it was to make her think that you had no idea what she was charging you for. And I'm not saying that all hookers are female, either. But even the male hookers dress themselves up to look like women - creating a never ending chain of prostitutes and transvestites. Peachy little world we live in, isn't it? Just cute as a damn button.

Her smile was seductive enough to entice all but the most sober candidates. Luckily, I hadn't had a drink since the morning, and I could see through her ploy. But I swerved a little and grinned back at her, just to add to my innocent-little-drunk-kid appearance. So it wasn't hard to pull a wrinkled twenty out of my pocket and lead the little prostitute back to my humble abode. As we stepped inside, my guess work had been correct. The rest of the band had found their way home, and Devon was awake.

"This, is Crystal." I made up a name for her on the fly. "She has decided she wants to come down here, take advantage of a small child, and run off with a twenty." It was a sort of experiment I had always wanted to try - seeing how long it took to scare off a hooker.

"Who the fuck..." Ryan raised an eyebrow at me; causing it to start twiching. But it didn't matter to me in the least at this moment. I was too busy trying to hold up my drunk-15-year-old front, and enjoy the look of horror on the prostitute's face. Her eyes were a bit cloudy, and she sort of trembled a bit; but other than that she seemed comfortable in my little shit hole called home. "Brendan, what have I told you about bringing home hookers?"

"Uh... I can leave, if ya' want." 'Crystal' seemed to be more than happy to run off with my twenty, and avoid getting gang-banged by us. She kind of side-stepped to the door, until I took hold of her arm.

I clicked my tongue and chook my head at her. "Crystal, Crystal, Crystal. You still haven't given me my change, you know."

"What the hell ya' talkin' 'bout?" Her voice was alot less seducing, and alot more annoying. The way she shortned each word as if she would run out of breath was starting to get on my nerves.

"You said it would only cost fifteen, right?" She nodded. "I gave you a twenty." She nodded again. "If you have twenty, and subtract fifteen, what does that make?" She stared blankly at me. I started to get the feeling she wasn't a highschool dropout, but a kindergarten dropout. I sighed at her. "Five. It makes five. So you owe me five dollars, hun."

"I don' owe you nuttin'.

Devon must have caught on, because she turned to leave again, and Devon got up and blocked her path. "Oh, come on, sweetie. You don't want to be leaving now, do you?" He grinned devilishly at her, which made his steel-blue eyes seem intimidating from their heavy frames of black eyeliner. "We've only just got started, and you still owe my friend some cash, don't you?"

A quick glance to Ryan and Kelly confirmed that neither of them approved at all; and Ryan was glaring at us with that extreme intesity that let you know he wanted to beat the shit out of you. Obviously, he thought we should just let the girl go. And fuck the money. But I wanted to freak out the little hooker, and I wanted my five bucks. So I decided - very stupidly - to ignore Ryan and continue harassing the bed-warmer-for-hire. Me and Devon continued to stare down the girl, who appaered to want to disappear very, very quickly. Devon, who happened to be standing in front of her, traced one finger down her cheek, as a glanced back to Ryan. While I expected to find him making out with Kelly, I noticed he was making to get up and walk over.

And that's one of the last things I remember; apart from seeing a tight fist getting oddly larger at a very quick pace.