True Stories, Volume 4

We do strange things as kids, even sometimes act like we imagine adults would act, especially when we had no idea how adults would act.

“Nah, you're both wrong. The song is totally about heroin.”

            Aaron was talking down to us, the way he normally did when he was convinced he was right and everyone else in the whole room was wrong. As a friend, this could be occasionally infuriating if he was talking “about” you as opposed to “to you.” As a roommate who had the only working video game console in the house, this was mildly annoying but ultimately amusing.

            The year was 2000. No ands. The millennium came and went and, somehow, we were all still alive and suddenly forced to deal with that fact.

            “Dude! There's no way. You've seen the video, Aaron. It's literally a first-person account of someone doing drugs and partying and getting crazy just to reveal, at like the last moment, the narrator is a girl” his brother shouted in. Paul was often the quietest person in the room despite being the size of an actual living bear. When it came to his younger brother, however, his volume nob was permanently stuck at 11.

            “Yeah. Sure, Paul,” the younger sibling's sneer was almost visible as he continued talking, his back turned to us while he made another failed attempt at hooking up the Playstation., “You probably still think Fat Albert is a real person. Listen, that's what they want you to think. That's too simple. Come on, look at it. It's super easy to see. I'd explain what a metaphor is, but I'd have to use one to do that and we'd find ourselves back at the starting point.”

            Aaron's insult hung in the air like a prayer to a god he knew would not answer. He was our priest, after all, communicating with the spirits or angels of the technology we barely understood back then. He had a set of A/V cables in one hand like a golden chalice full of the blood of Christ. He had a flashlight fumbling awkwardly in his other at the back of the Television like a bible. The four of us in the room sat there on the kind of threadbare carpet college-age kids had in their college-age apartments and simply waited. We wanted flashing light salvation, taking us away from the sins of our mortal lives and transfixing us on to worlds we could only imagine, where vaguely unisex heroes would wander vast lands with over-sized swords or dragons would take human form. Also, we had nothing else to do.

            I looked around the room and gripped the broken table leg I held a little tighter. The last thing we needed was yet one more fight between our good friends and dear brothers, all too common a sight hunched over cramped quarters and immeasurable boredom, especially when we all were carrying make-shift weapons like some kind of demented militia.

            “Pio, tell him. Come on, man. It's f*****g Prodigy. Not some kind of art-house movie.”

            S**t. Paul pointed at me with his huge, pleading eyes. Most people spoke with a good 60/40 split of verbal and non-verbal, body language cues. Not Paul. When he wanted to get his point across, his eyes did the talking, and his large, third-generation American-Irish eyebrows would frame each conversation like an exclamation point or question mark.

            “I, uh, well, it IS an awesome song, with, you know, a lot of imagery...”

            “See, Aaron? It's just a song. Not a f*****g drug anthem.” I was ignored a lot back then. I had the curious ability to make a ton of friends and to hook them up with newer friends or places, like some sort of super-skinny, mob fixer but with ripped jeans. If I minded, I never spoke up. “Now”, he continued, “what's going on with that game, dude?”

            Aaron spun around then as if pulled by a string and, huge, toothy grin facing us, his crowd, he laughed aloud while he put his broken lamp over his shoulders like a baseball bat. He was getting ready for the pitch and he was aiming for a homer.

            “What? I didn't say “drug anthem,” Paul. Listen, I know you like to put things in guys mouths, but don't put words in mine. I said it was about heroin, and if you'd listen, you'd hear that. The whole song, all the allusions, even the video, it's about smack. Like, “Smack my b***h up” is about abusing himself with heroin. All I'm saying.”

            Paul looked furious then, his eyes telling the story of a young kid constantly living in the shadow of his more popular brother and a decade of verbal jabs building up like rain water about to break the damn. His eyebrows slinked upwards, changing then to an ellipses. He held the best weapons we could find. It was one of my old samurai swords. It was a practice one, a blade my own brother had given me when he got back from Japan years ago. It was dulled, sure, but it was long, shiny and in Paul's gigantic hands it would cut a car in half. We gave it to him because, A: he was the biggest, B: he was probably the most gentle, softest of us all as long as it didn't come down to blows with his brother and C: he asked for it. Not one of us could refuse Paul when he asked for something because he rarely did. The world had very few people who would honestly give up something they had for other people if it helped them. Wilkes-Barre, at least, had almost none.

            I didn't know what else to do but pray that no one ended up dead or in the hospital that night. So, with no other options, I looked towards Stephen for an answer.

            Stephen was one of those people who was only sort of your friend. You knew him through other acquaintances and though you constantly bumped into each other at parties and had even been to each others houses, you couldn't say even at gunpoint that you really knew them. Still, he was the only other person in the room that I absolutely knew was not going to stab someone unless in actual self-defense. He was often the cool head of the group, and besides, he was just as stick-thin as I was so we got picked on about the same things. This, somehow I felt, gave us kinship.

            His eyes, unlike Paul's, were not expressive in the least but maybe three times the size of anyone else's in the room. No, Stephen had one expression and it was ABSOLUTEL SURPRISE. He had told us at different times he was a tennis instructor, a semi-famous guitar player and a former JNCO model. The thing was, no one could be sure if he was being dishonest with these wild claims. His eyes were like full saucer plates and as unreadable as Braille to people who could see. I looked at him and nodded as if I had someone hope that he would do or say something I was afraid to. All I wanted to do was play some goddamned Playstation with my friends in our apartment.

            We were four to the place, with four bedrooms, one living room, one dining room and a bathroom fastened on to the place like a dial on the side of a wristwatch. It was cheap, even by Wilkes-Barre standards, but we all worked hard to chip in and pay the rent and bills. We all had been friends in one way or another since we were knee highs. My own apartment, my first, ended up being a glorious experiment in alcohol and sex and why 18 year olds shouldn't have their own apartments. When it fell apart like it had to, I needed a place to stay and simply refused to move in with my parents again. I loved them more than I told them, but it was a love I didn't have time for at that point in my life.

            And do I was offered a place at this new “huge, beautiful, Seinfeld-like apartment” my two best friends were moving in to. They had secured the place and the rent and all the needed were roommates. It seemed like an easy fit and a perfect solution, yeah? That was until I heard they had yet to kick Greg out.

            Greg Armison was an unusual mix of a person. He was both the state champion High School wrestler and a strange, oafish sort of kid who's favorite movie was The Wizard of Oz. He owned both boot-leg WWF VHS tapes and full-on, limited edition Dorothy and Tin-Man Barbie dolls. He was also built like a brick s**t house and had a fuse shorter than his fingernails.

            When I was offered the room, I jumped at the chance. What I didn't jump at was the fact I was later told that they just had to kick out their other roommate first.

            The place was all hallway, with doors popping up almost out of nowhere to lead to rooms and bedrooms and linen closets that might as well have been Narnia for how fantastical they were. When I got there, I thought the place looked like Hollywood, all magic and out-of-my-league, the kind of place where big and exciting things were bound to happen. It was, I was originally told, going to be the brothers, myself, and Jean-Pierre, the French-sounding 4th room mate who actually paid up most of the rent but I myself had never met. I was told he legitimately looked just like Jesus.

            The first night I had stayed there was two nights ago. Greg was being forced out, firstly for not paying his rent, and secondly for being a “gigantic, king dickhead” as I was told. The exchange I saw that same day was the first time in my short life as a 19 year old when I was threatened with death.

            “You come near me and I'll f*****g kill you.”

            Those were his words, word for word. Luckily, I heard them only a second before Paul put every, single inch of his 230 lbs frame on top of him from a good 4 feet away in a lunge that looked like he was shot out of a cannon. I can remember the whole exchange as if it were just yesterday, as opposed to the day before yesterday.

            Greg, as if to prove his dickishness, was taking the only radio in the apartment with him. Fine, the brothers Aaron and Paul said. Whatever, just get out or we'll call the landlord. The landlord, it should be noted, was like god to the early Christians. He was terrifying and his name alone could conjure up great fear and immediate reprisal, but, outside of rumors of his appearances like a burning bush, most of us had never seen him. Greg just asked for some time to pack up his things and leave. Fine, Aaron, our default spokesperson said. The thing was, that Greg decided to play his radio at full-blast the entire time he packed; and he had terrible, terrible taste in music.

            Turn that s**t off, Aaron would tell him over and over. Greg continued unabated as if Aaron's words were whip lashes against the back of man who was already on death row. Eventually at some point Aaron snapped. He simply walked up and unplugged the radio. Greg froze then as if caught by the police, guns drawn, and instead turned immediately back and plugged it back in, only to continue packing the last of his belongings into one of several garbage bags.

            This went on for twenty minutes. He would be packing and Aaron would make some sly comment and gruffly pull the plug, only to have Greg freeze, turn around, plug the radio back in and without another word, continue packing. Being the new roommate by only a couple of hours and weighing about 130 lbs, I could only watch in growing horror that originally started as uneasy humor. And it just continued.

 

            Greg would plug it in.

            Aaron would unplug it.

            Greg would plug it back in.

            Aaron would unplug it yet again.

            After maybe the 12th time, Greg just lost it.

            He swung at Aaron with all his might and the smaller kid collapsed to the ground as if his “go to sleep” button had just been pressed. And that was all it took. Paul, who had up until then been smoking a cigarette at the end of the hall, hunched over the toilet like The Thinking Man, came rushing in.

            He threw himself and all his considerable force onto Greg's back and crushed him immediately. I wanted then to turn away, to look away and be anywhere else on the whole planet because even though I knew Greg was in the wrong, I was almost sure I would see someone die.

            Greg was a champion of his sport. He was held up on the shoulders of his teammates when they went to states and his name was on plaques. It didn't matter. He never stood a chance. Before I even had time to look anywhere else, he was on top of him and swinging.

            CRUNCH.

            Each blow connected harder than the last and I would never tell anyone, but I was almost positive I heard Greg Armison cry. Regardless, Paul was on him and after a few strong punches, was on top of the only slightly smaller man with no intention of moving. I stood there, tense, waiting for something to happen, for everything to happen, but things would eventually work out like they always did. Real life was not like the movies. Eventually Greg promised he would leave without turning the radio on, and Paul promised he wouldn't turn him into some kind of human Spam.

            The wrestler left so quickly that he never bothered for the radio. It was the one we were listening to Prodigy on. That was unfortunately not the end of things. It was the very next day when Greg showed back up.

            No one was expecting him. He was paid up and gone for good. That was it. That was supposed to be it Instead he showed up with about six of his equally large, testosterone-overdosed friends. There was only three of us then and at that point we didn't have the forethought break apart the Salvation Army tables and lamps we had for weapons. The fight lasted only a minute, but before Paul jumped up and force the intruders out, Greg had again struck Aaron hard in the face.

            “I'll be back, you sons of b*****s. And when I come, I'm coming for blood. I'll be back. Tomorrow even. And I don't care if I go to jail forever. You're all going down. I’ll f*****g kill you, all of you.”

            This, then, led to our current situation. We had no choice but to believe him. So we sat, an army without a war, just waiting. As the end of the song came on, as the Christmas-tree-ornament looking white guy in the band mouthed for the 40th time “change my pitch up,” we seemed to twitch nervously as we waited for Greg's next move. It was 10 pm. The today he threatened us with would only be around for 2 more hours. The four of us relaxed our grips on the wanna-be maces and battle axes we held as we looked around. My table leg had three extra screws I put into it. I hoped I wouldn't have to use it. I hoped this more than I had ever hoped for anything all of my combined life.

            Then it was there.

             A noise.

            A loud coughing and the voices of several people moving and talking, just outside our door or down the street.

            We lived on the 3rd floor of the building, so “just outside” was a big deal. All at once, as if brothers in a single, well-trained army unit, we spread out. No one said a word.

            I pricked my finger on the longest screw that stuck out of the wood I had a death grip on. My breath grew hot and shallow.

            I looked around the room then. My eyes lingered on the shadows that the dim lamps we could afford cast, each one feeling then like it could hold a murderer or monster just behind the darkness. Then, I looked at my friends. They all looked just as scared as me; even Paul. Up until that point in my life, I had only read about war. I had read Art Spiegelman’s MAUS and a bit of Band of Brothers before, sure. Yet, just then, I felt like I was a at the beaches of Normandy.

            Aaron stayed in the room. Stephen ran to the front door and with his kitchen knives stuck threw his mother's thick broom handle, he waited for a noise or a go-head at his post. I made my way to the living room windows via army crawl. I was not in the army and outside of video games, had no idea what an actual army crawl was like, but for the life of me I did my best. Paul ducked his huge frame and at first looked into the broken glass of the bathroom door. From there, he spun and sped to the backdoor of the apartment, just beyond the kitchen. This was where everyone came into the house. Some visitors didn't even know we had a front door. He drew the dull blade up like an ancient warrior. His sword was as steady as his gaze.

            Minutes went by. Maybe hours. At that point, all I could hear was my heart beating. For as long as I could possibly, physically count, my heart was thudding in my chest.

            THUD THUD

            THUD THUD.

            And yet, eventually, we had to admit that no one was probably coming.

            It was just that none of us wanted to say it. Broken screws and chipped glass in hand, we were all already sold on the apocalypse that would most-likely never happen. We had bought the tickets and memorized the brochure. Yet, at the end, the world didn't end. Nothing did. We just stood there regardless. We couldn't admit loss just yet. And then that was when we head it.

            The familiar bass and then wind-chimes chingling that told us that no one was going to die tonight, at least not in the real wrold. We all slowly left our station to shore up back in Aaron's room and bathe in the glow of his completed ritual. The Playstation was on. We went from soldiers on a suicide mission to a rag-tag bunch of 19 year old kids again.

            Smiles spread across us as we spread our selves across the room, Indian style. One by one we put down the broken furniture and steel and glass we held onto so tightly. It was then we realized that it wasn't Greg we were even waiting for. It wasn't the Final Fantasy or even the radio that Aaron turned off then so we could hear the video game.

            It was us. It was us all along. We were the game, the players, the heroes and the antagonists. We were scared because there was no saves, no extra lives, and for once we were caught without any Konami code. And yet, in the end, we won. There were no level ups, no experience points, just a room full of 4 kid who were suddenly allowed to once again be kids.

            I can't recall any other song by Prodigy, even to his day.