(Legendary Bowery Gang Leader, Mose Humphrey)

“The deaths are three each day. This is in the parish of Tuoist. The people are buried without coffins, frequently in the next field. (There is) no noise or sign of grief for the dead; every thought is selfish and unfeeling…” – Irish official during potato famine, 1847.

-

The jagged mountain peaks and lush green hills of Kenmare surrounded me. A chuisle, a chroí. My pulse, my heart. I was in heaven, until the second I woke on the floor of a bar that in my state, could have been anywhere across the seven seas. Someone had me by the arm and up I went. Soot clogged my nose and coated my mouth. I heard somber voices, the clink of glasses, and the crackle of damp wood in a fire. Through bleary eyes, I picked up the glow of gaslights and fading afternoon light in patched up windows. Men were hunched over drinks at the bar and playing stuss at the tables. A barman in a white shirt and leather skullcap was busy filling glasses from barrels stacked at torso height. A few whores in dirty, man-handled dresses were about, plying their trade.

<This is a very rough draft. I will finish in a few days>

It was an all too familiar bar on Dock Street in Brooklyn. Filth and misery permeated my being. I ran my fingers through the various hidden pockets in my damp undergarments. I found a few dollars for a badly needed drink.

The same strong hand that had lifted me, grasped my shoulder. My joints were too stiff and my mind was too muddled for a proper response. All I could do was turn. I had to crane my neck to meet his gaze. It took a few seconds to realize he was the Ward Boss, Joe Steers. It had been days since that first raid at Miller’s Landing, and in that time, he had grown a mustache that looked like the wings of a small black bird.

“We’re here to conduct a bit of business,” Joe said politely. “And it’s a funny thing that we found you here. It was meant to be I’d say.”

Joe was not a normal man, of that I was certain. But it wasn’t something I cared to mull over. My heart sunk when I thought of the money he had paid me. It had been enough to forget about that nasty business at Miller’s; too bad Joe didn’t forget about me, at least till the money ran dry. But I would need more soon, and he paid very well. My hunger had long ceased to be a daily concern, but my thirst for gin and ale was insatiable. So no matter what his plans entailed, I was his man.

Someone had peeled away from the the bar and came stomping at us. He was a few inches shorter than myself with broad shoulders. “Well now, a crimp come to shanghai one of our men,” he said with a Kerry brogue.

The Irish chap was talking about Joe, who wore a stove pipe hat and a long black frock coat that was buttoned to his chin. He looked like a Bowery b’hoy brawler. Best to dress like that only when you were with your gang.

“I want the drink, I need it,” I said.

“Sure, but not here,” Joe said, his brown eyes aware of the encroaching figure.

“Do ya’ hear me crimp?” said the Irish fellow to Joe. “What’s your kind doing with men here that work for a living?”

“He’s gonna shanghai one of Erin’s finest!” cried another man who also had a brogue. “Oh ho! We was goin’ to do it ourselves! An’ sell the tinker to the men of science.”

A heavy glass soared by our heads and smashed into the plank wall. Not a second later, the front door opened and a man breezed in. He was dressed in a fine coat and hat. He flashed a smile at Joe. He had a wild light in his eyes and long, thin teeth that made for a cheerily, psychotic grin. I recognized him as one of the gorillas from Miller’s Landing. There would be trouble. That was certain.

(6th Ward, 1855 Brooklyn Fire Insurance Map)

“We don’t want a muss,” Joe said, removing two arm-length poles from his jacket. He snapped them together to make a wooden stave. He looked up like an owl. From his coat pocket, he removed a metal wedge that held interlocking razors, similar to the one he had used at Miller’s Landing. He looked back down as he attached the wedge to one end of the stave.

The Irish fellow raised his bare knuckles and stepped forward. Joe flipped the stave to me, then took a quick step and swung with abandon, cracking the Irishman’s jaw with a hammer-heavy blow. He hit the floor as if he was thrown down. Then another man jumped into the fray, wielding a hatchet.

“That’s the one, Joe!” the gorilla cried with an exuberant grin, pointing to the man with the hatchet.

Just then I saw despicable and desperate look of evil about the assailant’s eyes. It appeared as if he was a soulless murderer.

In a seamless motion, Joe plucked the stave from my hands and popped his attacker in the forehead with the wedge. Blood spraying from his head, the man went wheeling back into the crowd at the bar, only to be pushed back at us.

The gorilla, who was tall as Joe, though as thick as a barrel, was already swinging a bludgeon. Whoosh! The fat of the barrel sunk into the side of the man’s head. Wump! Blood splattered across his face.

The gorilla then turned to me with a joyously sick smile. “I got him good, eh’ sailor boy!” he said in a high-pitched voice.

I nodded with a wide-open mouth.

“You men don’t think you can come into our home and get away with this,” said a man who raised a large knife. Others came forward brandishing knifes, shivs, and brickbats.

“We’re done here, and be leaving if you like,” Joe said, he pointed to the dead man. “That bastard’s a fire starter slippery one, got away from us the other night.”

“You’ll be leaving flat on your back,” the man said to Joe.

“That’s fine,” Joe said, “there’s no one here who doesn’t have it coming, except maybe…” He looked over the crowd and pointed to a girl no older than twelve, who sat on a card player’s lap. “The child and the whore, can get out. She don’t deserve to die with this lot.”

“Now who else should live,” the gorilla said and turned to me. “Your life could depend on your choice.”

I wiped me eyes. There was another young whore, and also a plain-faced girl who was servant. “I’d say the other young one, but I want a drink,” I said, pointing to the girl.

To my utter shock, the man who had wielded the hatchet, miraculously started to stir. When he stood on his feet, I was beyond amazed. It seemed a miracle. The bar seemed such an unholy place.

Joe and the gorilla laughed.

One of the card players stood and reached out with a pistol. But by that time, Joe had already pulled a knife from his boot and had launched it with deadly accuracy. The blade sunk to the handle in the man’s chest. The gun fired and the bullet whizzed by us.

“Paying attention isn’t enough,” Joe said. “You must anticipate.”

Two more men came forward. Joe struck with the opposite end of the stave, while the gorilla swung so often and hard, it was all I could do not to get hit. There had been a whore near the center of it all. The pleats of her dress were swathed in blood.

Joe and the gorilla laughed and looked at me. I could feel horror, frozen on my face.

“Now let’s see you,” the gorilla said, smiling. He handed his blood soaked bludgeon to me.

The girl looked at me, then at the other two. She was barely a teenager. I grabbed the stave, but darted to the bar. Joe and the gorilla began to laugh. “We was just joking,” the gorilla said.

The barman was standing stiff as a board in the shadows. “Gin, gin, gin,” I cried. The barman hesitated, until Joe spoke.

“For all of us, you and the whore, too,” Joe said.

The door banged shut as the whore had fled when we turned her backs. The gorilla lifted his glass of gin, looked at me, and then to Joe. “This man needs work, lots of work.”

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-Eight

American Horror Story

(More coming this week…)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(My grammar school photo)

“Just hit the fecking thing,” Joe Steers had said. “But you have to break the bone. Skull’s the best spot. That’s all a man has to do and he’s golden.”

I looked down at the diabolical weapon in my grasp that he had been showing me how to use. It was a wooden stave with interlocking razors on one end. Then I looked at Joe and shrugged. “Okay,” I said as if it was all just clean fun. Little did I know, that what I was entering into would haunt my childhood, one hundred and twenty years later . . .

-

I would get this pain as a kid in the 1970s. It would shoot up my throat to my tongue. It didn’t hurt all that much, though each time it came on, a shock of white terror had me breathlessly screaming. I feared the unknown cause more than anything. Thankfully, the pain ceased to occur by the time I reached ten or eleven.

With the passing of time, it was all but forgotten, until weeks ago the pain roused me from sleep. It was the same night Benny, “the cigar store Indian” had told me what I pretty much knew–that I had lived past lives. I saw a long fingernail, pressed deep into my neck, and knew the pain all-too well. When I couldn’t move, I realized I was dreaming, though my terror grew as the face of a devilish creature hovered close. It had pupils of orange-fire, skin as coarse as rough sandpaper, cheekbones that protruded like tiny fists, and lips that reminded me of blood-sated leeches. It opened its mouth to speak, and there came the low roar of a fire. From off in the distance, I heard Joe Steers’ voice:

“Blink and you’re back in the world of the dead.”

I blinked hard and woke. The first thing I remembered was how Joe Steers had taken me under his wing in the mid-1850s. In today’s terms, we could be described as demon hunters, though we were really just ”tools.” We made a bloody mess of things and rarely killed. Plus we had no clue who we truly worked for. I doubt even the men we answered to, who also ran a shipping company out of an office on Brooklyn’s Water Street, knew the full truth. Yet the memories of that past life are cloudy at best. But with each day things are coming back to me.

One thing I wish Joe would have told me straight away was that you can’t kill a demon. At first, all we had to do was brand them with the stave; each time it was a different razor-shaped mark on the end of the weapon. From our perspective, all that did was get them real fu-kin’ angry. They were after us night after night. Good thing we were paid well, we did whatever dirty work we had to do, then hid away in the bars and got regally soused for days and weeks on end.

It’s funny, but even now I’m still mad at Joe. He shouldn’t have lied to me in the beginning. If I knew the truth, I still probably would have gotten on with him and his business. But just hitting “the fecking thing!” with the stave wasn’t all a man had to do. That strike, branding the recipient, was just the first step. By the time I learned the rest, I was in too deep, just like Joe . . .

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-Seven

Hello Again!

Gorged

Into Darkness – Christmas Day, 1853

THE PAIN

-

Brooklyn Bridge Park (Photos only)

DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge) in Brooklyn (Photos only)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

 (View of Brooklyn Heights, 1849 – from digital New York Public Library)

You had to be there before nightfall. These ships always came in the middle of the night, and they wanted you there earlier to wait. They wanted to watch, you and the others…

-

Miller’s Landing was a rickety old wharf on the Brooklyn side of the East River, part of which had been scorched by a recent fire. Inside on a burned-over slip were a half-dozen ruined looking men armed with staves and huge bludgeons. The men grew still as I approached. They sat on barrels and boxes branded with the name of one of the waterfront warehouses, which populated Furman Street behind me.

It was a misty, overcast day, though felt cold enough to snow. I flipped the collar up on my thick woolen coat. None of the men looked at me, and I thought I was in for a row, until a pimply faced giant who said his name was Joe Steers, said I had come to the right place. Since I was unarmed, except for a shiv in my coat pocket that I was remiss to mention, Joe gave me a brickbat, and welcomed me to sup with the men. They had a pot of pork and bean soup, and bottles of gin and rye whiskey.

I had a few mouthfuls of the soup, and took a tin cup of gin, but was very suspicious about the goings-on. I noticed a few professional gorillas over at the gloomy entrance to the landing. Joe told me they were there to make sure no one left, and to see that it was a private affair. After that, I kept to the drink, but my intrigue was not forgotten.

It was Christmas Day, 1853. Little did I know that my descent into darkness had just begun.

A short while before in a saloon up on Dock Street, where I’d been boozing all day, a big man in a fine black suit had waltzed in and started pumping hands and buying drinks. Someone said he was the local Sixth Ward boss. He also kept smiling and bending back on his toes with his thumbs in his britches, seeming like he was the richest man in town. When a drink came my way, I lifted the cup, grinned, and cursed him under my breath.

On my way out back to piss, the ward boss followed me into the cold and rain. He grabbed my shoulder. “I have an opportunity I would like to offer to you,” he said and seemed to force a smile. He was nearly a head taller than me. “There is nothing illegal to it, and you will earn twenty dollars for just a few hours work.”

Red-faced and wincing, I looked at his hand on my shoulder. He took it away.

“Right this moment, over at Miller’s Landing, we need another big man like yourself,” he said. “You’ll be back at the bar in a wink of time.”

Big or not, it made little sense to ask a person in my condition. Yet drunk and looking to stay that way, I acquiesced. All I had left was a few cents. It was barely enough for an all nations, which was a mix of drinks from unfinished bottles.

-

When two more sullen Johnny Newcombes joined our motley group, one of the gorillas came over and spoke in a high-pitched tone. It sounded like someone was squeezing his nuts. “A ship is coming to dock here this very evening. You men will see to it that the crew is waylaid, as we would like to have a word with the Captain, who is a wanted man. He scarpered on bail, after being arrested for fitting his ship for the slave trade.” That speech got the blood going in our hideous bunch. We hated the Negroes, and didn’t want any more of them in our midst. They took our jobs and our women. We drank to busting up the captain proper.

Joe Steers and another man named Tom Bickers, did not drink alcohol, and they both had staves equipped with razor sharp ends. “This is my last night,” Tom told Joe a few times. ”I’ve had enough,” he said, and I could tell Joe wasn’t happy with decision. ”It’s a terrible thing, and all the money in the world can’t make me stay.”

At some point, I blacked out and slept like a babe, until a pock-faced scamp with a mouth full of cracked teeth kicked me awake. He was pointing to the river and shaking his rear end. “Sh-t, sh-t, sh-t,” he said, and I thought he was crapping in his pants.

Everything was a blur. I wiped my face with a damp coat sleeve. Clouds hung just above the river. I heard the ringing of bells from passing ships, and the clop of hooves on a cobbled Furman Street. Over in Manhattan not a single shape or light was visible. I slowly discerned the broad sheets of a three-masted barque, headed straight at us. The rest of the ship was cloaked until it was nearly upon the quay.

Our gang climbed over the side of the vessel just as it knocked into the slip. Some sailors were high up on the rigging, going about the business of tying up the sails. Sight was so dismal, Tom Bickers had to whistle to get their attention. Even then, they were slow to take us in, so we started hooting and waving our weapons.

“The captain is all we want, and no trouble,” Tom cried, shoving the sharp end of his stave up at a sailor. “He is a wanted man!”

A man in a soldier’s uniform came down from the quarter deck. He reached out with a Colt revolver in hand, and aimed at Tom, who lowered his stave.

“We have no trouble with you!” Tom said. “We’re here for the captain. He is a wanted–”

The soldier shot Tom the chest, and then fired at the scamp who had the broken teeth, hitting him in the back of the head. The soldier came at us, firing four more shots. We hid as best we could, while the sailors ran off the ship. Luckily, only one shot caught our chap in the arm. When the soldier began to reload, two of our men pounced on him, running the points of their staves through his belly. When he fell, the man who had been shot in the arm, clubbed the soldier’s head with a bludgeon, which he held in his bloodied arm. He also took turns kicking him with his boot that was studded with hobnails.

There came a cry to search the lower deck for the captain. I happened to be standing by an open door, where out bolted a fair-haired man. He pushed me aside with a powerful forearm blow, and sprinted for the side of the ship. His long black coat billowed in his wake. I slung my brickbat, which cracked him square in the head. His feet stomped as he tried to regain his balance.

Joe Steers, who I hadn’t seen on deck since we boarded, sprung up from between a row of sacks and barrels, and poked the fair-haired man in the forehead with his stave. Blood sputtered down the man’s face. He recoiled and swung wildly, though Joe pulled back his stave and moved away as if his work was done. Through the blood, I could see the outline of a mark left on the fair-haired man’s forehead. He wiped the blood from his eyes, then jumped over the side of the boat, onto to the slip. It was the last we saw of the fair-haired man that night.

Joe immediately went about paying us twenty dollars apiece. One of the men said we should split up the money meant for the two dead men, and Joe said that was fine, but told us to throw them in the water.

I went straight to Tom, wanting to search his pockets for money. But Joe beat me to it, yet was good enough to give me the few bills and coins he found. Then I reached for Tom’s stave, but Joe snatched it from me.

So close, I took my first good look at Joe’s face. To my stunned disbelief, I realized he was the ward boss. But there was something more, there was a blood-colored nimbus about Joe’s face. It was the mark of evil.

His eyes lit up and he touched his chin, seeming to read my thoughts. “I know that look,” Joe said and laughed, staring into my eyes.

I clenched the dull end of the shiv in my pocket.

“I thought you were just a drunk, a useless sot for the soldier to shoot down, if so be it, but you’ve got ‘the sight.’ You can see things few others can.”

No one had ever said anything like that to me before. One of the reasons I drank so much, was to dull my senses. I was terrified of the things I saw at night, though most of it seemed just shadows of shadows.

“I could use a man like you,” Joe said. “Sober up and if things go right, you could take Tom’s place. Though if you do, you too would suffer the same fate if you tried to run off on me.”

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-Seven

Hello Again!

Gorged

Into Darkness – Christmas Day, 1853

THE PAIN

-

Brooklyn Bridge Park (Photos only)

DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge) in Brooklyn (Photos only)

-

(View of Brooklyn Heights, 1849 – Original lithograph)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

 (Greek Salad – food photos uncreditted)

No one goes to a diner in NYC unless you live in Staten Island and don’t know any better. I know Seinfeld did, but he went with a TV crew and George Costanza, and then made comic history. All I can think is because of that awesome show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, the people from Jersey made a trend of diner fare, and it somehow seeped into Manhattan. Good for Jersey.

The other night we wound up at a diner in Midtown Manhattan. I was starving like marvin and the place we went to has a menu that’s like nine pages. I ordered a Greek salad, fries with cheese, extra white sauce on the side, and a Diet Pepsi. Also, one of the first things I did after we sat in a corner booth, was pour a dollop of catsup on my finger, just to make sure it was Heinz, and they weren’t filling the bottle up with something lesser–

Oh, I also ordered a side of falafel, which I plopped on top of my Greek salad. Do you care? Yes you dooooo!!!

(Falafel)

Now don’t ask me what everyone else ordered. The pizza and Chinese delivery guys(aka num and nuts) don’t speak a language I can understand. Benny, “the cigar store Indian,” is small and unassuming as was his meal, and though lady friend(LF) was right across from me, my food was piled so high and I was so hungry, I ate like a nut and hardly lifted my eyes.

The walls were mirrored, which is so cheesy, though each booth had its own jukebox, but we just talked. No music. Oh, I’m wandering, or at least there was a point to this post.

(Tzatziki aka Greek white sauce)

We went to the diner to meet someone. Benny set the thing up. He didn’t say if it was a guy or a girl, just that they had insight into NYC’s darkest paranormal secrets, and that they would enlighten me in ways he couldn’t.

But the food was awesome. I floated away on a garlicky cloud replete with Greek salad and white sauce. Oh!!! I ordered a side of half sour pickles, too. I like to dip them in the white sauce, just like I do the cheese fries. Though after I dip the fries into the white sauce, I dunk ‘em in the catsup. It’s delish! It would be great if somehow I could keep the cheese gooey the whole time. I wouldn’t mind a heat lamp hanging over the table while we ate. Nothing is more exciting than gooey-cheese fries, because once the cheese goes hard, the excitement goes away.

(Cheese fries)

Oh, sorry, I was there to meet someone. Benny, who is an old homeless man and seer, said this person lived a bunch of past lives and crap.

Over the meal we had this long conversation, and I was making like I was paying attention, and was talking, but have no clue what the heck we talked about. I was so into the food, *my body sang electric yums! Thumb cocked, I kept pointing at my food. I don’t know why. Well, actually I do, ’cause it was sooooo guuuud!

After I finished, there wasn’t a crumb or bit of lettuce left on any of my plates, just wads of crumbled up napkins. In the mirror I saw my face was blotched.

(The bigger pickles in pic are the half sours I like)

When LF went to the ladies room, num and nuts followed, because that’s what they do–follow, follow, follow. I was left at the table with Benny sitting next to me. I caught him in the mirror looking at me expectantly.

“Where is this person I’m supposed to meet?” I asked, turning to give a sweeping glance at the diners. Heads bent over meals, drinks, and conversation, no returned my gaze. “Are they coming or not?”

The cigar store Indian met my gaze in the mirror with a smile, and continued to smile when the waitress handed me the bill, which I paid. On a side note, the one positive thing I’ll say about num and nuts, they will pay the bill next time, no questions.

“Let’s get out of here. That guy’s not coming,” I said to Benny, and slid heavily out of the booth.

“Here’s here,” Benny said.

I stood tall and looked around once more. No one seemed uncanny. Just as I caught my own reflection, Benny tapped my chest.”Here’s in here,” the old man said with a gap-toothed grin.

I wasn’t impressed. Sorry. Or at least I couldn’t process all Benny had told me. I ate too much and all the blood went to my stomach. I’m gonna have to digest this knowledge and get back to you.

(Mr Creosote – still from Monty Python’s movie “The Meaning of Life”)

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-Seven

Hello Again!

Gorged

Into Darkness – Christmas Day, 1853

THE PAIN

-

Brooklyn Bridge Park (Photos only)

DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge) in Brooklyn (Photos only)

-

*”I Sing the Body Electric” by Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(Brooklyn Bridge – historic Tobacco Warehouse – Photo and Photoshopped by Joe)

Okay, I’m back after a hiatus from posting. Who cares, right? No one. I sure as heck don’t.

Anyway, things haven’t been going so well on my side of the fence. I’ve been living at my boss Nick’s house, yet not going to work (though I do drag my butt out for job estimates). You’d think after weeks of not showing up at the job sites, Nick would say something, but to him I’m as inanimate as the couch or the table or the chairs. I don’t know who or what he cares about other than gambling, it sure ain’t me. I did ask him one college-football-Saturday if he wanted me to move out, and he just waved for me to move away from the TV. The man’s a stone. Whatever.

Most days I’ve been sleeping into the afternoon, and in the evenings I usually head over to this seaport dive on the Brooklyn side of the East River. I won’t say where the bar is exactly, except that it’s just outside the glitzy(to me it’s glitzy!) Brooklyn Bridge Park area, while the door to the place is three steps from an unobstructed view of the bridge. It’s a bar where you can really immerse yourself in the moment. The patrons tend to be euphoric and unbridled, particularly after midnight when rough-hewn characters begin to slip in among the crowd of slick-heeled wannabes. The dregs make a game of leering at the ladies, who don’t seem to mind much, though some give dagger-eyed looks. These men also love to violently cry out, sing, and yowl. I can hardly tell a word apart, or if they are truly singing or yelling at one another. Most peculiar is that although everyone sees and hears the dregs, they appear ghost-like, as they breeze in and out of the bar as if on jets of air. It’s no wonder that in looking back the day after, the night spent in the place always seems like a dream.

After one especially long night there, Benny, “the cigar store Indian,” popped up on me as I plodded to the subway. I can’t remember much of what he said, something about me having to change my ways, that I was on the path to becoming irrevocably nocturnal. It was all blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, he also said that I was messing with the type of forces that lure in the mind, only to consume the body. Whatever. I haven’t talked to him about it since. Though the next day he did orchestrate a meeting between me and my estranged lady friend(LF). I was dying to see her, and didn’t want her mad at me anymore. Benny even came along and did a lot of the talking. He really helped smooth things over between us.

-

In the week or so since LF and I have been back together, I haven’t gone to that seaport dive. Plus I’ve been working everyday and even going to the gym. She is my everything. I know that, and so do my readers. I won’t go into our reunion, though you can read about our breakup. It wasn’t my fault. A trickle of demon blood made me sick. Read Episode Thirty-Four and Episode Thirty-Five, if you want to know all about it.

Otherwise, because of the dose of demon blood from that runt of a kid I met at the “House on the River’s Edge“, I do get sick now and again. When it happens, besides the fact that I get a little nutty, my extrasensory perception sharpens. Though you’d be surprised, things get very clouded, and I usually have to search the streets really hard to see a ghost or true spirit matter. As far as the nuttiness, I won’t go on about it, except to say that no one should fear me. I don’t want to bite anyone. And I don’t get that crazy, so long as LF is with me. I trust in her, and know after a few hours, I’ll be fine.

Unfortunately, Since LF’s in my life again, the pizza and Chinese delivery guys(aka num and nuts) are back stepping on my tail. Not having seen them in two months, they appear more primitive and bizarre than ever. They seem thrust from a TV commercial, or sprung from the pages of a fashion magazine. They both work hard to evoke fashion-conscious personas; whether they’re on a street corner, at a bar, or at the dinner table waiting for a helping of garlic mashed potatoes, corn, cranberries, stuffing, and gravy, those two love to pose with pouty mouths and affected gestures. They are whacked, plain and simple.

-

Today is my first day back living in the old apartment with LF and num and nuts. In a little while the four of us plus Benny are going out to dinner. Afterwards, Benny wants me to meet someone who can offer some insight into NYC’s darkest paranormal secrets. It’s partly because I’ve been toying with writing a book on the subject. The old man thinks that’s a great idea, especially because he’s always telling me that I need to learn more about the supernatural to help myself. Benny says this person is someone who has lived many past lives, yada, yada. I don’t care. And as far as the book, I’ll be upfront and honest with you like I always am, I want to write it so I can make a few extra greenbacks. E-books are easy to do.

So, whatever, I’m really hungry and can’t wait to stuff my pie hole.

But I will say that I owe Benny one for bringing LF back into my life. I know I complain about the old man, and always say how I don’t trust him because he’s doesn’t tell me all he knows, but now I’m truly indebted to the bastard, that is, at least until I pay for his dinner tonight.

Thanks for reading.

Your friend,

Bald Punk aka Joe

P.S. I’m happy to be back blogging with you.

P.P.S.S. To that person from the Bronx with the demon problem, sorry I couldn’t help you directly, but let me know if my suggestions were of any help?

—

Here are all the posts in this series: Episode Thirty-Seven

Hello Again!

Gorged

Into Darkness – Christmas Day, 1853

THE PAIN

-

Brooklyn Bridge Park (Photos only)

DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge) in Brooklyn (Photos only)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

 (World Trade Center, Photo by Joe)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(Caged walkway/uncredited – Photoshopped by Joe)

As the night wore on, the sickness took my thoughts, my emotions, and then my breath. Soon after I began to slide, first off the couch I had been lying on, then down through a colorless abyss. Ineffably, the living, breathing, sentient world, was all around me, yet I was not part of it. I was dead inside, and was somehow being mocked by the forces of life. I remember being touched by a paralyzing sadness that didn’t penetrate my skin…

-

I woke to find that I was on my feet and already in motion. I blinked repeatedly as I tried to get my head right. I was on a dark city street. Rows of gray buildings loomed heavily. Twinkling lights were scattered all around, even hanging in midair. It looked like 50-something Street by 1st or 2nd Ave, but I can’t say for certain.

It took a moment to realize that I moved through a caged walkway, perched about 6 or 7 feet above the sidewalk. At every step, what seemed to be a shadowy mob kept ahead of me, just outside the cage. Some of them banged on the underside of the walkway. Others reached up and pushed wadded paper and plastic bags through the grated exterior. I didn’t know who or what they were, or what they wanted. But they were curious as shit to watch. It was as if they were all part of the same fabric, lapping at the cage like a single wave.

A lone man was slumped in a doorway. He was missing the bottom half of his body and his eyes were open. ”Welcome to the world of the dead,” he said with a crooked smile. (He didn’t actually say that. He just mumbled with a daft smile on his face. But that’s what I took “his words” to mean.)

I kept on moving, I don’t think I could have stopped if I wanted to. My attention was drawn to the walkway as I stepped on what felt like squirming crustaceans. It was someone’s fingers, extended like squiggly worms through a crevice. A few feet ahead, a bony arm stretched up through a gaping hole. It hit me how those bastards on the sidewalk below, really wanted to get inside the cage.

Luckily, the walkway was clearly lit. I noticed the light was shaky as if someone held a flashlight. I glanced back to see a tall skinny being, who had a bug-eyed face. He was a few dozen feet behind me. His bulbous head was bent, so as not to hit the roof. He was one of my demon nemeses, who for the past few hundred years have been conducting what seems to be a massive science experiment in NYC, and I have become an unwilling participant. But I don’t feel like going on about that right now.

So, anyway, the light came from the palm of the skinny bastard’s hand.

F–k him, I thought and continued on.

A line of people cued alongside a building across the street. They were behind a fence that ran in the middle of the sidewalk. Two behemoth bouncers stood in front of open double doors. Pink neon lights flashed behind them. I made out a central figure, who stood under the watchful eyes of the bouncers. It was a woman in a tinsy, leather bikini. She held a gun with what looked like a condom, swinging from the butt of the weapon. She selected patrons from the line, then stuck the gun to their mouths and fired. It made no sound, nor did it do any harm, as afterward, the person headed inside the club.

It was the pillshot…

I realized that the whole scenario, including the caged walkway I was on, was a scene from a short story I had written titled “No More Fairy Tales“. The woman in the leather bikini was shooting pills into the club goers’ mouths. The catch was, that one of them was poison. Inside the club they were having a party known as a death rave. The person who got the poisoned pill, would drop dead inside the club to everyone elses’ delight.

I quickly got the message. Those demon runts who love to terrorize me–they wanted me to know that not only did they put ideas for stories inside my head, but the stories had an element of truth. As mentioned, the tall skinny bastard behind me was one of them. Maybe they were showing me the future, too… Whoop-de-do. They can bl-w me.

(Sorry for the language. But I had that thought while I was stalking through what I thought was the world of the dead, and that’s how you talk when you’re dead. Unless you’re from Jersey. Then you still talk like you’re from Jersey.)

Not a second after I came to that conclusion, as I still moved along the walkway, one of the demons spoke to me. I knew the voice. It wasn’t the tall skinny one. It was the other one, the shorter, square-shaped creature. 

“We wanted you to have the dose of demon blood,” came its lively voice, that was a touch mechanical in tone and elocution. The demon blood came from a vampire child I had killed. Click right here to read about it. “It’s so we can welcome you into this world. We can now more clearly light your way through it.”

“What the f–k do you want from me?” I asked.

“We are mapping the future, and need to do it through human eyes–”

And that was it. I woke the next day on the couch.

-

Okay, so those demon bastards give me all my ideas for stories. I don’t care. I think I wrote somewhere, that I knew that the ideas for the books I wrote about Max Beckley, the revolutionary war soldier abducted by those same demons, came from them. (I haven’t published those books yet.)

My friend Benny, “the cigar store Indian” has told me not to write about them. But I didn’t stop. Maybe I can’t. So what?

Dunno what to think about them looking through my eyes. I know they do it through Max Beckley’s.

Maybe it’s like that poem called “Footprints in the Sand?” That’s the one about the man who looked back on his steps through life, and asked God something like, why when life was toughest, did I see only one set of footprints. And God answered, it was because He had carried him during those times. If you don’t know the poem, it’s below. (I think it’s a poem??? But wtf do I know. (Why the hell am I putting so much crap in parentheses??? There must be a rule against that.))

Anyway, I’m thinking, when I look back at the end of it all, the footsteps in the sand that I see will be those of my demons. Bastards probably have webbed feet. I’m screwed. So what.

— 

Episode Thirty-Five

Transformation

I Am The Night

A Trickle of Blood

Waiting for Worlds to Collide

Tales From The World Of The Dead

(Click until you get full-size version)

(“Footprints in the Sand”, uncredited)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(A cat on Christopher Street sidewalk, Photo by Joe)

The sickness has come again…

I’m in an apartment that my boss owns in Queens. On top of my head is a pool of sweat. I dip my fingers into it and paw at my damp face. My eyes shift suspiciously to the 36″ TV, then to the various objects in the adjoining rooms. The table in the kitchen is vibrating, inching ever-so-slightly toward the noisy refrigerator. The dusty pictures on the walls quiver and hang precariously. They look ready to take flight. Beside me on the couch–especially if I look from the corner of my eye–I spot movement inside the pillows. It could be eels.

For the past few hours, I can’t drink and I can’t eat. Thirty minutes ago I went to the corner bodega and bought a pack of butts, though I don’t smoke. I just needed something to consume. And they were the only thing in that damn place that I thought I could, although…

An old Hispanic guy behind the counter was sweating nearly as much as I was. He smelled like Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup. I could have sworn the beads of sweat on his neck were colored by blood. My tongue had lathered with saliva as I thought of lapping up blood-flavored, chicken noodle soup. When a female musk flushed through the balmy air, I saw a voluptuous, tanned woman behind me. Standing at the counter across from the cash register, I looked over my shoulder, trying to make it seem like I was interested in buying something else, though my eyes lingered on her nooks and curves. Her breasts and butt were respectively squeezed into a tank top and unbuttoned shorts that were like a white bud ready to flower. I kept thinking her blood was a secret I needed to know.

She had to lean past me, to also buy a pack of butts. Then I followed her out of the bodega, terrified of giving into the sickness. Because I wanted to taste her from the inside out; I wanted to know her blood. It was the gateway to a fantasy world…

There were plenty of people on the sidewalk, and the street was packed with traffic. For a second, I was able to calm as I eyed her butt. It was the only thing that I could focus on. ”I’m not a vampire,” I said to the curvaceous behind, before making a beeline back to the apartment.

Now as I sit and watch the furniture move, I think about how Benny, “the cigar store Indian” said drinking a person blood could make me very sick. But I’ve never trusted Benny. He’s an old homeless man and clairvoyant, who believes he’s lived many lives. I don’t trust him, because he knows way more than he ever admits to. But he’s all I have. My friends whom I could have turned to with this problem, have abandoned me.

Soon, I’m going to go outside and wander the streets. I want to look at people and imagine the places their coursing blood could carry me off to. The darkness is not right yet. I don’t know what time it is. The cable box time is blurry. When I touch on my cell phone, I can’t make out a thing through the glare of the LCD light. All I know is that it’s dark outside, and getting darker.

But it’s not dark enough.

Before I got sick, I never knew there were different degrees of darkness. Maybe I’m waiting for midnight, or 2 or 3 a.m., or that “dead time” psychic investigators like to talk about. All I know is that a time is coming, when I can see, not clearly, but the spiritual world will be more in focus than ever before. Not that there’s something I want to see there. I just don’t want to get hit by a car, or walk into a street lamp or someone. The two times before when the sickness came on, each time I was almost killed in the street. Once was by a nut on a bike.

At the moment, I can’t judge distance properly, plus I get fixated by the shimmer and seeming movement of objects, and lose track of where I am. But when that special time comes, it seems to bring balance to my equilibrium. Though that’s not what happens exactly. It’s more like both real and non-corporeal worlds collide, or meet side by side. And I can see pretty good. I won’t be so nervous then.

Now I’m just sitting and waiting. Waiting for worlds to collide. I can’t wait to get outside.

—

Episode Thirty-Five

Transformation

I Am The Night

A Trickle of Blood

Waiting for Worlds to Collide

Tales From The World Of The Dead

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(Vampire teeth, uncredited – Photoshopped by Joe)

Forget that last post. I am not a vampire. I have never been a vampire.

A trickle of demon blood on my lips made me sick. It was from the demon runt I killed at the house on the river’s edge. Benny, “the cigar store Indian” told me I will get sick again. But I will not have to kill. I have no need for blood, though there may be complications. He didn’t say what they were.

My lady friend knows I was drunk, but there is no excuse for my walking out of the bar past her with another woman. We broke up. I haven’t told you everything, but there are other reasons for the split.

I’m living on my own, barely living that is. I haven’t gone to work. I’ve lost weight. I’m miserable.

And I will get sick again. End of post. End.

Your friend,

Joe aka Bald Punk

Your friend in blood…

—

Episode Thirty-Five

Transformation

I Am The Night

A Trickle of Blood

Waiting for Worlds to Collide

Tales From The World Of The Dead

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels

(Tonic East sports bar, Manhattan(original below), Photos/Photo art by Joe)

That night, the darkness was disguised as light, and my kiss—was the kiss of death. While the blonde wanted my kisses, as much as I wanted to give them. She was caught in the “fantastic lie” of the light that shined brightest inside me…

It was a Friday night and my life was coming undone. My friends were back inside the sports bar, watching the Yanks play the Redsox. I was outside with a blonde in my arms, madder than a hatter. I had just walked out past my mortified lady friend. Worse. My head was filled with visions of past lives that seemed so real, it was as if I was presently living each life.

I was a pirate and my two-masted brigantine sat deep in the water at a South Street wharf, weighed down by plunder. I was also a Tammany man, eyeing the grunts mulling outside my Union Square office, some waiting to ask me for work, others to beg me for money. While in the Five Points neighborhood, I was a burly cop walking in a rutted path. But to top it off, I was a priest at the altar in a Lower West Side church, before my congregation in their Sunday best. Sunlight bled through stained glass windows, down into the dusty pews, and candles set along the walls drew ghastly images over the whitewashed interior and even over an imposing Jesus Crucifixion that hung at my back. I lingered over that spectacle. First to catch my eye was how my parishioners’ souls flickered colorfully though their breasts, while I was devoid of even a scintilla of light. Then I spotted a horned being snickering up on one of the rafters. It could have been the Devil himself. He was blood-red, his skin covered in deep black wrinkles. When our gazes met, he reached out with a lolling appendage that was phallic-like. I knew he meant to spear it through me–his conduit to those earthly souls.

(Five Points by George Catlin, 1827)

And then I opened my eyes to the blonde who had fallen under the same spell that had me, or so it seemed, as she had freely walked outside and took my hand. She was giddy but not laughing as she fell back in my arms. Her skin was waxen and the blue veins of her neck awed me like rivers of gold.

The sight of those veins made the life force in me quicken. My teeth pained in a curious manner and I remembered that in past lives, it was through them that I could feel the most exquisite pleasure. While I knew that to bite into the blonde’s flesh would be the most erotic measure possible. I opened my mouth and bore my teeth, saliva ran down my chin. I could just taste her juicy steak of a neck.

Someone screamed and I hissed, immediately roiled by the mortal interruption. Three men shot in our direction. One thrust out his hand and cried, “Vampire!”

I roughly pushed the blonde aside, knowing who and what I had suddenly become–though the full impact had yet to hit me. At that moment, being a vampire was like being a postman, truck driver, or butcher.

All my assailants had wooden spikes in their fisted hands, but they also had fear in their eyes. Fools! I snarled, and spit a wad of flem soundly against the pavement. I was agitated that I might not satiate my bloodlust. Then I remembered the familiar shock of impalement–it had happened many times before.

But not this time… I howled and swept one lunging man into the others, and easily jumped free of their path. I wanted to tear out their throats, yet I wanted the free flow of blood in my gullet more.

I sprinted east on 29th, to the nearby river. The tastes of past kills watered my palate. I wanted to take another woman, or maybe a young girl. No! I wanted to circle around, and see if I could recapture the blonde. I looked over my shoulder. I was too fast. No one followed. But I had to be smart. Others with inhuman speed would know of my presence by now. I had been rash. They would soon come after me, as they had before in my long experience being an undead thing. I didn’t know who they were, but they had the knowledge, if not the brute strength and speed, to kill me.

To kill me… an undead thing…

“I had done this before,” I told myself and dug my fingernails into my palm. I ran my tongue over sharp incisors. In the morning, I had been a lowly demolition man chasing rats. Now I am no longer a living thing. I am a soulless nothing that forever escapes the light. To become night… I am a vampire. I am the night.

To be continued…

—

Episode Thirty-Five

Transformation

I Am The Night

A Trickle of Blood

Waiting for Worlds to Collide

Tales From The World Of The Dead

(Tonic East – Photo by Joe)

Here are my STORIES and info on my Novels