Zen and the Art...
0
I wrote this short story beginning in an attempt to see if after reading all those cyberpunk novels if I myself could get a handle on the genre. So please enjoy the very start of what I hope to be at least a decent short story.
WARNING: Contains drug use and heavy profanity.
(Oh and a billion points to anyone who's familiar with the song that the title is taken from)
It had been about 3 months since our last hit, and already I was sweating bullets of anticipation while preparing for tomorrow’s. Lenny had scoped the joint out 3 times over the last week, partaking in their wares, of course. To this day I still don’t know how he didn’t come back with 40 different VDs every time. Hell, I couldn’t imagine why he had elected himself to take the job of scouting our hits. Big Dave always said he was a sex addict, I was content with thinking that fucking was a hobby for him.
Lenny came in with a big dumb grin on his face as always, his greasy brown mop dangling in his face. He plopped himself down on the ratty excuse for a sofa we kept in the corner and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a few ounces of weed in an crinkled plastic sandwich bag and started rolling a joint on our jerry-rigged coffee table.
“So...what exactly are we lookin’ at here?” Big Dave started. Lenny took the time to finish licking his perfectly executed joint before he answered.
“They got this one dude who just sits in the waiting room, I’ve seen him every time I’ve been there. Doesnt got the air of a customer, has this mean look on his face. Not the look of someone who’s about to get a BJ”. He grabbed my badly scuffed Zippo off the “table” and lit.
“They definitely have two guys in the back storage room at the end of the hall” he choked out as he held in a large hit. Big Dave didn’t look impressed.
“That seems pretty fuckin’ light for place of that size. We’ve hit little shit joints with, like, triple that.” Lenny finally exhaled, the smoke barely visible anymore.
“Look that’s all I fucking saw alright, asshole. You got a problem? You drag your fucking ass down there and have a look.”
“Maybe I fuckin’ will.”
Dave sat down opposite Lenny in a white plastic lawn chair. This happened every time. It was like some cheesy movie cliche, the two of them, arguing the details of the muscle in these places. They made it sound as if we were planning some daring mid-day heist at one of the big city banks.
Lenny turned to me, offering me the joint. I declined, not really feeling in the mood. He shrugged and looked at Dave. Dave almost snatched the thing from his hand. He ripped it hard. Lenny made a sound of protest, but decided against actually verbalizing his annoyance. Dave took one more hit before passing it back. I stood and walked into the kitchen, trying to calm myself down. No matter what happened, no matter how smoothly preparations went, I always had the worst fucking butterflies in my stomach. I grabbed a dirty styrofoam cup from counter and poured myself some of the cold sludge sitting in the coffee pot. Seeing this made me smile. It meant that one of those two assholes had bothered to pay Claude a visit.
Claude was the guy who took the entire second story of this dump to himself. In exchange for us leaving him completely alone and making sure everyone else did, he found a way to suck a little juice out of the power gird. We didn’t get much, he took 90% of it for himself, with all those computers he was running day and night. What we were left with was enough to power our few dumpstered appliances and run a space heater in winter. Not such a bad deal when you really got down to it. I felt bad for some of our more upstanding friends who payed rent each month in addition to utilities. Wage slaves.
I downed the cup and tossed it into the sink, suddenly wondering were we had gotten the water to make coffee. Thinking it better not to ask, I walked back in to see Dave cleaning his piece. It was a Walther PPK, circa Nineteen Ninety Fuckin’ Whatever. He was a huge fan of those lame James Bond films from last century and had made it his life’s mission to acquire that trademark gun from the films. He had bought it off of some dealer he used to score from 2 years ago and hadn’t shut up about it since. That thing never left him...ever. Lenny had said that he had seen him once sitting on his mattress one day just staring at it. It looked as if he was staring at his reflection in it, probably trying real hard to visualize himself as Bond.
Dave set his prized possession down and scratched his huge black beard. That thing had been keeping him from getting carded since he was 16. I sat down on the floor next to him. He looked down at me and smiled.
“So you ready for this shit tomorrow? Even though jerk off over there cant keep his dick in his pants long enough to get us some good intel?”
“Come on man, you know we always wing this shit anyways. Wouldnt matter if we had the CIA gathering info on this place, we’d still end up just running it at the last minute.”
This too was a cliche among us, me giving a weak-ass pep talk. Lenny just frowned at us and mumbled something about fucking ourselves. He pulled out his baggy again and started to role another joint. Now that pleasantries were over, we could actually get down to ironing out the details for tomorrow. The taste of that cold, bitter coffee hung in my mouth the rest of the day.
*******
WARNING: Contains drug use and heavy profanity.
(Oh and a billion points to anyone who's familiar with the song that the title is taken from)
Zen and the Art of Breaking Everything in This Room
It had been about 3 months since our last hit, and already I was sweating bullets of anticipation while preparing for tomorrow’s. Lenny had scoped the joint out 3 times over the last week, partaking in their wares, of course. To this day I still don’t know how he didn’t come back with 40 different VDs every time. Hell, I couldn’t imagine why he had elected himself to take the job of scouting our hits. Big Dave always said he was a sex addict, I was content with thinking that fucking was a hobby for him.
Lenny came in with a big dumb grin on his face as always, his greasy brown mop dangling in his face. He plopped himself down on the ratty excuse for a sofa we kept in the corner and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a few ounces of weed in an crinkled plastic sandwich bag and started rolling a joint on our jerry-rigged coffee table.
“So...what exactly are we lookin’ at here?” Big Dave started. Lenny took the time to finish licking his perfectly executed joint before he answered.
“They got this one dude who just sits in the waiting room, I’ve seen him every time I’ve been there. Doesnt got the air of a customer, has this mean look on his face. Not the look of someone who’s about to get a BJ”. He grabbed my badly scuffed Zippo off the “table” and lit.
“They definitely have two guys in the back storage room at the end of the hall” he choked out as he held in a large hit. Big Dave didn’t look impressed.
“That seems pretty fuckin’ light for place of that size. We’ve hit little shit joints with, like, triple that.” Lenny finally exhaled, the smoke barely visible anymore.
“Look that’s all I fucking saw alright, asshole. You got a problem? You drag your fucking ass down there and have a look.”
“Maybe I fuckin’ will.”
Dave sat down opposite Lenny in a white plastic lawn chair. This happened every time. It was like some cheesy movie cliche, the two of them, arguing the details of the muscle in these places. They made it sound as if we were planning some daring mid-day heist at one of the big city banks.
Lenny turned to me, offering me the joint. I declined, not really feeling in the mood. He shrugged and looked at Dave. Dave almost snatched the thing from his hand. He ripped it hard. Lenny made a sound of protest, but decided against actually verbalizing his annoyance. Dave took one more hit before passing it back. I stood and walked into the kitchen, trying to calm myself down. No matter what happened, no matter how smoothly preparations went, I always had the worst fucking butterflies in my stomach. I grabbed a dirty styrofoam cup from counter and poured myself some of the cold sludge sitting in the coffee pot. Seeing this made me smile. It meant that one of those two assholes had bothered to pay Claude a visit.
Claude was the guy who took the entire second story of this dump to himself. In exchange for us leaving him completely alone and making sure everyone else did, he found a way to suck a little juice out of the power gird. We didn’t get much, he took 90% of it for himself, with all those computers he was running day and night. What we were left with was enough to power our few dumpstered appliances and run a space heater in winter. Not such a bad deal when you really got down to it. I felt bad for some of our more upstanding friends who payed rent each month in addition to utilities. Wage slaves.
I downed the cup and tossed it into the sink, suddenly wondering were we had gotten the water to make coffee. Thinking it better not to ask, I walked back in to see Dave cleaning his piece. It was a Walther PPK, circa Nineteen Ninety Fuckin’ Whatever. He was a huge fan of those lame James Bond films from last century and had made it his life’s mission to acquire that trademark gun from the films. He had bought it off of some dealer he used to score from 2 years ago and hadn’t shut up about it since. That thing never left him...ever. Lenny had said that he had seen him once sitting on his mattress one day just staring at it. It looked as if he was staring at his reflection in it, probably trying real hard to visualize himself as Bond.
Dave set his prized possession down and scratched his huge black beard. That thing had been keeping him from getting carded since he was 16. I sat down on the floor next to him. He looked down at me and smiled.
“So you ready for this shit tomorrow? Even though jerk off over there cant keep his dick in his pants long enough to get us some good intel?”
“Come on man, you know we always wing this shit anyways. Wouldnt matter if we had the CIA gathering info on this place, we’d still end up just running it at the last minute.”
This too was a cliche among us, me giving a weak-ass pep talk. Lenny just frowned at us and mumbled something about fucking ourselves. He pulled out his baggy again and started to role another joint. Now that pleasantries were over, we could actually get down to ironing out the details for tomorrow. The taste of that cold, bitter coffee hung in my mouth the rest of the day.
*******
0
*******
I awoke to the sound of cold rain and the drip-drip-drip of the leaks in the ceiling. I rolled over and glanced at the holo-clock resting on damaged night stand next to my mattress. It projected an image of an anime style frog jumping up and down telling me it was time to greet the day...in japanese. The frog would occasionally blur and cut out for a second. Piece of shit. Under the small holographic pond this frog called home the time blinked green 10:30AM GMT. I kicked my comforter off and pulled on a pair of broken in jeans and the most nondescript hooded sweatshirt I owned. Pulling up the hood, I walked into the kitchen to see Big Daves’ well toned back. I never understood why he practically never wore a shirt our place. Who the hell was he impressing?
The black plastic we used to cover the shattered windows flapped furiously against the strong wind. Dave pored me a cup of black coffee and handed me a cigarette. Marlboro regular, “Cowboy Killas”. Dave was from western New York, and made a point to show his pride for his redneck homeland by smoking these harsh death sticks. I lit it and inhaled, savoring the nicotine, but not the taste. Not that it mattered, I didnt smoke out of enjoyment, more on principle then anything else. Someone with my rep, my lifestyle, my background was expected to smoke...and heavily. I, of course, obliged.
Lenny was wake n’ baking while picking at the scab forming over his most recent tattoo: an asian-style dragon, red and gold. He really seemed to enjoy ruining his body art, guess it gave him something else to bitch about. I could see he had already destroyed some of the gold trim around the dragon’s right hand. In a week he’d be back at the parlor, raising seven different kinds of hell over what a shitty job they did. The artist would get up in his face, there’d be a scuffle, and one less tattoo shop would let Lenny ever come back. There are still days where I wonder how the hell these two fuckwits became my best friends.
I sat down on the couch and drained the rest of the coffee. Probably the only sustenance I’d get today. Lenny finished his own morning ritual by pocketing the roach. Dave stood on the threshold of the two rooms, staring off into nothing as his smoke burned down to the filter. We all took the next few moments of silence to calm ourselves down and get our heads in the game. I was the one to break the silence.
“Alright, one more time. I’m going in the front and nailing the waiting room guy. Dave’s got the jokers in the back and, you, Len need to keep from getting a hard on long enough to get the fucking list. Right?”
Dave snickered as they both nodded. Lenny got up and left right then and there without a word. Dave went to his room to get dressed and get his shit.
*******
I stuck my head out of one of our plastic covered windows to make sure no one that mattered saw us leaving. Keeping a low profile in this neighborhood was vital if you wanted to keep owning you meager possesions.
We had given Lenny a 15 minute start before we began the walk ourselves. The rain was still coming down hard and the storm drains were clogged. I didnt make it a hundred feet before my feet were soaked and numb walking those flooded streets. Not that I noticed; once you get your head in the game, you better fucking keep it there and not bother with the small shit. BD was wearing an as equally nondescript sweatshirt as my own with some band logo on it. His hood was even larger then mine, thus allowing him to smoke even in this downpour. Again, I just kept down my anger over the fact it would be hours before I got to fucking smoke again.
We crossed Malory Street, took a right a Farpoint and began the long, 23 block walk straight down towards the “gentlemens club”.
I awoke to the sound of cold rain and the drip-drip-drip of the leaks in the ceiling. I rolled over and glanced at the holo-clock resting on damaged night stand next to my mattress. It projected an image of an anime style frog jumping up and down telling me it was time to greet the day...in japanese. The frog would occasionally blur and cut out for a second. Piece of shit. Under the small holographic pond this frog called home the time blinked green 10:30AM GMT. I kicked my comforter off and pulled on a pair of broken in jeans and the most nondescript hooded sweatshirt I owned. Pulling up the hood, I walked into the kitchen to see Big Daves’ well toned back. I never understood why he practically never wore a shirt our place. Who the hell was he impressing?
The black plastic we used to cover the shattered windows flapped furiously against the strong wind. Dave pored me a cup of black coffee and handed me a cigarette. Marlboro regular, “Cowboy Killas”. Dave was from western New York, and made a point to show his pride for his redneck homeland by smoking these harsh death sticks. I lit it and inhaled, savoring the nicotine, but not the taste. Not that it mattered, I didnt smoke out of enjoyment, more on principle then anything else. Someone with my rep, my lifestyle, my background was expected to smoke...and heavily. I, of course, obliged.
Lenny was wake n’ baking while picking at the scab forming over his most recent tattoo: an asian-style dragon, red and gold. He really seemed to enjoy ruining his body art, guess it gave him something else to bitch about. I could see he had already destroyed some of the gold trim around the dragon’s right hand. In a week he’d be back at the parlor, raising seven different kinds of hell over what a shitty job they did. The artist would get up in his face, there’d be a scuffle, and one less tattoo shop would let Lenny ever come back. There are still days where I wonder how the hell these two fuckwits became my best friends.
I sat down on the couch and drained the rest of the coffee. Probably the only sustenance I’d get today. Lenny finished his own morning ritual by pocketing the roach. Dave stood on the threshold of the two rooms, staring off into nothing as his smoke burned down to the filter. We all took the next few moments of silence to calm ourselves down and get our heads in the game. I was the one to break the silence.
“Alright, one more time. I’m going in the front and nailing the waiting room guy. Dave’s got the jokers in the back and, you, Len need to keep from getting a hard on long enough to get the fucking list. Right?”
Dave snickered as they both nodded. Lenny got up and left right then and there without a word. Dave went to his room to get dressed and get his shit.
*******
I stuck my head out of one of our plastic covered windows to make sure no one that mattered saw us leaving. Keeping a low profile in this neighborhood was vital if you wanted to keep owning you meager possesions.
We had given Lenny a 15 minute start before we began the walk ourselves. The rain was still coming down hard and the storm drains were clogged. I didnt make it a hundred feet before my feet were soaked and numb walking those flooded streets. Not that I noticed; once you get your head in the game, you better fucking keep it there and not bother with the small shit. BD was wearing an as equally nondescript sweatshirt as my own with some band logo on it. His hood was even larger then mine, thus allowing him to smoke even in this downpour. Again, I just kept down my anger over the fact it would be hours before I got to fucking smoke again.
We crossed Malory Street, took a right a Farpoint and began the long, 23 block walk straight down towards the “gentlemens club”.