Saturday, November 7, 2009

Shades of Jack excerpt: 90 Days- Chapter One

Jack always had a thing for winter. He loved the way that the cold air made him feel alive, the way that the snow covered everything and it almost seemed to completely hide the harshness of reality. He disliked the way that reality always seemed to ruin a perfectly good situation. “And that, my friend is why I'm not a Buddhist.”, he said aloud to no one in particular. He opened the door of his late father's restored Charger, and stepped into the driveway, pausing to allow the falling snowflakes to land on his face. He imagined that he was being kissed by a cloud, and breathed the cold air in through his nose deep enough to almost make him cough, and exhaled slowly. In his mind, he had become a benevolent dragon, simply enjoying the sensation of the world at his feet. For a moment, he almost forgot about the unpleasantness to follow.

Snowflakes still melting on his dark skin, he trudged up the steps to a two story brick townhouse. The perfectly manicured lawn and hedges seemed like marshmallows on top of a sea of confectioner's sugar. “Great, now I'm hungry, too.” Almost as if to answer him, his stomach growled low and long.
Jack removed his left glove and knocked on the door three times. Loud, hard, and with no rhythm. He waited a beat, and could hear movement, so he stepped back from the stoop, retrieved a key from his pocket, then replaced his glove.

A young woman in her mid twenties opened the door, she was wearing a thick knit sweater, light jeans and a pair of brown Uggs boots. Her large blue eyes brightened when she saw him, and she flung the door open, “Jack, I didn't know that you were coming, I called six or seven times today but-”

She stopped when instead of greeting her with a typical hug and kiss, he simply held the key in front of her mouth. She could tell from his expression that he had no intention of discussing the matter, but she still did not want to accept the fact. “Look, Jack. I know what you said about your three month thing, but why-”

He didn't raise his voice. Or change his expression. Or react to her tears. With a practiced meter and tempo, he began to speak, almost as if he rehearsing a dull speech rather than speaking with a lover.
“We're done, Staci.” he began. “It's been ninety days, and so that's it.”

“What do you mean 'that's it' Jack?” She was becoming hysterical, almost on queue. Jack almost felt ashamed for noticing, but he pressed on, still holding the key in front of her, hand unmoving, almost as if it wasn't attached to his body.

“It means that we are through. You knew my terms for our relationship. You get three months, and that's it. Lose my number, here's your key.” She batted his hand away..

“How dare you. What makes you think that you can just decide when we are through? Do I not get a say?”

Jack blinked three times, slowly and deliberate. He inhaled slowly while he considered his next statement. After a few moments of staring into the tear-stained face of a woman whom he no longer had any feelings for, he took her hand. Expecting consolation, Staci allowed him to do so, and he delicately spread her fingers from her palm in a manner that made him think of a lotus, and placed her key inside.
“No.” he said wish absolutely zero emotion, “Lose my number.” He turned and headed back to his car without looking back. He always this part, and it never got easier. Jack tried to ignore the sound of a large oak door slamming as he got into his car and tried to not feel bad because his only thoughts are that of breakfast. “That is the last time that I break up on an empty stomach.”


Jack was on his second stack when he got a text message. Shoving a huge forkful of buckwheat pancakes into his mouth, he checked and when he saw that it was friend Suri, he immediately called her without reading the message, as usual. He chewed while it rang.

“Either you don't care that I am busy, or you never read my messages. Either way, Jack, I can't talk right now.” She was obviously annoyed, but Jack disregarded it. As usual.

“Doesn't matter. I'm at the diner around the corner from you. I'm hungry as hell, and I could use the company.” he said between bites.

“No. I have a million things to do, and I can't spend the rest of my day fooling around with you.”
Her speech was starting to come out in a sharp staccato as she felt more pressured. Which he loved.

“'Fooling around'? Suri, I just want some company to go with my pancakes. I would never besmirch our friendship by 'fooling around' with you.”

“Jack, I cannot. I am behind in class, and I cannot spend today shopping with you. I seriously cannot.”

“Even if I take you shoe shopping?”

“Well, you didn't say anything about shoe shopping. What? No, Jack! Not even if you take me shoe shopping.”

“Okay, what class are you behind in? He shoved another forkful into his mouth.

“Creative Writing. I have a paper due.”

Jack struggled to get the mouthful down. The shock almost choked him. “Are you serious? I'll write it for you, meet me at Pepper's in twenty minutes. I need someone to blow some money on.”

“You can't do that, Jack. That's plagiarism.”

“No, silly. That's cheating. Besides, how do you think that I paid for college? Now put a turban on or something and meet me at Pepper's in ten minutes.”

“You just said twenty minutes.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “but you take less time to get ready than any woman on the planet, and I'm running out of space for these pancakes.”

“Where do you put all of that food? Have you considered eating fewer pancakes for breakfast?”

“What would be the point? Hurry up. I'm ordering you a stack along with my next one, so they'll be here when you get here. Don't let them get cold.”

“I'm more worried about you eating them first.”

“You should be. Bring your notes.”
Just as promised, there was a piping hot stack of pancakes waiting when Suri walked into the door of Pepper's Diner. She took off her heavy coat and muffler at the door, hung them on a coat rack, and shook a long jet black pony tail down her back. Jack, with a mouthful of pancakes, was charming a waitress, but when Suri came into view, completely ignored the server, and stood. “Took you long enough,” he said with a grin. “you look good.”

Suri hugged him, and took a seat. “Thanks. What did you order for me?”

“Buttermilk pancakes and chai. Oddly enough, no one had even heard of masala pancakes.”

Suri smiled. Her full lips parted in a most flattering manner that Jack sometimes believed to be practiced. “Because they don't exist.”

“Well, they should.” He snapped his fingers as a lightbulb went off in his head. “Come over Saturday, I'll make some.”

She crinkled her nose and laughed. “No. I don't think that I want to be party to that travesty. You can count me out. Oh, here's my notes.”

“Aright. You should come over anyway.” He took her notes and placed them directly into his brief bag.
“When is it due?” He started to pour an obscene amount of syrup on his pancakes.

“My morning class is at 10:30. Is that too soon?”

Jack's eyes widened in semi-false shock. “Suri, my love. You wound me. A three thousand word paper won't take me more than a couple of hours.”

“Actually, it's only fifteen hundred words.” She said sheepishly.

“What? Wait. Normally, I would be upset that you doubted me, but how is it that you weren't able to put something like this together on a trip to the can?” A slow, wry grin spread across his face. As it did, Suri's cinnamon-hued flesh reddened. All the evidence that Jack needed.

“I thought so. There is a very lucky person whom you are practicing some Kama Sutra moves on. Which ones? Octopus kisses the biscuits? Upside-down monkey cake? Face full of soup?”

“First of all, how did you know, and second, why were all of those fake Kama Sutras about food?”

“I'm still hungry.” Jack said, pouting and giving Suri his best puppy dog eyes.

“How? You have to be on your third stack of pancakes.”

“Fifth, actually. I had two at once. Menage e' breakfast. Yummy.”

“You aren't human. But you are changing the subject. How did you know?”

“Suri, my love. For anyone else, I wouldn't disclose my secrets, but you are really easy to read.

She replaced the syrup decanter long enough to give Jack a quizzical look. “How so?”
Jack shoved another gigantic forkful into his mouth, finishing the plate, and signaled to the surprised server for another round, and when he finished chewing, he took a long slug of Suri's chai. “If you must know. Listen; there are few people that I know who are more career oriented and focused than you. I don't know of anyone who could study for the GMAT and tutor me in calc and hold down a full time job. You never missed a beat. You're an academic juggernaut. For you to not be able to put together a fifteen hundred word essay based off of Hanuman fighting Goku and Piccolo or some other crap in your sleep means that something is actually important and is preventing you from getting your school work which means that you are touching someone's pee-pee.”

“Touching someone's pee-pee'?” Suri was cutting her stacks into manageable slices while talking.

“Only explanation. You're touching weiners or vaginae or something. Either that, or someone is dead. If so, I hope it's Raj. I hate his ass.”

“Don't worry, he still hates you as well. Now that you mention it. He did say something about his last book outselling yours.”
Suri smiled while she delicately opened her mouth for a piece of her food, an act that she knew that Jack would take notice of regardless of how much he tried to hide it.

“Great. Now I hate you both.” He frowned at his empty plate.

“So how did she take it?” Suri asked.

“Staci? Not well, but better than I had expected. Not too much yelling. Bunch of crying, though. Nothing to write home about.” He signaled for the check.

“Like you would ever write home.” She paused for a beat. “I have been thinking.”

Jack raised an eyebrow as he sat back in his chair. “Izzat so? What have you been talking about, pray tell?”

Suri laid her fork and knife down as she gathered herself before speaking. “These women. You aren't a womanizer, so that isn't the word, but I'm sure that you don't take their feelings into account when you break up with them.”

“Of course I do. I always do it in person, I always tell the truth, and I am direct. Everything that I say is done with finality.”

“But the way you talk about it...”

“Listen, 'Ri. As soon as it gets serious, I let them know that on the sunny side of three months, it's all over. It's practically an agreement. I'm not going to apologize because they don't take me seriously.”

“I'm not just worried about them, but I am also concerned about you.”

“What? Me? What's to worry about? No one has ever gotten all stalkery. It's nothing that I have ever had an issue with.”

“But how good is this for you?”
“Oh.” The gravity of their conversation had begun to set in. Jack dabbed at his chin with a napkin. “Suri. There are what, 6.7 people on the planet? Half of them are women, yeah? What's wrong with meeting as many as I can?”

“You say 'meeting', but in truth, you mean 'having sex with'.”

“Mayhap.” The server dropped the check off, and Jack tossed his credit card onto the tray and handed it back. My treat, but you're doing the tip math. Make it nice, and add my number to the back of the ticket.”

“What?”

“Cherise was a gymnast in college.” Jack grinned, and the glint in his eyes was that of a predator. Suri bristled in feigned disgust.

“You're a cad.”

“How so?” His honest reply would have given anyone else pause, but by now, Suri was used to the displays of his strange philosophy. “What's wrong with a little sexing? Or in my case- bunches and bunches?”

“Well,” She started.

“I mean lots.”

“I know, but-”

“Oodles!.” Jack outstretched his hands like claws as his eyes doubled in size. “I mean lots and l lots! Hours upon hours of sweaty, profane, dirty, pornographic stuff. I mean. She will either renounce her religion or find a new one.” He paused, allowing himself to digest the thought, “Maybe both...”

Suri ignored his mania and thousand yard stare as she thought back to their night together. It was the first week that they met, three years ago. They were both freshmen, and they saw each other at a party. Jack was playing some drinking game that she didn't understand, and she couldn't tell if he did either. Suri had no idea what it was that attracted him to her, but she was compelled to speak to him, as were most of the people surrounding him. She took him into one of the empty rooms and then took his virginity.

“You know, I slept with you, and I'm still an atheist.”

He shrugged. “Not my fault. Besides, I was like eighteen.”

“What are you talking about? You couldn't even find my-”

He cut Suri off. “Oi! That was a bucket of years ago, I was drunk as tits, a virgin, and I got plenty good since, yeah?” Suri giggled. Whenever Jack got defensive, he started talking like a British football hooligan. He never knew when he was doing it, but it was his only tell. She loved playing him at poker.
“Besides, you could always ask Staci. Or Mina. Oooh, Angie. Definitely ask Angie.”

“Jack.” Suri started.

“Seriously, the things that we did together.”

Jack.”

He grinned “Practically criminal.”

“Jack! Yuck. Why do I always feel like I need a shower when I am done talking to you?” Her look of mock disgust only served to prove to him that he was getting under her skin.

“I dunno,” He started, “Maybe you're sick of taking them alone.” The server came with the check, and thanked them for coming in, he held her hand, just enough pressure to make her turn back to speak to him. While Jack continued to woo Krystal, as her nametag stated, he slipped his card to Suri, who as promised, filled out the check, and also added his phone number on the back. Unbeknown to him, she also tipped her three times the amount of their meals. With a smug smile, she folded it back up and handed it to Krystal, who took it and left.

“You about ready to go?” Jack reached over and finished Suri's chai.

“Looks like I am now. Hey, I thought that you were going to have another stack of pancakes. What gives?”

He flashed a toothy grin. “I did. You took too long, so I ate your stack then ordered another.”

“Good God.” She looked at him with playful incredulity.

“Whatever. You totally want some of this.” He reached and grabbed his full stomach, gorged on more pancakes than anyone has any business eating.

“What do women see in you, really?”

“It's not what they see in me, it's that they see me in them. That, and I'm kinda rich. Let's go. I want to get a new pair of shoes before food coma kicks in.”

Friday, February 27, 2009

Damn you, Jaimie from Lowe's

Been over a month. I know, I'm a twat. Here goes.

So for the past month, I have been watching a friend's infant as I prepare to skip town, and we normally head on out during the day with the kid to show him stuff so he isn't home all the time. This past Wednesday, we went to Lowe's to pick up some screen doors, and we wound up having to return one. He put it on his card, so he decided to carry the door as I pushed the little one in the stroller. For some background, my buddy is an ex-Marine, six feet tall, and about 220 all muscle. I'm an ex-soldier, a hair under six feet tall, and though I'm a doughy 260, I look like I can bench a truck. I wasn't expecting to leave that day, so I was in yoga pants, a really gay tank top, and flip flops.


Now, we get to the returns desk, and while he is trying to get the transaction finished, Jaimie, the cashier is fawning over the kid. She looks at Bear Force One, and then to me, and in a moment of absolute hilarity, looks at the kid who is white as his parents, and then to me, who is about as black as you could get without actually being #000000, then says AND I QUOTE "He's so cute, you two guys are so lucky."

The inside of my head detached from my brain to prevent the laughter from crashing my Gibson (hehehe). My bud's head snapped like a Doberman; "What did you say?"

Jaimie realized that she just made a slight faux pas. She just told two guys who looked like they beat up on wild animals for fun that they look like they suck dick. My friend is secure enough in his masculinity to not actually be upset of that implication, just that she discounted his wife. She quickly recanted, and stumbled through a backpedal that I haven't seen the likes of which since the last presidential debates.
The entire time, I am trying to keep from laughing my ass all the way off.

The whole ride back to the house, we argued over who would be the top.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Oh, my God. He's backing Ann Coulter

Don't get me wrong; I still hope that she gets mauled by a fucking polar bear and her entrails lit aflame and her limbs crushed while she still breathes. However, punctuation pause, she spent some time on “The View”- a show that would be a beacon of intelligent female conversation and thought, but instead, is nothing but menopausal cackling for an hour out of my day (ninety seconds on The Soup). The whole time (that I was able to stand), all they did was discuss a portion of her book; Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America. After the jump, I'll add a piece of it. They were referencing a line from her book that blasts celebrities for making sex tapes and posing nude one day, then getting pregnant and raising children in a single parent home the next- all for a publicity stunt. Now, this is a valid point. There are too many babies raising babies. Too many 30 year-old grandparents. Too much illegitimacy. It's fucking up the country. The nuclear family is tantamount to the development of children.


Instead of agreeing with her statistically sound and absolutely valid point, they decided to latch on to a “single mothers are the devil” stance and repeatedly put words in her mouth. Then they kept trying to double talk her into getting dumbfounded, but since she does research, so she kept backing up her points with... uh... facts and er, logic. When they got tired of yelling over each other to prove her wrong, Barbara Walters changed the subject.


Don't believe me? Watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGbWSfIL1d4

I am a product of a single-guardian home, and let me tell you that it pales in comparison to having a mother and father present. You need both. "Takes a village"? At least. 

So, yeah. Ann Coulter may be a fug hag, but she at least knows what she is talking about. Think about it, how much of a cockpunch do you have to be to make her look like a decent person?

Friday, December 19, 2008

BURN, BITCH!! BURN

http://www.cfnews13.com/News/Sidebar/2008/7/17/caylee_marie_anthony_disappearance_timeline.html


You will burn for this, you fucking piece of shit.

-Jack Viktor Storm Constantine Freeman

12252008

I have to say that kids these days make me sic k to my stomach. I understand that the problem is coming from their worthless parents, but I have to hear about the kids. There are a million directions to take, this, but since I have been on a bit of an anti-holiday tear as of late, I guess that I will bring up that children complaining about not getting presents for Christmas, while their parents can hardly pay the bills makes me think about birth control. A lot.
There are two ways to look at this; first of all, you have too many kids if you cannot support them without living hand-to-mouth. That’s just the facts. Second, well, you can’t put the kid back, but you wouldn’t have to hear them whine about being the only kid on the block without a Wii, PS3 and XBOX 360 stacked on top of each other and a brand new copy of Call of Duty for each console, if you never got the wild hair to make the ungrateful stain in the first place. I have found that if your kids have that attitude past the age of innocence, then they stay that way as adults. Please, there are enough 20-somethings in Scottsdale, Arizona like that as it is already. More on that later.
I was raised poor. Not the poor that I was able to still hold my head high, and yet thankfully not Appalachian poor, either. No, I was somewhere in the middle. Like there was a lot of eating long-spoiled food, and ill-fitting clothes, bathing in well water (all time favorite, folks), and there were more mornings with no lights than I would care to recall. Out of practice, I don’t celebrate holidays because on my birthdays I was lucky if I got well-wishing- scratch that, I never received as much as a “happy birthday”, so I learned that Christmas was going to just be another day shivering in the garage that I was told was my bedroom (as a fun fact, there was a bedroom that was fully insulated and heated which I was never actually told why I was unable to use).
What is interesting to even me, is that I’m not bitter. On the same side of that Susan B. Anthony, don’t try to curry some sympathy from me because you can’t afford to get your kids everything on their list. Feed them and keep them warm, don’t let them grow up to be me. If they complain, kick the shit out of them. Trust me, it works.

-jack

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Grown-ass Man

I am not your homeboy, your g-dogg, funky fresh beatmaster, or whatever you gleaned from your hours of MTV or (may God Herself Forbid), BET and deemed appropriate to use to address another adult. Just in case you hadn’t been told otherwise, please allow me to make it known that I am not on Earth to entertain you- I don’t care what Lil’ Wayne says. I am not impressed by the terrible excuse for a Jamaican accent that you predictably don to try to get into my good graces when I tell you where my family is from. It would be laughable, if you weren’t so damned ignorant. On that note, I am not growing dreadlocks because you think that “it would look cool”. You obviously have no clue what they represent, and no, I do not think that it is okay that you grew them. My culture is not to be used as your fad, and your culture being devoid of soul, irrevocably unoriginal, and fundamentally vapid is not our fault. Come up with something on your own. I will not freestyle at your parties. My culture, my people are not here for you.

My last name is Freeman, not motherfucking Bojangles.

News Flash: Black people have been in America since the early 1600’s. Guess what? We have been speaking English for almost the entire time. In 2008, I have found that my speech surpasses yours, but don’t you fucking dare assume that I will lower myself and speak as if I was some caricature that you wish to emulate on television as if I didn’t have any class. I understand that you were raised by your television, and that reading books is gay, but unlike the bullshit that you are trying to blackface yourself into, I promise that we are capable of far more than “damn, shit, and that is wack”. This I promise to you. I have seen myself do it millions of times.

What kills me is that I have to endure this in professional situations as well. I have since completely abandoned the club scene, because the American lust for conspicuous consumption and “shine” sickens and bores me, but more on that later. I work in admissions for a university. I expect to be around people whom even if they are lacking, could pretend that they are of some modicum of breeding. An iota, please. I dress professionally, I wear little, if any jewelry, and I speak with impeccable diction and grammar. So why, goddamnit pray tell, do you believe that it is even remotely acceptable to address me as if I was your drug dealer? Never mind the fact that white kids are asking me if I am carrying drugs to sell everywhere I go, I can’t even get the respect that I have earned in my own office!

I bet that I know how I am beginning to seem to some of you, and I am sure that I am coming off as the stereotypical “angry black man” (one can only hope for so much), but you would be too. If not worse, that is. Allow me to explain; consider for a moment, that during your formative years, any depiction found anywhere of the people whom you most resemble are pimps, street hustlers, addicts, cowards, idiots, thugs, gang members, or worse. Now with that negative stereotype galvanizing the perspective of said people, how will you feel when one day, you find an intelligent, respectable, driven, worldly youth of the same culture? I mean this person would have the skills that it would take to make a successful life for themselves as an adult, right?

Geeeyaaaaaaadayum.

Please tell me that you are fucking kidding me.

Growing up, because I used an authority of speech, and read books, I was called an Uncle Tom, and worse. I had to deal with being ostracized by the only people in my community that looked like me because I refused to idolize gangsta rappers and act out with thuggish behavior. I guess my common sense gland was a tad overdeveloped at such a tender age. Getting shot or shot at? No thank you. Living off of the state with no income? Hell no! Eschewing knowledge and success for a family that I could not support and a life of self-hatred and drudgery? Are you insane? Losing my freedom, and going to jail; effectively ruining my chances to live a long, happy, and productive life, not to mention forfeiting my right to vote? Pass.

Don’t you dare try to relate to me with your childish attempts to mock me.


-jack

Monday, December 15, 2008

"This is a farewell... you dog!!"



Damn, all that coke must have given my nigga some superhuman fucking reflexes.



-jack