obscurity
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- kingjulien
At 18 I was young and crazy and desperately in need of a break from the crowd I ran with. So I enrolled at a junior college in Santa Rosa and left my old world behind. One day, as I was wandering the top floor of the library, I ran into my best friend from middle school. It was random. He was just sitting at a cubicle, rolling a doob on his bible. He just looked up and smiled. It had been 2 years since we last spoke. This guy had left town in the middle of the night, chased by two bookies and his old coke dealer, and found his way to the mountains outside Santa Rosa. He lived in obscurity, like Henry Hill at the end of Goodfellas. At first I was nervous, considering the people he was in debt too, but within 5 minutes everything was like it used to be. We reminisced. We laughed. We talked about how it was time to grow up. Looking back, we seemed so young.
The guy had become born again, which was hilarious, because he still blazed and caroused and placed a couple of parlays every Sunday morning, right before church. What was really great, though, was his new posse. There was this kid Brandon who we called Creepin on a Swindle, because he was this funny white thug from a small town called Healdsburg, and every day he wore a blue visor sideways that said H-town in old english. One time, in a daze of chronic and E-40, he announced he needed some money and "was fixin to creep on a swindle", which was his way of saying he planned to rob somebody.
There was also this 50 year old hippie named Burton, who lived on a commune in the hills of Bodega. He stayed in a log cabin. He had no indoor plumbing or electricty. There were sheep that walked across his front porch. Burton was the real deal. His current job, outside of attending Free Tibet rallies and sitting in on philosophy classes at the JC, involved putting on yellow Beastie Boys jumpsuits and running through fields of plants. Afterwards, his suit was scraped for kief and what turned into huge balls of hash.
I remember the night Burton fell off his roof during a rainstorm. I had to take him to the ER, and then watch his two kids while he was in the hospital. I remember attending his daughter's soccer game and seeing Tom Waits pull up in his gold Cady, before I even knew who he was, and all he did was nod and crank up some old blues and lean back, ghetto style. And I remember the night Creepin on a Swindle showed up with two tweakers and tried to steal our VCR when I was in the bathroom. I had to spritz the room with mace while my roomate grabbed his Indonesian dart gun from upstairs. I remember the look of betrayal and sadness in Brandon's eyes, that look that said yeah we were cool but I'm jonesing and I need $20 and I don't give a fuck how I get it.
It's funny the decisions we make when we're 18. I for one thought I had all the answers--plain and simple-- and now I realize, as people refer to me as Mr. and Sir and Professor, I didn't know shit.
- Rand0
me, either
- mrdobolina0
another winner dude.
- fawn0
i wish kingjulien would put out a book of stories
- jevad0
brilliant
- shellie0
great story.
- kingjulien0
Thanks.
Have a great weekend...
- mogwai0
thanks, needed some friday aft. reading.
- rasko40
kingjulien makes me want to buy red wine and softtop double strength cigarettes, then break another keyboard as I dribble senslessly, all the time thinking I have something inside of me to contribute.
- Mimio0
Julien,
Any chance you used to write for Big Brother mag?
- mogwai0
I'm a big fan of Chuck Palahniuk's stuff as of late, and Julien's stuff surely nods to that!
- brandelec0
cheers to the King
- tny0
sho nuff
- grayhood0
thanks.
- peteski0
I stole $20 off of Mark E. Smith.
- mogwai0
http://www.robsimons.com/journal…
more of his writing here!
- kingjulien0
I appreciate the link Mogwai, that was cool of you.
BTW: I'm working on some new stories, and hope to have them published soon, maybe even earn a few dollars this time. Living on government cheese and grape crush gets old after awhile.
- swollenelbow0
dude, you should go to a poetry jam session, you'd take all the winnings.
sheesh.