Dirty. Deep. South.

I shouldn’t be telling this story. But life is too short not to share all of the seriously dark and horrible shit that happens to me. So here goes nothing.

I’m working in a small town in Alabama; shooting a trashy reality show about killing innocent animals. Crocodiles are not innocent dude.

I’ve been here for a week and haven’t left my crappy hotel other than to go to work; which is about thirty minutes away in some swampland. I hate swamps but love mosquitoes. It’s weird I know but there is something about watching a little creature fill its belly with my blood that kind of turns me on. Killing it right afterward is also exciting. You are crazier than the voices in your head. Fuck off schizophrenia.

I have the day off so I head to the local bar to get shit faced. The place is nothing more than a small shack on the side of the road. It has a sign that used to be neon but probably hasn’t worked in years. There are those machines outside that electrocute bugs. I stand for a minute, smoking a cigarette and listening to the sound of other creatures being executed. I wonder if any of them are my ancestors reincarnate. Finish the smoke. It’s time for whiskey.

Inside now. Dead animals on the wall. No beer on tap. Just whiskey. My kind of place. There are five drunken degenerates sitting at the bar. I count eight teeth between the five of them. Hello deep south. I order a double whiskey neat and start pounding away. Alcoholics are pussies and I am their king.

Two hours later.

I stumble out of that shit bar and focus all of my energy on the mile walk back to my crap hotel.

I make it two blocks.

Stepping out from behind a tree is a skinny toothless hick. I kid you not. He is wearing a wife beater covered in sweat stains and clenched in his dirty paw is a clear plastic jug of what I can only assume is moonshine. Give me some of that bitch.

I nod my head and smile at him with my full set of teeth. In my mind this is the funniest thing I have done in a while. My smile disappears quickly as he pulls a black handgun from his dirty pants and orders me to stop in my tracks.

He literally says, “stop in your tracks.” Giggle.

I’m getting mugged in the middle of nowhere in Alabama. Fuck sticks. If you have read any of my previous stories you know that I don’t react like normal people to being mugged. Anyone who smokes cigarettes has a death wish and if they claim they don’t then they are liars. I fall into this category. I spend at least three hours a day fantasizing about getting shot or stabbed or seriously injured in a plane crash. The idea of death doesn’t scare me. If I die I will be reborn as a hot chick with big tits or a blood-sucking mosquito. Either way its pretty much a win win for me.

Dude you have a gun in your face. Concentrate.

“Nice gun. Is that a Glock 17? Do you have the eight round clip or the extended Mag?” I had recently worked on a reality gun show so I know a little bit about guns.

His face goes from a nasty toothless snarl to a look of confusion. I take it he hasn’t mugged someone who has no fear of death and is all hopped up on Jim Beam. Or a fucking sociopath.

“Naw I just have eight rounds. Give me your wallet and I won’t put three of them in your fucking head.” I try to place his accent, it honestly doesn’t sound like he is from here. Maybe Florida? He drops the bottle of moonshine so that he can scratch his arm and chest. Meth addict.

Under no circumstances am I giving this piece of shit my wallet because someone whom I love dearly gave it to me. Someone who is no longer on this earth. Except in spirit. Or as a bug.

I decide to take a risk. Give him the wallet. I don’t want to die.

Don’t be such a pussy Ronald Reagan. Kick him in the balls and run.

My head is a battlefield of conflicting personalities.

“You look like you need a hit. Listen man. I need one two. You know someone we can score from? Lets go meet him and I will give you half of whatever I buy from him.”

I start itching my face and body, mimicking his movements. I keep my one good eye on his trigger finger. The other eye is too drunk to actually see straight. I am still pretty wasted at this point regardless of the adrenaline that is screaming through my veins.

He pauses.

“You do ice?”

“Yeah man and I’m starving for a bump. Come on man put the gun down and lets go get fucking twisted.” I don’t know if kids still use the term twisted but whatever. They don’t.

“You’re not from around here, what’s to stop me from killing you and taking your money?” actually a decent line of reasoning coming from a cracked out meth head.

Bypass. Bypass.

Remember fear is the mind killer. I still my beating heart. This is the first time I actually realize that I am this close to being shot by a man wearing a wife beater. Jesus loves drama.

“You are right I’m not from here. I just got off a ten-hour bus ride from Florida and I need a hit. As far as why you shouldn’t put three in my head? Why kill a random dude on the street and steal his money? And risk spending the rest of your life getting ass raped in prison. All you have to do is take me to your dealer and I will get you higher than you have ever been for free. Sounds like pretty good deal to me.”

I wonder if this fucking retard is smart enough to follow my logic. I watch him as he thinks about it. He scratches his face. I scratch my arm. Acting saved my life.

He lowers the Glock and smiles with his single tooth. I smile back with my full set. Again. So. Fucking. Funny.

“All right partner, I trust anyone from Florida. I’m from around em parts myself. You got your self a deal. I got a spot about a half mile down the road.” He extends is hand.

“My name is Billy John.” I stare at his outstretched paw of a hand. Wishing I had a bottle of sanitizer in my pocket.

“I’m Bapu.” I say as I shake his filthy hands.

“What?”

“Baaaah-poooooo” I say a little a slower and louder.

“Nice to meet you Bob. Follow me.” He turns and scampers off into the woods. It’s Bapu not Bob. Asshole.

So now I am stumbling through a fucking forest in the dark with a meth addict who has a handgun. How do I get in these situations? Fuck you alcohol. I run directly into a tree and fall. Cursing. He laughs.

“Watch your step. There is poison oak everywhere in these bushes.” Great.

After what seems like an eternity of crashing through possibly poisonous bushes we arrive at a nice looking brick house. There is a single yellow porch light and the remains of a Christmas deer ornament on the front lawn. For a meth house it actually looks pretty good. He bangs on the door. The smell of burning hair and deer piss wafts through the air. I drunkenly lean against the cold brick of the house. Maybe you have a brain tumor. Probably.

A small fat man wearing camouflage boxers and a dirty brown shirt that has an advertisement for some bait and tackle store on the front opens the door. He has all his teeth but is sweating like he just got out of the sauna.

“What the fuck you want?” the fat man belches as he rubs his balls. At this point the adrenaline has worn off and the whiskey has taken its hold on my brain. Everything is spinning and my body is having trouble standing up straight. I vaguely remember some conversation about buying drugs. I am supposed to pay for it. You spent all your money at the bar you big dummy.

The fat man invites us in.

I black out.

“He has the money. Check his pockets.” I feel someone rummaging through my pants as I slowly regain conscience. Where the fuck am I? I smell stripper. Open my left eye and catch sight of a pink bra. I reach out and snap the elastic band. Bad idea.

“What the hell, asshole!” the stripper screeches and jumps back. I chuckle. Sorry that was my fault. Jeeze JFK.

My eyes focus and take in the scene before me. Bears with no claws get killed. Toothless dude stands in the corner. Scratching his arm with his glock. The chubby meth dealer stands above me. A silver snub nose pistol hangs loosely in his hands. He cocks his head and eye fucks me.

“Who the fuck are you? Your too skinny to be a cop.” Gulp.

“I’m Bapu.”

“Who?”

“Bapu.” Dude its not that hard.

“And what the fuck are doing at two in the morning in my house with this asshole.” He waves at good old toothless. I’m too drunk for this shit. I decide to treat this dude like I would treat a police officer.

“Yes sir. I apologize for waking you and your lady up. This gentleman tried to rob me outside of that whiskey bar down the road. He wanted my wallet and I wasn’t going to give it to him. So I pretended to be a drug addict and convinced him that I would pay for all the drugs he could put up his nose as long as I got some too.” Truth. Sigh. Risky business.

“And here we are.”

“But you don’t have any money?”

“No sir. Spent it all on Whiskey.” Classy men carry pocket watches.

“What was your plan when you got here?” he crossed his arms and spread his legs. Becoming the cop.

“I didn’t really think about that. I just wanted to get Toothless Jones over here to stop shoving his pistol in my face.” Mister drug dealer laughed at my insult, Toothless Jones cocked his glock. That gun has no safety.

“Who you calling toothless you bastard!” I can’t help but laugh in his face. He goes bright red and starts waving his gun around in some sort of frantic meth addicted rage.

“Put that gun away, I don’t want anyone getting shot in my house tonight. It makes too much of a goddamn mess and I ain’t cleaning at two in the morning. Take him out back.”

The stripper pipes up from her perch on a dirty bar stool across the room. My eyes focus on her for the first time since JFK snapped her bra. She had slender legs, a pretty face and dirty hair. Not dirty blonde. But just thin and filthy looking. Our eyes met and I caught the deep sadness behind her fake smile and crooked teeth. Poor little snake. Must have had a tough life to hold that much sadness in her fangs. For a moment I feel bad for her. She just told them to take you outside and shoot you. Oh. Yeah. Right. Fuck her.

I decide its time for me to make my daring escape. I roll my tongue back in my mouth until I start to gag. Coughing and acting like I am about to vomit all over their dirty floor.

“Get him to the bathroom! Before the bastard pukes on my couch!” the stripper screams. I get to my feet and stumble to the bathroom. Suddenly I really do need to vomit. Blah.

The whiskey burns my throat in an all to familiar way as it splashes like a river into the toilet. My eyes are blurred and bursting with tears. I somehow manage to lock the door. Click. Wipe the mouth now. Time to man up. I turn on the sink and let the water run. Examine the window. It’s big enough for me to squeeze through. Take a deep breath. Wrap my fist in a towel and slam it against the window. It shatters with ease. I hear someone screaming. Hurry.

I scramble through the small hole, cutting my ribs on the broken glass. The blood feels warm and good on my belly. I fall to the ground with a horrible crash. Get up you pussy. Run. Run.

I head into the night. Crashing through the forest like a bear with the taste for blood. More screaming behind me. Gunshots. Something whizzes by my ear. Fucking hicks.

Run Bapu run.

Soon the gunshots stop and there is nothing but me and the darkness and the forest. I’m lost. Alone. Drunk. This should be a walk in the park.

Four hours later I find my hotel.

Ten hours later I wake up.

My sheets are covered in dried blood. My head is pounding and my knuckles are bruised. I stand up and with shaky legs take stock of my room. Looks like killed I someone. There is mud and blood everywhere. I take a shower and rub one out. My stomach bleeds pink mist into the water. I should get stitches but super glue will work just as well. I think about the stripper with the sad eyes. Maybe one day she will stop being such a sad snake.

Maybe not.