Late ‘70s, white boy in the Mexican hood of Highland Park, California, northeast L.A., in a part of the city we called “Taco Caliente,” and the spinning took me time traveling. I mean really out there in the 8th dimension, leaning back against the hood of the ‘57 Chevy. I stood up, suddenly, and threw up a fountain of Hamm’s beer into the brown weeds of summer and felt a little better.
Mr. Cisco laughed. “Hey, check out Alcoholman …”
Jim handed me another beer. My body shook and shuddered, but I put the can to my lips and drank. If you didn’t have the god-given physique or the brainpower of Doc Savage or Batman … there were other ways of being the hero; stupid, ugly ways, the way of the monster, innocent, dumb, blind, and stumbling.
“Surrender” by Cheap Trick played out of the car radio. I sang along to the lyrics. “Mommy’s all right, Daddy’s all right, they just seem a little weird …”
I started laughing. I laughed until I spit up more beer, then threw up more beer …
Reelin’ & rockin’, I thought, and laughed harder. I pulled the tab on another Hamm’s and drank that cold boy down into my teenaged monster gut. I crumbled the aluminum and cut a pentagram into my left palm. Dropping the bloody can, I could sense my prey nearby, so very close. I could smell them, the gut-rot dumb-fuck energy of them. I raised my hands, claw-like, and made menacing gestures at my friends.
“Mis amigos!”
The sickening drool of unswallowed beer dripped down my chin. I gritted my teeth, smiling, snarling, and growling like a werewolf drunk mad on moonbeams.
“Surrender!” I screamed. “Fuckin’ surrender or I’ll kill you all!” |
