Amateur Fight Club

It was about a year after my arrest, meaning that I had been on pretrial for a year. Weekly drugs tests, and weekly calls to report in. At least I wasn't on house arrest, even though I couldn't leave New York City.

An old friend of mine Sean from high school (boarding school upstate NY) invited Lisa and me over to his place, on the Upper West Side. Actually, it was his parents place. It was a beautiful apartment, not nouveau-riche but au contraire, it emanated that old wealth that you can only be born into.

Sean had a particular family. His (hot) older sister had moved out with her fiance, his mother was very fond of French culture (particularly their vineyards), and his father was a retired judge who was clinically diagnosed with depression.

Anyhow, I was a regular at Sean's house when I first moved back to NYC. He had a fair amount of privacy in his room so we were able to smoke to our lung's content. This night, I went there with Lisa with a bottle of Bacardi and Alize.

The three of us split the Alize, and Sean and I finished the rum. Three to four hours later, I got up for the first time to take a piss. That's when it hit me. I was pretty fucking drunk. I stumbled my way to the bathroom, still trying to not wake up Sean's parents despite my drunken state.

I finally made it to the bathroom, which was unusually long, and of course, the toilet was on the other side. For some inexplicable reason however, at the sight of the sink, I had a sudden uncontrollable urge to vomit.

And out it came. A lot of it. I don't remember what I ate that night, but from how it clogged the sink and filled it two-thirds of the way, I'm assuming I had a hearty dinner.

I tried (kind of) to unclog the sink, but I couldn't think of any way besides sticking my hand in there, so hoping Sean or Lisa would have a better idea, I left it for now. I borrowed some Listerine, then almost forgetting why I was there in the first place, I answered nature's call.

Back in the room, I heard both of them laughing.

"Yo yo yo, Alex, you gotta take a look at this," Sean said in between spurts of laughter.

"Sean, I gotta tell you something, I..."

"Yo, come check this out bro, this shit is mad funny."

"Yo Sean, you don't understand, I puked in your sink. It's clogged."

"What? Ah man don't worry man, come check this out man!"

"Nah but Sean, wait, your mom... you don't understand, you sink is completely clogged!"

"Nah nah don't worry man, come take a look man."

He never stopped laughing the whole time. Sean's bedroom walls have some posters but mainly a lot of graffiti. He used to be part of a graffiti crew back in the days. Earlier that day he had bought these new paint markers, and apparently he didn't realize drunk graffiti wasn't the most aesthetic form of art.

And to prove that point, he had tagged his name on his wall, but it was more akin to a kindergardener's scribble.

"Look at that shit!" he said emphatically, "I've never, ever, EVER tagged anything THAT fucking ugly!"

His tone of voice, body language, everything, cracked me the fuck up. You had to have been there. Obviously we all know the alcohol was the main catalyst in all that but that should be left subtly implied. I sat back down next to my girl and kept on laughing.

I was laughing so hard my sides were hurting, eyes watering, clutching my stomach and, hysterical. After awhile though, it  seemed to cause a problem.

"Yo," Sean said. "Keep it down. Keep it down man my parents are gonna hear us."

But I've already hit the point of no return. You know those rare laughs that you wished you could have more often? The laughs that let you release that inner child with wild abandon. And the more he told us to shut up, the harder we laughed.

"Yo seriously man, keep it quiet man, shut up!"

And he punched me in the face. My head whipped from side to side, eyes wide with confusion. When I slowly realized what had actually happened, I burst out laughing even more because I couldn't believe that such a good friend had just punched me.

The previous scenario repeated, and Sean actually punched me again.

"Ow, damn son, chill that time that shit actually hurt."

Laughing apologetically, he said sorry and said I could hit him back.

Drunk as hell, I barely formed a fist and I ended up only half punching him.

"Nah nah that shit don't count," I said.

He agreed to let me hit him again. This time, I nailed right on the side of the nose.

"Oww damn that shit fucking smarts!'

We laughed at what just happened, rubbing our faces, wincing every now and then. Lisa and I promoted at Exit at the time, and we impulsively decided to go. Problem was, we were pretty broke (notice a trend from these days?), but promoters didn't have to pay cover until 1:00am, and we had an extra promoter's card for Sean.

Then what's the problem? It was past 12:30am. We had to make it down to Columbus Circle, which was possible but very tight. We decided to try anyway.

On the elevator ride down, I was whispering something to Lisa in her ear, and out of nowhere Sean punched me in the neck. Seriously, what the fuck lol?? I obviously punched him back.

To this day I still wonder what his doorman must have thought seeing us walking out, holding our neck and face respectively, moaning in pain.

Walking to the train station, Sean started randomly punching car windows. He was a violent drunk. A block or so later, I'm guessing it was due to pent up frustration and anger (mainly at myself), out of nowhere, I took a couple steps and kicked at a car's passenger side window.

Next thing I knew, I was knee-deep into the car, window shattered.

"Oh shit..."

I hopped out, and made sure to shake off as much glass from my pants and shoe as possible, I sped walk around the corner. Released on bail, that was by far the dumbest thing I could have done.

Around the corner of 72nd St, a family was walking by, grandparents, parents and kinds (why kids were out that late, ask the parents), but Sean randomly went to a trash can and threw it across their path, garbage and litter spilling all over the place.

Too embarrassed to even look at them, I 've always pictured the look of complete shock on their face.

Without missing a beat, Sean runs up to a Benz, and rips out the Mercedes symbol from the hood, then runs to a phone booth and smashes his hand so hard against it to shatter the glass of the advertisement.

We finally made it into the train. Sitting there and talking, Sean repeatedly taps me on the shoulder while talking, unaware that his hands were covered with blood. About to say something, I realized the futility of it all, especially considering that I already had blood all over my jacket by now.

We arrived at Columbus Circle 59th St., and I guess Sean was ready to have a little fun. Every person he saw on the train platform, he ran up to them spastically and shoved his bloody hands right in front of their faces and screamed:

"AHHH! AHHH! I GOT AIDS!!!"

Then ran off to the next poor unsuspecting victim. I was cracking up, I never seen Sean this drunk and wild.

He grabbed a piece of paper from the floor which turned out to be a post-it note with "PULL MY ADHESIVE" written on it.

Sean ran out of the subway, the post-it note by his crotch, approaching strangers and couples alike, thrusting his hips forward shouting:

"Pull my adhesive!! Pullll my adhesiveeee!!!"

All pedestrians avoided him like he was the brainchild of the plague and swine flu. Lisa and I tried to keep up, and I kept calling his name and he either didn't hear me or ignored me. I think it was the latter.

He climbed up the side of a small Mack truck, tried the door handle, and by some weird twist of coincidence, the door actually opened. Lisa and I looked at each other somewhat confused, and before we could say anything, a Jansport backpack flew out into the sidewalk.

"Sean! SEAN!"

I looked in the truck and he was no longer there, the passenger door was open, and he was already a half block down.

Lisa didn't look too happy.

"Are you mad?"

"Yeah kinda, you guys are acting like fools."

"Yeah I know, sorry bebe."

I knew we were acting like fools. But to be honest, only Sean was now. I somewhat sobered up after kicking in that window.

As we were talking, two guys walked by and I thought I heard one of them say something about Lisa. When I said I had somewhat sobered up, that was a half lie. Still drunk, but just not retarded drunk.

"What the fuck did you say?" I asked.

One of them seemed to be as drunk as I was, meanwhile the other was sober.

"What?" the drunk one spun on me.

"The fuck did you say about my girl?"

"Look, you don't want none of this. I got ten people following a couple blocks behind us, you don't want none of this."

In the meantime, his sober friend was trying to squash everything and keep walking, saying it was a misunderstanding.

"I don't give a fuck about you, or your ten boys, I'll kick all of your asses!" said the Bacardi and Alize.

By this time, Sean doubled back and was wondering what was going on. No sooner had he caught on, we were surrounded by ten people or so.

Ah fuck, not again...

But luckily, the ten other people were in no mood for a fight even if it would have been like winning a court case with Johnny Cochran as your lawyer.

At Exit, we missed the promoter's line. Bummed, we started to leave, and waiting to cross street, the infamous paint markers resurfaced to perform an encore of a child's scribble on the club wall. Two guys soon approached Sean, and thinking that they were thugs trying to start shit with him, I went to see what was going on.

One of them intercepted me and asked:

"He your boy?"

"Yeah he's my boy."

"So you got his back?"

"No shit I got his back."

Thinking shit was going to go down, he put his arm around my shoulder and waved a walkie-talkie in my face.

"You sure you got his back?"

Ah fuck... (for the second time tonight)

But it was too late to back out now.

"Yeah I got his back."

The other security guard was talking to Sean across the street and ended up letting him go. Walking away, Sean was furious.

"Those fucking fake ass thugs think they can fuck with me, I'll motherfucking slit their throats, who the fuck they think they are stepping up to me like that I..."

"What the fuck nigga, they were cops, security for the club. They're doing their jobs.."

"Nahh fuck that man, they were just some thugs stepping to me man, they..."

"They waved a goddamn walkie in my face, what the fuck are you talking about? Yo, every time you're mad drunk you do some dumb shit, I can't even fuck with you like this anymore."

We started arguing with one another, shoving each other but things calmed down. He slammed his hand against another public phone booth (old grudge perhaps?) but soon he sobered up.

We went to a nearby McDonalds and he washed up. In the subway station where we were going to part ways, he asked what the fuck happened that night.

I started to tell him the story I just told you, and at first he wouldn't believe that he hit me to begin with. An hour and a half later, finally done (I omitted some smaller unimportant details here), we went home.

Next day around 3:00pm, I got a call.

"Hey man, it's Sean."

"Hey..." still groggy.

"I think you told me last night already but I don't really remember, but can you refresh my memory?"

He had no idea what happened. Moral of the story? There isn't one, I just thought it was funny lol (minus my little slip of the foot)

Why You Shouldn't Air Your Dirty Laundry in Public

It always interested me how humanity rebuilds societies, from the smallest scale to the largest. Post-apocalyptic settings are full of these scenarios, the backbone of novels and games galore. What becomes currency, what economic issues are encountered, what kind of groups emerge from the survivors...

And jail was no different. Pouches of mackerels were a dollar each since they cost $1.05 at commissary (our Walmart). Macks and stamps were the most common form of currency. A billionaire secretly employs a quarter of the unit, a hustler starts his own underground, after-hours K-Mart, a gambling kingpin sends out his henchmen to collect debts.

But you don't have to be a billionaire to be lazy in jail. If you have five macks to spare a week, you can get your cube cleaned and your laundry done and folded. All the inmates that are not fortunate enough to have people on the outside able or willing to send them funds work for their keep.

And because of this side job of theirs, two Jamaicans got the shit beat out of them, one of their eye popping out of the socket. All over laundry.

Six Mexicans took over the laundry room one Sunday, since they were doing a couple dozen loads. The two Jamaicans were on their day off and wanted to wash their own clothes. From what I heard, they waited for quite a while.

Sick of endlessly waiting for their turn, they took out whatever clothes were in the washer and started their own laundry load. Whether they were justified or not in doing so is up for debate, I can understand both sides.

The Mexicans weren't so understanding. They proceeded to crack them in the head with one of those really old, heavy (iron?) mop buckets, kicked off a broom handle, and stabbed the Jamaicans with the splintered end. Supposedly one of the Jamaican's eye popped out of its socket.

All of them were detained, and sent to solitary or the hospital as necessary. FBI got involved and our unit was shut down and isolated for a couple days because they thought it might have been gang related.

We never saw any of those inmates again. They all got their security level raised and were most likely going to a medium-level security prison. And the Jamaicans were most likely hospitalized for a while.

What irks me about this whole story though is, I made it a point to not get involved with all the jail politics and bullshit drama, but it still affected me regardless. One of those Mexicans was the guy I paid to do my shit!

Lol I say that in jest however. Not really that big of a deal. But jumping someone over laundry? Really? What happened to using our words? =P

Eleven Guys and a Lesbian

The house I crashed at back in 2001, Sung's house, almost always had ten to fifteen people there at any given time. This one particular day, most of my friends had to go on some type of run: drug run, food run, money run, etc.

We were left with five people. Jimmy (who had a broken hand in a soft cast, needles, the whole nine), Jen, Angelina (aka Gellie), and Sung. Sung and Gellie were in his room talking, Jen, Jimmy and I were in Sung's mom's room playing Chinese Poker. His mom was away on a business trip in Korea, she was gone for a month.

Wait hold on, I have to backtrack a little. A few days prior, almost the same group was here (replace Gellie with my friend Mary, add Steve my future co-defendant), most of us were high, but still bored. Steve suggests we play strip Chinese Poker, but considering there were two girls and four guys, I was positive they were going to decline.

Mary and Jen looked at each other, whispered something then surprisingly agreed. They lost the first four hands. But as soon as anything revealing was going to come off, they wrapped themselves in thick comforters. It obviously defeated the purpose, especially considering that the shirt/top they were wearing before was more revealing than a freaking comforter!

But whatever. I wasn't going to force them to strip lol. We kept on playing. Doorbell rang, turned out to be this guy Nick, who was friends with Mary's boyfriend. He was able to discern that she was in fact naked underneath the blanket, but he ended up leaving without saying much. I forgot what it was that he wanted to begin with. Probably drugs.

Okay so enough of that flashback. I'm sitting on Sung's mom's bed, playing cards, binging on coke, sleepless for days, foodless for over 20ish hours, when I see a couple guys walk past the mom's room into the guest room.

Thinking they were friends of a friend, I got up to greet them. They came back into the doorway, accompanied by another two guys.

"Hey," one of them said.

"What's good?" I replied.

"We got a question, you know who the two guys are that played strip poker with Mary?"

I turned to look at Jimmy who just stared right back at me. My eyes glanced at his broken hand. I turned back around and saw Sung (who's not a small fella) standing behind the four guys.

Okay, four on three, even though Jimmy's hand is broken, how bad can it be?

"Yeah," I finally answered.

"Oh yeah? Who?"

"Us."

I swear the guy flashed a quick smile. He turned around and shouted towards the kitchen.

"Yo! We found them!"

About a dozen people materialized out of nowhere, surrounding me.

Ah, fuck.

I tried to talk my way out of it.

"Look, this has nothing to do with us. For one, this is between Mary and her boyfriend. For two, there was no harm done, she was wrapped in a blanket the whole time."

"It's a question of principle dude, that shit's fucked up."

I continued trying to convince them, and mid-sentence, one of them said:

"I'm sick of hearing you talk."

And punched me square in the face.

I fell to the bed and bounced right back up. I only felt the first punch, everything else was numbed by all the coke. From the corner of my eye I saw Jimmy attempt to do something but the guy next to him simply slapped his hand and I saw him fold over in pain. I didn't expect him to be able to do anything, I could barely even imagine the excruciating pain he must have been in.

As soon as I got back to my feet, four of them wailed on me. I kept bouncing back from the bed, impervious to the pain, but I didn't stand a chance.

Jimmy finally jumped on me and held my head down.

"Stay down Alex, stay down."

"Fuck that shit."

I struggled against him. If I get my ass handed to me, fine. But no way in hell I'm going to just lay here and take it like a bitch. Or so I thought.

"They pulled out a razor."

I calmed down almost immediately. These fuckers meant to cut me. I don't mind getting beat, but disfigured? Nah chills lol.

So I just laid there, curled up in a ball, pounded over and over. They tried to take my wallet, which I desperately gripped until my knuckles were drained of blood. That earned another dozen punches.

But that wasn't the worst. I felt one of their boots accidentally rest right by my crotch. I could feel the cool outside air wafting off of the suede, I could imagine the hardened boot blasting my balls to Kingdom No-More-Cum, and I prayed.

God, I know that you know that I don't believe in you, but if you're there, please, please don't let him kick.

You would think I'd be a fervent Christian crusader by now. My heart slowed its pulse when I felt the boot withdraw from the danger zone.

"Do you have any pills?"

I was just fronted fifty pills and they were in my left pocket, that I was laying on. But if I lost those pills, I would have been in some shit. I would have had to figure out a way to come up with $500 to pay it back. I had nowhere near $500.

I shook my head no, expecting they would kick my ass some more, unhappy with my answer. But instead one of them said to let me be, and they left.

I almost immediately got up. The puddle of blood on the bed was quite impressive actually. Close to two feet in diameter. I went straight to the bathroom to check my nose. Like I said, the coke numbed all the pain, and I thought they broke my nose.

Washing all the blood off my face, I fidget with my nose, and feel nothing. No, not nothing as in, numbness. I felt no pain, no brokeness, nothing. I didn't even have a black eye. I had a slightly fat lip, a couple bruises on my back, and that's it. Only conclusion? They punch like bitches.

As soon as I'm done, I snapped at Sung.

"How the fuck do you let twelve guys walk into your house like that?"

"My friend just left, I thought it was him coming back because he forgot something so I didn't check before I opened the door."

Sung talked ridiculously fast. To the point you can't understand him. I'll spare you all the "what?" and "huh?" for brevity's sake.

"And what, you can't close the door after you realized it wasn't him?"

"Well, they shoved their foot in the door and said if I didn't let them in, they'd kick the door down."

I just shook my head.

"You're a fucking idiot. Close the fucking door. If they kick that shit down, call the cops. And worse comes to worst, if they do somehow make it in, don't just let them wander around your house freely! Come tell me so I can get ready! They're obviously not here to party with us!"

I was pissed. I couldn't believe someone could be that stupid.

"And on top of that, you didn't do shit!"

"What was I supposed to do? There were so many of them!"

Now his tone became defensive.

I sighed and shook my head.

"Look, I thought we were boys. And what that means to me is, I rather get my ass whooped with you than watch you get your ass handed to you by yourself. Jimmy has a broken hand and he tried to do something. The fuck..."

The conversation ended there. Mary eventually came over, pissed as hell, apologizing, and she eventually broke up w/ the guy. Apparently he claims to have had nothing to do with it, his story goes like this. He was home, and his boys came through saying they were going to go cop some pills. He agreed, hopped in the car, and they went to Sung's house. What they meant by copping pills was, jumping my ass and robbing me.

For the rest of the night, I kept thinking I got jumped by twelve guys, until Jen said, "It was only eleven guys. The other one is a dyke." (no offense to readers, she was bisexual at the time, I'm just transliterating or whatever that word is)

Great, so I got jumped by eleven guys and a lesbian.