MUSIC TRACK LIST:
MARK LANEGAN - When your number isn't up
A SWARM OF THE SUN - Zenith
****
David's POV
I shut the app off and dropped my phone-puter on the couch like it was a hot potato. This shit was way too weird, even for the likes of me. And I'm into some pretty weird shit if you don't mind me saying so -- my current collection of guitar picks belonging to dead dudes being the least esoteric subject up my sleeve. But I digress.
I needed to get some air. Get out of the apartment. Get away from my phone. Disconnect. You ever get that feeling?
I decided to walk to MacArthur Park, which was a ten-minute walk from my place. Figured I'd just put my feet up by the side of the lake in the center and just sit for a bit.
Back where I grew up, surrounded by fields of corn on either side of my house, I used to dream of living on a lake view property: the crisp clean air, the sun broiling on the calming waves, hot chicks in scantily clad clothing. Asking to rub me down with suntan lotion. No more farmers' tan for me.
And then my dream came true when I moved to the "big city" to work and slave up for school. But let me tell you: lakes in the city suck ass, man.
1) It stinks...especially in the summer. It stinks like a hot mess vomited a hot mess and then licked that hot mess clean off the plate only to shat itself out in explosive diarrhea. It stinks so bad I have to shut my windows at night on the hottest day of the year. So much for counting on that lake cool breeze on sultry summer nights in absence of air conditioning.
2) Second of all: fish flies. Fish flies covering everything. Covering your doorways and windows. Getting in your sandwiches. Getting in your eyes and on your tongue. I even got one that flew into my mouth and landed on my uvula. And it got stuck there and tickled my uvula the rest of the night. Try, just try, removing a fish fly from the back of your uvula with big fat sausage fingers like mine (I ended up using my tooth brush – an operation of which I never would like to repeat).
3) Rats. Giant fucking rats. With big buckteeth. And beady little eyes.
Need I say more?
But today, my need to get out of my apartment trumped my need to escape the smell and the fish flies and the rats. So off I went, through the Mexico city wannabe popup shops along sixth street, which was right where I happen to live, past the stalls of knockoff soccer jerseys and fresh fruit stands and cases of knives and pipes and walls of boxing posters and trinkets carved in jade and 10 cents a minute long distance calling cards, down through the soccer game on the grass and past the dogs, and found myself at the water's edge.
I took off my socks and Cons, rolled up my indigo skinny jeans (which took some effort), and grabbed the smoothest stone I could find and then flicked it across the water, watching it skip.
What the hell just happened? I tried to make sense of the events any way I could. My fortune, from a fortune-cookie factory in Los Angeles, had my name printed on it. And then I got a mysterious flyer from Sweden that linked me to a site, which gave me the exact same fortune. Maybe Bob was playing a mind game with me as revenge? But Bob had no idea I was going to steal that bagful of fortune cookies. Or that I would find that last fortune right before the mail came.
Maybe I was going insane. That was a possibility. Wasn't Uncle Rollo supposed to be a full-on whacko? Wait...did I ever confirm Uncle Rollo was ever really my uncle?
And exactly how would my name go down in history? I quickly recounted all the entries of famous people I knew on Wikipedia and decided that usually eternal notoriety of that sort implied something epic: an epic win or an epic fail.
Was this epic win/fail something I might have already done or set in motion? I counted off my list of achievements, which consumed all of three seconds of my life. And even my most embarrassing moments were hardly news worthy. It couldn't have been something I had done in my past...perhaps something I do in my future? It was a fortune after all.
But what could my future have in store for me? And for a few moments I thought about my future and allowed myself some small measure of hope, which I hadn't allowed myself for a long time. Maybe life wasn't just going to keep handing me a shit sandwich forever. Maybe something was bound to go my way eventually. Maybe, the fates had something special in store for me after all. Maybe my next meal would be something more substantial than a fistful of fortune cookies. Dare to dream! I know.
But what if I was reading the future the wrong way? What if my name went down in history for being that guy generations to come would loathe and jeer. Like Hitler. Or Caligula. Or that guy who invented spam email. I shivered and banished the thought.
Instead, I kept skipping stones, one after the other, and just emptied my mind. Of everything. While watching the concentrated rings in the water ring out and ring in together. I would alternate trying to beat my personal record of eleven skips and then trying to get the skips closer and closer together so that the ripples of each concentrated circles would smoosh into each other, which is Zen as Zen if you think about it – or rather, empty yourself from thinking about it.
I continued like that until nightfall, and only broke out from my reverie when I heard my stomach growling. Oh yeah, I had just eaten my last meal and that was hours ago. I staggered around in the park and looked around at the crowds of whoever thought the park was a place to be. I swatted the flies and stared at the water that was there because it was told to be. What else could I do? I needed to eat so I turned and half-stomped my way up the hill and toward seventh and Alvarado.
I must have been pretty hungry. Let's put it this way: I'll spare you the details on how or rather what I ate that night, and let your imagination fill in the blanks.
When I got back to my apartment it was way past dark. Opening the door, I went to turn on the light to my humble abode when I remembered that hydro had been cut last week because I couldn't afford to pay it. I cast a glance askew towards my phone-puter on the couch and a chill ran down my spine. I hadn't thought this get-out-of-the-house-to-escape-the-creepypasta-only-to-return-home-in-the-dead-of-night plan very well.
I stood in the doorway, pondering if I really wanted to go in or sit in the stairwell where at least I'd have some light when suddenly the phone rang.
Now I had to go in and at least see who was calling. My mom was paying for my plan so she could keep tabs on me and would get worried if I didn't answer when I was "supposed" to be studying for finals and not out scrounging for food. It was harder to make up "where I had been" than to lie and pretend I was in the middle of studying for an exam at a school I no longer attended.
I dashed into the dark and picked up the phone. The screen said: Atticus Mayday. Now why in blazes would he be calling me of all people?? I knew I shouldn't answer, I should just let him sit and stew but then curiosity got the better of me.
"Atticus," I answered in as flat and non-committal a voice I could muster.
"David?" I heard Atticus's gravelly voice timidly inquire.
I waited for him to speak but there was only a tense silence on the other end. I wasn't going to give into it. He called me, remember? Let him do all the talking.
"David, don't be like that..." Atticus began but then became consumed with a coughing fit. I waited patiently while the old codger hacked out what sounded like a fur ball before resuming, "What are you doing tomorrow? Let's grab lunch...I'm buying."
My stomach growled loudly at the words and I quickly covered microphone with my palm. I couldn't let him think I was going to let him get off that easy. "What's in it for me?" I demanded.
"Besides lunch?" Atticus laughed with incredulity, "You strike a hard bargain, David. Tell you what, you just show up at noon to Bru's Wiffle and I'll tell you what's in it for you." And just like that Atticus hung up and I was listening to the dial tone.
I looked at the phone and smiled. There is no way Atticus would be buying me lunch just to apologize for everything that happened. The word wasn't to be found in his dictionary. Something big must be going on for him to overcome his pride and call me. He needed me.
I cast my eye around my dark, dingy hovel of an apartment. Perhaps my luck was about to change after all.
//
A/N
Cheers and thanks so much for hitting 550 reads already!! SO EXCITING!!
~C
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