A Natural Casstastrophe: February 2008

Two weeks. Two weeks i sat in my apartment, and in adam's, boring myself to tears. You can only play so many games of call of duty 4, you can only masturbate to the memoryof past flings, you can only eat so much shitty delivered pizza, you can only smoke so much shern until you go a touch insane. It was tuesday. I needed to escape, fill my lungs with cloudy air, talk to someone other than adam, eat a cheeseburger. I walked into his apartment and plopped on the couch. He was sitting at his computer, of course, typing and laughing, playing video games and watching porn all at once.
“i need to borrow your car.”
he spun and looked at me as if i had just told him i had been secretly stuffing his meatball subs with crab-ridden pubes for weeks.
“uh, no fucking way, compadre. In case you don't remember, the last car you had is now a 4 by 4 cube of scrap. Anyway, your GREAT friend ben still hasn't called to tell you why your ex boss wants your balls for breakfast. No way, no how.”
i sighed. The buzzer rang.
Adam sprung from his broken chair, it was the quickest i had ever seen him move.
“oh my god, it's here. Stay right there, you are definitely going to want to see this.”
he sprinted from the apartment, and several moments later re-entered followed by a sweaty, aggrivated looking ups guy pushing a large wooden crate on a hand cart. From what i could tell, the box was plastered with shipping labels printed in some kind of eastern european dialect. What could it be?
A mail order bride?
A small thermal nuclear warhead?
A kodiak grizzly cub?
I lit a cigarette.
“thank you, kind sir, here's a little something for you.”
adam stuffed a small ziploc bag of high grade hydroponic into the worn chest pocket of his brown button down uniform shirt. The delivery guy looked at adam, then, at me, and then raised his clipboard.
“thanks, i guess if i smoked marijuanna i would be excited, but...”
adam snatched the digital clipboard from the guy's hands and signed for his package, adding, “enjoy it.”
the delivery guy rolled his eyes and adam slammed the door behind him.
I opened a warm beer sitting on adam's weed clogged coffee table and watched him go about the process of opening the crate. First he pried at it with his bare hands, cursing, sweat pouring down his round, reddening face. Next, he pried at the nails holding the lid in place with a hammer, but a majority of the nails were rusty and their heads simply broke off when any pressure was applied. Adam threw the hammer on the floor and stared at the crate.
“any ideas? Huh? Care to lend a hand, motherfucker?”
he looked at me and i shrugged, took a pop from the warm pabsts, leaned forward and put my cigarette out in the carpet. Adam rushed from the room. I could hear him rifling through his closet, and after several minutes of cursing and tell-tale noises of things breaking, he slowly walked back into the room. He had found his axe.
He stood for a moment over the crate, and after measuring out his chop the way a golfer does his putt for birdie, he swung. The dull blade of the axe bounced off the crate, and out of adam's hands, sailed across the room and planted itself directly through one of his lcd monitors. I laughed. Adam was not pleased.
He took a step back, then another, and with a running start planted his foot right through the side of the crate. The wood splintered as he took his foot out of the crate and he kicked again. I could not stop laughing. After six kicks or so, adam had created a large enough hole to put his hands through and he ripped at the wood until he could reach inside the crate. Hay poured from the hole as he frantically dug in the crate, finally finding what he had been looking for. His large frame shielded my view as he backed away from the crate oohing and aahing. He turned to face me.
'what the fuck is that?”
Adam stood triumphantly.
“this, my friend, is a silenced ak-47. A true kalishnikov. A legend.”
he turned to face the wall length mirror on his closet door.
“this gun is pure sex. Sure, it's inaccurate as shit, but it will put a hole in you the size of a doorknocker. I figured we could use some protection around here. Ever since that ridiculous pit bull you bought ran off, i have been looking for one of these. So, what do you think?”
as he turned to face me, i was already out the door with his car keys. In heard two quick thwaps rip through a wall on the second floor and screaming laughter.

I pulled into the parking lot and shut off the lights. I pulled my hood over my head and made my way towards the automatic whirring front doors of hospice.
I volunteered to man the front desk graveyard shift at our local hospice facility three years ago. Adam didn't know i did it. To be honest, sometimes i really didn't know why i did it either. Hospice workers fascinated me.
They were like caretakers of an open air rose garden in the middle of the desert. They knew their plants were going to die, but they just went right ahead watering them, feeding them, comforting them with soothing voices and well wishes. Always knowing the inevitable, but always hoping for rain.
I signed in and called the shift supervisor, annie, to let her know i was there.
I was the last line of defense in case one of the patients made a run for it. Judging by the condition of most of those people, though, i was in no danger of even having to get out of my chair.
I opened an ancient us weekly, put my feet on the desk, and leaned back in my chair.
An hour or two went by.
The doors whirred open and a tall, lean, sharply dressed man strode confidently to the front of the reception desk. I put my feet down and took out my clipboard.
“good evening sir, can i have you sign in and put on this badge?”
the man smiled and looked at me.
“i won't be needing a badge, chuck. How are you?”
my head cocked.
“do i know you?”
the man laughed and put his gloved hands into the pockets of his fur rimmed overcoat.
“my, how the memory wains, eh? So, let's go then.”
my heart started to pound.
“pardon me?” i slowly reached for the phone, and just as my hand took the receiver from the base, the man took a small revolver from his pocket.
“i would not even try that if i were you. Gather your things, we are going for a ride. Where? Well, i suppose that will be the first of many surprises you shall encounter tonight.”
i hung my head, stood, and pulled on my jacket, walking around the desk.
“you know this place is under video surveillance, right? People will know you are basically kidnapping me, right?”
he put the gun to the small of my back and walked me through the automatic doors, leaning down to whisper in my ear, “yes, chuck, i am not an imbecile. But then again, who will come to find you? Your fat degenerate landlord? Your family? I am not frightened with being caught. It is you, my friend, who should quickly acquaint yourself with the fear of being caught.”
we walked through the parking lot to an idling tinted grand marquis. As he opened the back door for me to get in, the man slammed me in the back of the head with the revolver. I was out cold, but i'm relatively sure i pissed myself. Once again, darkness. Concosions were becoming commonplace for me.

you know, i have been working on a project for school where we were to design a mailer for an upscale retailer, a company who we had to choose from a short list provided to us by our teacher, who looks surpirisingly like Mrs. deagle from Gremlins.

just not as pretty. or nice. i dislike her. we argue constantly.
every design i brought to her, from gorgeous ornate sketches of furniture to wild, crazy colors, being as the line at west elm right now is called "wild safari", she basically chewed them up, swallowed them, pulled her orthopedic hosiery down, open my bookbag, and shat them into it.
listen i knew to be a graphic designer i was going to have to curb my usual visual style a touch, but if one more teacher says to me, "michael, you have a very distinct visual style, personally, i love your work. but in this field it is about following the trends and just doing a job, not rewriting the whole design book."
i say, why not?
hey, i am an artist, for christ sake.
as pretentious as that sounds, it is fucking true, after all.
so, i will plug away, graduate, get a good job, and sit quietly and wait.
and then, when given the opportunity, i am going to do something crazy different.
and guess what, people will love it.
take that, mrs. deagle, and leave my fucking dog alone.