So, Detective Droid calls me to give me the dirty word on Coffee Bean.
Wait, back up. Perhaps a little explanation is in order…Coffee Bean, some of you may recall, was my landlord and confidant, back in the bad old days of 2007. He had panicked when he found out that I wasn’t renting a room to produce drugs, run hookers, or shoot porn. I was there to do some writing, and he knew that was trouble. And trouble it was; Maria and I got him arrested at least twice, during stress breaks from writing, puking over the balcony on tweakers, etc.
The Droid? His name is Brian, and he is an unstoppable brute of a guy, despite looking like an even more deflated version of Tom Waits (Sounds like him, too). Nothing bothers him, nothing gets him excited, he doesn’t scare much…But even he was bothered by Coffee Bean’s passing.
I had introduced the two at a party in June of 2007, and they’d hit it off pretty well. They were both incredibly cynical bastards who assumed that everyone is guilty of something, and they both had a thing for scotch. As far as I know, they were Friday night drinking buddies after that, at least when Coffee Bean wasn’t in jail for nailing his tenants’ doors shut and other landlord-related violations.
So, anyway, the Droid calls me and lets me know that Coffee Bean got himself dead, Sidewalk Jesus-style. For those of you who are not up on police slang, that means he was found on his back on the sidewalk, with a bullet through each hand, and a massive head wound. The bullets through the hands are defensive wounds, usually caused by the victim holding up his hands while trying to talk the other guy out of shooting, or because he threw his hands up in a natural defensive posture. One bullet blew his fingers off his left hand, and the other went through the palm of his right hand and hit him in the face…So he falls backward, arms outstretched. No suspects. Sidewalk Jesus. Ho ho.
I hate this fucking city. It eats all my friends…I’m beginning to feel a little bit like the last clay duck on the target conveyor, you know (for you younger types, shooting clay ducks off of a moving conveyor was an old carnival game, back in the year dot). It’s a thousand miles from nowhere, and it’s a million miles from you. It’s a monster, it’s a Goddamn meat grinder, and it devours anyone who comes near it, sooner or later.
The worst part about it is how bland it seems on the surface. Just a sleepy little desert city, nothing like Vegas or Los Angeles, with their in-your-face violence and menace. No, The City is quiet, but you wind up just as dead…But until then, you can hang out and drink in shitty bars with doomed perverts, pouring a little out for the most recent poor bastard that got mangled, shot, stabbed, strangled, run over by a bus, whatever.
I love The City, and it loves me. Which is why I’m still here, writing this to you. You should come visit sometime…We’ll show you more fun than you really wanted. You’ll laugh and laugh until your face peels off and then you’ll STILL be smiling, just like all skulls smile, everywhere. It’s more fun than Disney World, and more entertaining than North Vegas or even Gary, Indiana. It’s home. It’s my town. I can’t ever leave, and I wouldn’t if I could.
Where else would someone like me fit in?
Okay for now,
Dok
