Jehova on the pull up bars.......

page 61..... I hope it keeps your attention. The body is going to take the turn from this point....

     I had started my new program and it was working out perfectly, after which I would head to the Red Room, to enjoy some music and maybe a ball game on one of three large screen televisions.

     I strolled back to my room and took a nap. My roomate was usually cool and really didn’t give me any trouble. Susie was either busy renting apartment or playing mother canine with the dogs.

     I stretched out and slept. Glorious sleep. No longer did I have to worry about the ranting and insane chuckles from the Doc or the forced servitude by the Brit. I was an emancipated soul and in a few hours a free man watching the Lakers game three of the Western Conference playoffs.

     I walked north to Forth street enjoying the warm California evening then into the bar. The door was left open and I peered into the street, watching the outside world pass by. That night the owners provided hot dogs for the customers: I partook, bought a Pabst Blue Ribbon and nursed it during the first two quarters. The bar was semi crowed, with occupied by mid twenty something, Lakers fans bowing their had in shame, but every once in a while jumped up and down on a rare good moment.

    The demographics of the bar began to shift slowly. The crowd grew darker and rougher. They ordered pictures of cold beers and heartlessly booed their own purple and gold gods. A year before I was in Sherman Oaks, watching as the Fair weather fans cheered their team but only when the game was a lock with thirty seconds in the fourth quarter. A feeble lot of basketball fans in my opinion.

     One Red Room patron in particular was extremely wild. He already seemed to have tied one on. He was six feet, dark skinned with a baldhead. He was wearing a blue jean jacket and jerked wildly around the bar. I had not seen some dance around a bar with such freedom since I was back east. The Long Beach boys always tried their best to be cool, yet still came of stiff and didn’t know where they fit in mixed company. On the East coast a man was one that could take over a room with jokes, demeanor, or thug like intimidation.

     He yelled ordering his friends drinks from the bar. He danced with a bar stool and then attempted an awkward break dancing routine. The waitress and security beckoned him to complete his act, or he would be escorted to the outside. He complied as if it never happened and returned to his stool next to his large dreadlocked friend, stationed at the far end.

     The ratio of men to women was ten men to everyone on bloated, drunk apple eater that took up a barstool, waiting for a male slug to purchase them a beverage. He came over and asked me where I was from. I told him New Jersey: South Jersey home of corn cobs and Klan meetings.

“Oh you’re from the East Coast. I’m from Baltimore.”

“Cool man. What are you doing out here?”

He paused scanning me for a second trying to reason my questioning but in all reality it was just bar room banter.

“Just living man. I was in the navy so I just decided to stay.”

The man was eloquent and still kept the East Coast accent:  hard with a direct delivery. He was released due to alcoholism.

        Next he pulled out a small, brown wallet and showed me a picture of his a small, very light skinned, newborn baby. He had not seen his son in a while and declared from nowhere the mother was a Nymphomaniac, then stared away in disgust. The former seaman loosely shook my hand and joined his friends. I thought him to be a cool fellow but wondered why he introduced himself out of the blue.

     I shook my empty aluminum can then argued with myself if I should spend a few dollars on a beer or leave. I peeked slightly over my shoulder to see my new friend staring at me with love struck, bugged eyes and his mouth agape. I decided to leave and return another day, when the male crowd was not as friendly.

      I walked out into the cold night air, then made my way down Orange to Ocean and to the Dark tower I called home. I stepped on the elevator and pressed the glowing three button. The lobby was silent and empty: just the ghosts from old Long Beach whispering tales in the elegant lobby. I had no time to listen. I had church tomorrow and needed sleep: back to the half full air mattress.

     After an uneventful week teaching the trainees how to pass the GED writing portion, I found Friday upon me again. I did the Forth Street bar crawl again and found myself down at the sports bar on Redondo Avenue.

      I gave my ID to the fat bearded bar back slash doorman, then weaved through the maze of the young Belmont shore crowd, which included a smattering of Cal State Long Beach students mixed in.

     College kids with their young, pointless faces guzzling cheap beer and using lines they learned from Reality TV to pick up the university girls, who have already exceeded the freshman fifteen by an extra five pounds, wearing their dorm mates shoes and the nice blouse bought from Nordstrom’s rack in Walnut.

      The bar had two open pool tables and a self served popcorn machine. It brought back memories form the bar down street from me in Sherman Oaks. I lived off of the popped kernels for two weeks during those hard Valley times.

      I took a red basket on top of the machine and scoop a mound yellow sweetness, found four quarters and gave the table her sacrifice. That was not my crowd, so I wanted to be left alone. I liked the solitude when shooting with the stick: an average pool player at best, but on occasion I could beat a Shark or two who fell asleep at the wheel.

      After some self inflicted bad shots and ball positioning, they dubbed me a worthless opponent and put their mind on girls, taxes or the words to whatever song was streaming from the music machine.

     By the end of the game we are both trying to hit the same Eight ball into a predestine pocket chosen. In the end a victory was a victory and a win was a win. I would talk s**t, even if they did come back to beat me twenty games in a row. I had the one and a piece of their manhood placed in my back pocket. It was a secret between them and myself.

     That night I started drinking before reaching the pool hall slash college teen night. I bought a couple shots of Jack Daniel, a can of cheap cherry coke and strolled passed the expensive wine bars and by appointment only hair saloons, where the pretty, older Latina with the sexy, knee high boots lent me a smile every now and again. I didn’t see her that night: but it was late and they are closed until manana.

     I took warm up shoot as a tall, thickly built, pretty faced Samoan woman and her average height, sleepy in the eyes, black girlfriend played at the other pool table. I was intoxicated, yet not to the point of foolish gestures, but the point of cool conversation.    

    When the right combination was combined, I was a smooth criminal with the gift of gab on the spirits. Unfortunately, the spirits that often posed me are greedy and wanted to be fed more and more, so that cool place could never be held for more than a hour tops.   

     Afterward the violent self-loathing actor appears: for my next three part act: argument, loving drunk dial (to whoever picked up) and walking into places I shouldn’t on missions of self-destruction. I didn’t need a crystal ball that night: It was written already…

     I was halfway through my game of one on one stick, when the tall Samoan woman approached me and asked if I was finished with the table, if so they could play. I exited the table and sat by the side brown paneled walls with posters and pictures of LA sports teams hanging above me. I leaned on a stool and watched them play while sipping on my beer, un-amused but there was nothing else to do.

      Around me everyone was coupled up while groups of men laughed and groped each other prepping for multiple sword fights to break out in back men’s room stall. The women must have been home studying for tests or doing the others nail.

      I leaned on the brown wood paneled wall easy and loose. I finished off my beer and went for a second round of popcorn. I came back minutes later and the game was over.

     The Samoan challenged me to a game and I accepted, bringing my usual pre game trash talk. We engaged in small talk. She asked me where I was from because of my accent and unique appearance. I answered both with stories mixed with humor. She took a liking to the Jersey boy and we continued with the game.

    After a slight flirting session she beat me or rather I lost. I couldn’t focus nor hit a ball. I was too drunk to play and the greedy drinker had won again.

One deadly sin down and six to go!

     We exchanged number and the women went on their way. I didn’t know where. The information was basic, only pool chatter with a few compliments here and there.

     I stood around a little long seeing if there was anyone else worth taking a shoot at. Nope! I exited after a few minutes and made my way back to the Villa Rivera: down the dark sidewalks crowded with men searching for men wearing expensive hairstyles molded with A list gels.

     The smell of top of the line body sprays, floated through the air. The male packs patrolled the area: bar hopping from place to place, decked out in the five hundred dollar jeans and shiny club shirts shimmering in the shadows.

      Fresh scrubbed men made intense eye contract, trying to invade my secret place. Being from New Jersey, we made eye contact as a warming that if pushed we would fight. I later found out that was the opposite in the Gay Ghetto.

     I made my way passed the various gay bars with clusters of men standing outside fully involved in various conversations: none if any drew my attention. I stopped by the Falcon and trolled for the straight women sitting outside smoking. I gave them flirty eyes hoping to draw them too me.

     I probably looked like a drunken stalker wanting to steal their money more than their hearts. I walked back home: feet aching from the abuse.

How much longer! Why do I do this to myself! The struggle! Constant struggle!

     I stopped in the 7-11 on Orange and Broadway and pointed to the food in the glass heat box. I usually ate the Jamaican Beef paddies. They remind me of my college days in Florida among the Kingston want-a-bees, spouting patois like tender Buju Banton rifts often used in the Student Center to talk around the Yankees.

     The small meat pies also brought me to my summer tutoring job at Inglewood high school. I would leave the prison like structure then walk to a small Belizean store and buy two Beef paddies for lunch. I would head back to my urban misery among the Bloods and Bull dykes that roamed the summer campus.

     The pretty Asian American 7-11 clerk gave me two. I paid her and engulfed them so quick they didn’t even last until Ocean Ave. I found my keys and then found the door. I entered and waited for the elevator.

      I rode the moving closet to floor three and opened the Susies door with a key code. The dogs must have been asleep because they didn’t greet me. I went to the room and fell out on the bed off into sleep.

Glorious sleep. Maybe my feet would heal. Maybe not!

     The next day I woke slightly hung over but still alive and ready to absorb the spring sunlight tapping me on the should. Get up!  I could here the sound of the traffic to my left on Ocean Ave and the sound of the beach activity on my right. The park was silently calling me. I must get my work out equipment and visit her, even with all the flaws and ugly spots I could feel the love energy.

     I showered, said goodbye to Susie and the mutts, then made my way down to the streets. I cut across from Abalone to Broadway, strolling by the various species of morning dwellers walking domesticated beasts and chasing visions of coffee, probably mentally planning out their California Sunday. Seven Days in the Sun was my soundtrack to the day. I didn’t have enough money for gas to visit my congregation in Pacioma, so the Pull up bars would be my church.

    The Broadway bar was packed to the gills with bar patrons, which I thought was strange.  Sunday was usually a day to forgo the evil spirits until the next weekend, but the Gay bars were crowded with colorful shorts and t-shirt wearing clad patrons.

       That must have been the warm up to Pride. The energy stirred as the monsoon of Man Love would be bearing down on the city soon. Drunken Twinks would grasp onto their Bears, while dancing down the street to invisible club music playing in their heads.

     I saw Bobby: a friendly, skinny black man, on a bike whizzed by me and toss a courteous nod. I made it to the park and went from: apparatus to apparatus caught in my own trance, in the beginning steps of making myself a machine.

      There was always a line leading the pull up bars with various characters waiting to hit their repetitions, with hopes to outdo the prior. It was my turn; I did a decent seven: that would have to improve.

     I went over to the parallel bars and did a set of dips, completed my routine and prepared to exit.  I saw a man dressed in church clothes and shoes working out on a green, metal pommel horse made of bars. He jumped over and back easily while his tall, fat friend struggled.

      I tried next which led up a conversation over that piece of equipment. The topic somehow lead to my Jersey roots and accent, to his visit to Newark where he brought a friend back from the dead.

     It took a left turn, as he told me the difference between the Eastside of Long Beach compared to the Westside (his side of the city). He mentioned the Eastsiders were out for themselves, loved trouble and thirsted for jail and/or the ICU.

       The guys from the Westside stayed out of trouble and preferred picnics and bullet hole free bodies. Then we took a turn around the dangerous, perilous bend called religion, which I had always found to be a slippery slope to bring up on a first work out date.

     He proclaimed to be a Jehovah Witness (the same as my devil filled roommate who claimed he was half Catholic and half JW) and the conversation went to -Jehovah.

 What else would we talk about? 

     During our discussion held in the space between the Pull up bars and Squat pole (yes!) Suddenly, I discovered how wrong I was about the bible: according to him. I don’t argue or debate the Good Word: that was the act of heathens, fake Christians and Catholics when they can find one.

     I agreed the world was ruled over by Satan, the Earth was God’s and Elohim the most loving in the Heavens was going to destroy the world and all of us but not the planet.

So it turned out I did learn something new; that I already knew.

     Yet even though our opinions differed when it came to what El would do with his freshly cleansed Biosphere: it was a matter of apples, oranges and a banana thrown in for good measure. Hopefully, I’d be dead with ringside seats watching the people I know getting their asses whooped.

      After the Rapture I would sneak the Muslim side of Heaven and woo a couple virgins with some Mana and holy wine.

Where were L Ron, Bubba and Joseph Smith now?

      I thanked him for the lesson and the invitation to the Jehovah witness service at the Long Beach convention center. I wanted to tell him I don’t have this whole Christian thing down yet and could not jump: faith-to-faith, sect-to-sect and cult-to-cult. I had to be messed up and be disillusioned where I was first.

     We man hugged and he went off into the picnic area with his pre pubescent children. I was elated to have such a discussion. It was candy for my soul. I became filled with happiness on the stroll back to my abode.

     I walked a block from the park and waited at the corner of Cherry and Broadway. Other eyes were upon me. Strange eyes. Watching. Staring. Watching me. I crossed the street caught in my own world, sometimes giving myself a gray matter flogging.

“Scott is looking for you.”

Scott? Who the hell is Scott?

     My posture turned automatically defensive. I took off my earphones to get a better listen. Before me was a short, muscle bound, light skinned black man. He had a Fowhawk and various neck and facial tattoos. From up close he looked like some sort of new age, Watts space alien. His voice was powerful and youthful yet friendly. He stood outside the chain drug store holding a BMX racing bike. His teeth grinded back and forth at a frantic pace.

“What did you say?”

“My homie Scott is looking for you.”

Author's Note

comments please

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

I like the story. You make a day come alive. I like the description of the people and the city. I have been dead and bury for 20 years now. I enjoyed the tale. Good to have the ability to roam and meet people and taste different sides of life. I like the conversation in the bar. I still do my best to stay away from religion. Easy to create anger on the topic where all religions had fail. I like the open ending. Left a wide open door for the next chapter. Thank you for sharing the excellent chapter.
Coyote

[Judas Hammer]

I agree, I was cool as possible while being made to feel stupid, thanks for the review my friend

[MS. BABy]

Nice...but Jehovah's witnesses don't believe all people will be destroyed... only the wicked... and That's for your accuracy.... I found this so engaging... slight typo...in beginning... of..should be off....

Wonderful piece.

[Tree]

There really is something about your style. Your voice, you've made it your own. This type of story (style) could conceivably one day be labeled a genre or noir –––––in regards to this era, say, 1999–––2010. I'm not saying it will be, but then again why not? Why not your stories, too?

I liked this piece a lot, and I'm no expert but I read alot. Everything. And I feel I got a pretty good handle on what's good and what's not, even when it might not be the flavor of genre I usually lean toward I get caught up in the good writing, wherever it is to be found. I also know that writing's of certain people create niches, followers to that type of specific writing. I would encourage you J to keep pushing forward, because I believe in my humble opinion, that you're on to something.

[Nick.B]

Well it kept my attention, interesting title, and a great story about life, religion, and all the junk that flows around this modern day life...great job

[Judas Hammer]

thanks Nick......

[TL Boehm]

Jehovah's witnesses....oy. Really enjoyed the descriptions in this - a slice of life different than my own perspective. Very visual - reminds me of a movie scene in many spots. Well done.

[Judas Hammer]

thank you again TL

[Barbara Walker]

In this piece, it feels like you went the extra yards for really descriptive words for the characters and place. Has a relaxed vibe to it, so I guess it was good to get rid of the Brit! I enjoyed reading this very much!

[Judas Hammer]

Thank you Barbara for your review

[quinfinn]

i have to share with you, the fact that yours are the only stories i read anymore, because i (1 dont read books and chapters and (2 rarely make time for them but....your writing style truly captivates me and i feel as if i am reading an old Kurt Vonnegut , Jr....piece. i think i told you this before, i really enjoy your gritty and "pulp fictionesque" writing style...outstanding writing here JH!

[Judas Hammer]

thank you, major words from a great writer....thank you sir

[Dayran]

I'm going for a long review.

After Vesuvius Romans as much as Americans were wearing the Fez as Club activity. Before Superman became an action figure it was the philosopher Camus in blue tights in the comic books. All these changed as the American experience came to itself. But it does that with an intensity the way construction hard hats used to beat up hippies in the 70s.

The kid with you on this write is finally managing a viewpoint of his own. Away from the Romans, the Ottoman, the Brit. and the hard hats. That's something new in this write that's nice to see. Beyond that he's coming to deal with some hard questions in the neighborhood.

Eyes looking at you on the streets seek that point that says ' I give up ... I don't know what to make of it anymore ... I'll join the herd.' But your kid is not willing to. He figures he's going to take a gander at handling things himself. Hooray!

A man with a nymphomaniac wife who has lost his juices seeks sympathy from another man who he thinks will understand him. A JW devout wonders out loud whether we truly know anything at all and should we turn to faith?

I think its the new American Judas. I think you're hit it on the head. Keep going.

[Judas Hammer]

Thank you. When I read your reviews I always get smarter....and become a better word smith

[Trigorin]

Not bad, not good. Nothing special. Doesn't exactly feel like filler, but nothing very interesting happens, I think.

[Judas Hammer]

thank you for the review