Homeless Riders (A short story about my time doing nothing)

Homeless Riders

It all started one night when I was coming home from a party. It had been a dull party and I was in bad mood. I had gone with some friends that I knew since high school, who really didn´t like, but at the time, I really didn´t have anything better to do, so I had joined up with them anyways. We got together and talked about the “good old days” and some other nonsensical stuff. At about one in morning we left for the party. When we got there all the girls were taken, so we just drank more beers until we got horny enough to look for prostitutes online. But the prices where to high and we had wasted most our money on alcohol so everyone decided it was time to go home. Since I only had a couple of quarters I decided to walk from Surquillo, where the party was at, too my home district: Miraflores.

In Lima there is a law that states that no alcohol can be sold after 11:00 pm outside of bars or discotheques. Because of this, there are various Gas Stations and Bodegas that sell the stuff, under the police´s radar. Mr. Fantasy was one of these Bodegas or at least, Mr. Fantasy what we called it. It got that name because owner always seemed like he´d done four lines of cocaine in a row and was over paranoid. Which was kinda understandable since there was very hefty fine for what he was doing, but the guy looked like he was moving hard drugs instead of liquor.

It was around the corner of Mr. Fantasy that I found them. I was half a block from the bodega when I heard someone yell: “Zamalloa!”

I turned around and there they were: Netox, Eugene, Hoffa and Malaga, on acid, drinking rum and smoking weed. Hoffa had told me to join up with them earlier, but I had been half way across the city by then. That and I had asked Hoffa´s girlfriend for blowjob a few days back, she had said no, then told Hoffa and Hoffa in turn had told everyone, that made me look more the fool so I wasn´t so sure if I wanted to see him that night. But nevertheless I found them. I don´t know if it was dumb luck, coincidence or the hand of fate, but in the end what most matters is outcome of that night.

I sat down next to Eugene. They told me they had been on acid since 9:00 o’clock and had been skateboarding since then. They had come down from Uptown Lima all the way to the Villenas Bridge. There they had smoked some weed and then had gone all the way gone to Barranco, to the park with the cross.  At the park they bought a bottle of rum, drank a few cups then skateboarded all the way back to Miraflores. Tired they decided to rest around the corner of Mr. Fantasy´s bodega, that is where I found them.

 Most of them just knew each other but they were talking like old friends. The skateboarding and the acid had formed a bond between them. And I by extension was now part of that bond.

We joked around a bit, drank some rum, and smoked some weed. And before we knew it the sun was coming up and the bottle was empty. We knew it was time to go home. They all hugged each other, saying it was a great night and then we parted ways.  Hoffa came home with me, since he didn´t have any place to crash.

The next morning Eugene called up Hoffa to say that he was meeting up with Netox and Malaga to do some skateboarding around San Isidro. Hoffa grabbed his longboard, I grabbed my bike and we rode all the way to Arequipa with Javier Prado.  Their Netox, Eugene and Malaga where waiting. From there we rode down the Javier Prado, all the way to the Salavery Avenue. There we looped around and headed towards the pier. We rode through the pier all the way back to Miraflores. By then night had fallen so we hit Bonilla. We drank a few bears, flirted with some of the girls, than drank some more bears. At the end of the night everyone had someone to go home with. So we all went home. Expect for Hoffa.

After that, every single day we would meet up either at my house or some other centric point, buy a bottle of rum and ride until night came. At night we´d sometimes hit Bonilla or if it was a slow night we´d settle in at the park with the cross and drink until daybreak.  Then we´d go to sleep, wake up and do it all again.

Of the five of us, Eugene was by far the smartest but you could never tell with all the weed he smoked. He was the only guy I knew that came with catch phrases, like whenever he thought something was really cool he said: “That´s it!”, or every time he wanted to state an affirmative he just said “aaaaaaaaaaa”. Sometimes me or Hoffa would respond with an “aaaaaaaaaaa” and in turn Eugene would respond with another “aaaaaaaaaaa”.  It would go back and forth until we got bored. He would never talked much about his political views or what he thought about the state the country was in, but if you ever asked him about it he wouldn´t stop.

Hoffa was a degenerate, if he wasn´t riding his longboard he was f*****g. That put him in a bad light with his stepfather, who was also his boss. After years of getting into fights, Hoffa finally got fed up and left. Problem was he had no money when he left.   So he ended up crashing where ever he could, sometimes at my place, sometimes at Eugene´s, sometimes at Fat Aldo´s. 

Netox always had a new movie, book or song to tell you about. He loved finding those pieces of art that nobody had heard about and then sharing them with everyone. 

Then there was Malaga. Everyone always said that Malaga was crazy and he kind of was. He had Bi-Polar disorder and he refused to take meds for it. I respected that about him. It meant he wasn´t going to let society or anyone dictate how he was going to live his life, it also meant he would sometimes go berserk. Another thing about Malaga is that he loved cocaine; I mean a lot, enough to always carry a bag of the stuff with him. For that we called him: “Crazy Bags”.

And lastly there was me, and well, the less said about me the better.

There were no leaders in our crew, we didn´t care for them. We didn´t want some established hierarchy that predetermined how we did things. We didn´t need it. When decision time came, we all said our piece, we all delegated, we all decided. Sure Eugene would sometimes give us orders, we´d follow them when they suited us and ignored them when they didn´t. Eugene didn´t seem to mind, he just liked giving orders.    

Since Malaga and Hoffa where always out of money they were always looking for a place where they could bum some food. Because I had a lot of money saved up from a job I did for the state I was happy to oblige. I never liked seeing people starve, much less seeing a friend starve. They would come over and we would all pitch in to make our meal. We always make either fried vegetables with spaghetti or pasta with red sauce. We´d eat in big round bowls and made sure they were filled up to the top. After we were done, we would all smoke cigarettes and laughed about what had happened night before.  Then we would usually watch a movie, waiting till Netox and Eugene should up.

One day one us, I don´t remember who, had the idea to make video of our exploits. We all got enthusiastic. I had recently borrowed a Go Pro from a friend so I thought it was a good excuse to use it. Eugene´s girlfriend, Pilar, had another Go Pro. That meant we had two cameras.

  We got together at midday, somewhere around the Skate Park. I wore the camera on my head, while the others took turns with the second camera. We rode through the pier up to Larco Mar, and then we turned on Larco Av. going up the bikeway. Now to understand what happened next you need to know a bit about Kennedy Park and a transnational conglomerate called: Los Portales.

Kennedy Park is basically the center of Miraflores, if you go out any given day of the week and go to Miraflores; chances are you´ll end up at Kennedy Park. The problem was the parking, places to park circled the place, but it was still very limited, taking in account how many people actually went there a Friday or a Saturday night. Los Portales, that made most it´s money off parking lots, saw an opportunity in this. So somehow they managed to appropriate a fraction of the park for themselves and started building a parking lot. But that wasn´t enough they needed to make sure they were the only source for parking spaces. So they made a deal with the municipality. The municipality would make a bikeway, getting rid of the parking spaces that circled the park. What the municipality got out it wasn´t so clear, but I´m pretty sure that a big wad of cash was involved. Anyways they made the bikeway, but like everything done in Lima it was done half-assed.   When they painted it, they divided in two, indicating that one half was for going in one direction and the other half for the other direction. Problem was there wasn´t enough space for two bikes, so if you met up with another biker, skater or whatever that was going in the opposite direction, someone had to stop and wait for the other person to pass. Later they painted it red and expanded it, but still you could see how badly organized the endeavor was with how they initially constructed it. Plus there was something far worse than that they never really fixed. To separate the Bikeway and the road, they put a small, yellow and black barrier, which was about two feet high.  Since most of the drivers in Lima think that they are staring in the next Fast & Furious film, it was probable necessary. But again, it was half-assed.   The Barrier was too high, to close to the bikeway and worst of all; it had several gaps, making it easy for bike to get stuck. It was because of this barrier that I had my accident.

Going back to that day, we rode all the way up to Kennedy Park. I was way in the back so I could film them. Once we reached the park I decided it would be cool for the video if I passed them all at very high speed. I remember it clearly. I started to peddle hard. I passed Netox, Malaga, Eugene, Pilar and just after passing Hoffa, my foot slipped and I lost control of the bike.  The bike shifted towards the barrier, the right peddles found its way into one of the gaps and, thanks to how fast I was going, the bike tripped forward, throwing me off.  I landed face down, putting my hands first. Saying it was painful would be an understatement. I heard a laugh coming from behind me. I turned my head to see that the laughter was coming from my crew. All I did was get up, picked up the bike, got on it and kept riding. 

I felt fine for two blocks, but then my wrist started to hurt when I grabbed the break. Then I saw how swelled my finger was. I started going slower, my crew noticed. Eugene asked me if I wanted to go the clinic. We all hated doctors and always avoided visiting them whenever possible.  I said it was fine, that it was probably just a bruise and would put ice on it when I got home. But the pain got worse, so bad that I could barely grab the break. I decided it was too dangerous to keep going. I told them that I was going home. They said they would keep going with the video and then come down to my place to see how I was doing. On the way home I accidentally ran over someone, I yelled that I was sorry as I peddled away but I don´t think it mattered much.

At home I immediately put my wrist on ice. Then I lay down and started to listen to some music. After a while the pain got too intense to ignore. So I went to the cabinet looking for painkillers, all I found was some Panadol and sleeping pills. I took two of each, then went to the frige and grabbed a bear. Just as I finished drinking it, the doorbell rang, it was my crew. They asked me how I was. I told them it hurt but I didn´t think that it was fractured. Of course, I was lying I was pretty sure it was, I just didn´t want to go the doctor. They told me they were going to hit Bonilla asked me if I was up for it. I told them I was game.

Bonilla´s five bars were all packed, but for some reason we were all depressed. We didn´t flirt with any girls, we hardly joke around, we just drank our beer and took turns with Malaga´s bag of coke. I left early, knowing what was to come the following day.   

The next morning I got up early and went to the clinic, Malaga came with me.   The clinic was full; we had to wait three hours before I could finally see a doc, then an hour more before I could get the x-rays. When the results came, I went back to the doctor’s office, going in I knew it was going to be bad news. And I was right; I had fractured my wrist and my finger. To make matters worse both of the fractures where on joints, so if they had to operate.  The doctor put a cast on me. Then I went back to Malaga. I told him the news. He said: “S**t, take care of yourself man.” Then he suggested we buy a bottle of rum. Which we did, or I did, Malaga was broke again, he had wasted all his money on coke again. 

In the days to come we acted like nothing had happened. The crew would ride in the mornings then come visit me after lunch. Then we´d walk from my house to the park with the cross. There we´d drink rum and smoke weed until evening. After that it be Bonilla or my place to watch movies. We were still the same crew, just one us couldn´t ride.

 I started drinking like never before. I knew it wasn´t good for the fractured bones but after my accident I had sunk into depression. I had already been somewhat depressed before, but the accident threw me off the edge. Riding made me forget all the other fucked up s**t that was going on with my life. When I couldn´t ride all the s**t came creeping back.

One night, coming home from Bonilla, Hoffa said to me: “If you don´t take care of yourself that hand is going to rot and fall off.” I just laughed, but I knew that he was telling the truth.

We continued with the video. Since I couldn´t ride we made up other things we could throw in. Like Hoffa telling about time he fucked Fat Aldo´s girlfriend in Fat Aldo´s bed while Fat Aldo was with his kids downstairs or Eugene saying “aaaaaaaaaaa” to the camera. One day Malaga was at my place and he decided that him throwing up should be part of the video. I agreed.

We called up the rest and told them to come down, but only Hoffa could make it, he brought along Sara. Hoffa´s girlfriend had broken up with him because he fucked everything with two legs. So in his depression, he had decided that the best solution was to keep f*****g everything with two legs.

We all got together and walked all the way down to the park with the cross. On our way Malaga got himself drunk with a bottle of rum that he had stolen, which he drank it mostly by himself. It was somewhere around mid-day when we got there. Malaga was already taking incoherently. While Hoffa made out with Sara, Malaga and I planed the shot. I wanted to do a low angle close up, while Malaga wanted the shot to entail him coming skating down the ramp, then he would reach cross and throw up. This would mean the camera would be from war away, I didn´t like that. The only thing we really agreed upon was the cross. In the end Malaga decided he was ready to throw up, I decided that my left hand would be too shaky, so I gave the camera to Hoffa and he told Malaga to just throw up in front of the cross. So Malaga got in front of the cross, he stuck his finger up his throat and the vomit poured out.  After he was done he took another drink and did it again.  Then he went to where Sara was and started flirting with her, while Hoffa swirled the camera around the vomit.   

 We went back to my place to check the material we had just filmed. When I opened the SD card, I found that for some reason the camera hadn´t filmed anything. I looked for about an hour it just wasn´t there. Malaga got depressed and threw himself to the floor, saying he wasn´t going to move. I had to go do some things, so told Malaga to get up.

Malaga just responded: “No man, I threw up for nothing.”

“I need to leave, you need to get up.”                     

 “Just ignore him,” Hoffa suggested.

“I can´t ignore him, I´m not going leave him lying around in my house.”

At the end, Netox showed up and convinced Malaga to steal some more rum.    

Malaga got up saying: “Ok, only for the rum.”

They went off to keep drinking; I went off to do my things.

While all this was happening I was getting ready for my operation with whole array of test, examines and appointments, which I will not list here. I was finally ready for it about one week after the accident.

Before going to the clinic I was at my house, lying in bed, dreading what was come; Hoffa was there too, sitting at the computer looking for some chick to bang. I didn´t expect Hoffa to come to the clinic with me, he hated clinics, his daughter had died in a clinic a few years back because she was allergic to some drug they gave her.  

I looked at the time.

“It´s time I get going”, I said.

Hoffa shut his Facebook and stood up. He suddenly said: “I´m getting depressed.”

“Why?”

He just came to where I was, kissed me on the forehead and said: “Everything is going to be alright.”

I went to the clinic; he went to screw some girl. I had to wait three hours before I could get into the operation room. I texted the others while I waited. Malaga asked if I was scared. I responded that only a little. That was understatement, I was freaking out inside. The truth was anything could go wrong in that operating table. Even the anesthesia could kill me or worse leave me like a f*****g vegetable. Yet I found a way to calm down, telling myself that if I didn´t go through with the operation I might lose movement in my finger and my wrist. 

The nurse finally came and took me to the operating room. I was pushed there in moveable bed, when I reached it they passed me to operating table. From there I saw them pass knives, scalpels and other things.  They talked in medical gibberish. The anesthesiologist came and injected me with some very potent stuff and in a few minutes I was asleep.

When I woke up the pain was excruciating. They gave me painkillers, a lot of painkillers, but it still hurt like hell. I asked for morphine, but they didn´t have any. 

After an hour or two I came out of intensive cares and my mother told me that Eugene and Pilar had come to visit me while I was on the operating table. They had left after they had realized it would take some time for me to come out.

Once I got back to my room the whole crew texted me to see how the operation had gone. Hoffa apologized that he couldn´t call, since he had used all his phone credits on p***y. Malaga told me steal some Morphine, so we could all have some when we got out the clinic.  I told him there wasn´t any. Then he suggested that I take dump in the middle of doctor´s office. I just laughed. Netox told me about movie he had just watched. It was about this American drug dealer that lived in Thailand. He ran the business with his brother, who was bat-s**t crazy. One night his bother murdered a young prostitute and a police lieutenant convinces the father of the prostitute to kill the drug dealer´s brother. When the drug dealer finds out he decides the killing was justified. But everything gets complicated when the drug dealer´s mother arrives and she wants him to kill both the cop and the prostitute´s father. And that´s just about all Netox told me about the movie.  I never came around to see it.

I spent the next few days I spent in the clinic, mostly alone. Some other friends would come and visit, but the crew never came, they were too busy riding. I guess they all hated modern medicine so much that they were afraid to come. 

When I got home I invited the crew over to have some beers. They all came; Sara and her bisexual lover, Ana, came too. They told me they we´re glad I was alright. We went to the store to buy some alcohol, smoking weed on the way. We bought the beers and went to pier. There we played “I never” and Hoffa admitted that he loved f*****g travesties. 

The doctor had prescribed a blister of painkillers and I had eaten three of them, so most of what I was speaking was incoherent. I spoke a bit with Ana, but she couldn´t understand what I was talking, so she went to Sara saying was crazy.

Sara just laughed: “He´s alright, he´s just on painkillers.”

After we finished the beers at the pier, we bought a bottle of rum and went back to my place. We spent the night drinking, talking, laughing, taking turns at making out with Sara and Ana.  When day broke, they went on their ways. Hoffa left with both Sara and Ana. Before they left, we all hugged each outside my house. I was back with my crew, everything was good.

In the following days I got addicted to painkillers. I would take one ever morning, after walking up and one in the evening, after dinner. Because of this I ran out of painkillers really fast. I told Malaga about my shortage of pills and the next they he appeared with blister of something called Celebrex.  

“Here try this stuff; they give it to people who are dying of Cancer.”

So I did. Then drank a quarter bottle of rum and went straight to heaven. The cocktail left me dazed state and was so numb that I couldn´t feel any pain anymore. I didn´t know how Malaga got the pills but was damn glad that he did.

That day I was trying out my new phone and I took a picture of Malaga sitting on my bed. He looked like a strung-out junkie in the photo. We both laughed at it. Then Malaga left and I had an idea. Looking back it was a very dumb idea but I implemented it just the same. I posted the picture on Facebook with the hashtags: #postcoke, #postparty. We hadn´t done any coke at the time but I thought it would be funny to mock how people believed everything they saw in social media.  Plus I was depressed again and I needed a laugh.

Malaga later texted me, saying that he had gotten in a fight with his mother because of the post. I burst out laughing and I kept laughing for about ten minutes straight, then I apologized. Malaga said it was ok, but I could tell he was pissed. After that he would be a little more reluctant to come to my house. We still got together whenever the crew got together, but he preferred to keep me at a distance. He knew that however crazy he was, I was crazier.

A month went by, my hand got better. I stared to ride again. And suddenly it was just like old times. I would meet the crew in the morning; we would ride all day, then get drunk and high at night.  It felt good to be cycling again. It felt good to feel the breeze as I hit the peddles. It felt good to be riding with my crew once more.

I was still addicted to painkillers, but since the doctor didn´t have any reason to prescribe them anymore, he didn´t give me any. So I so got some morphine through one of Netox´s contacts. I had never tried morphine before, but damn was it good. I liked it so much that I started taking five pills a day, two in the morning, one in the afternoon and two at night. I would go riding in my painkiller haze, it be different perspective, I would be active, yet I would never be tense, on the contrary I felt wholly relaxed.

The others would notice and say: “Hey, Zamalloa´s on painkiller´s again.”  And, “don´t keep all for yourself man, share.” 

After I outed Malaga as cokehead the obvious happened: everyone started treating him like a cokehead.  People would gesture like they were snorting blow as he passed by, then laugh. And everyone asked him for the stuff. One time we were drinking at Bonilla and I asked Malaga for some blow.  He said sure, and we went to the bathroom. As we went inside, two guys appeared and came in with us. We both knew what they wanted. My arm was still kind of healing and Malaga is small, so we couldn´t pick a fight. We just did our lines and they went on their way.

Later I asked, Malaga: “Did you know them?”

“I have f*****g no idea who they were.”

“That happen often?”

“Now it does.”

And then just like our little crew had gotten together out of nothing, it just broke apart. There was no specific reason for it; there were just too many things we were all neglecting too much, for too much time. Fat Aldo had finally noticed that Hoffa was f*****g his girlfriend and didn´t let him stay over anymore. Plus Eugene and I were pretty much sick of Hoffa´s constant bumming. So Hoffa had no choice but to go back his house and work for his father again. During the months we hung out together, it had been slow season for Eugene´s family business. So he had had a lot of time spend with the crew. Once things started moving again he had to go back to work. Netox got a girlfriend and went back to school to finish up his major. Since Malaga mother wasn´t giving him any money anymore because of my post, he had to look for job. He ended up as a receptionist in a hostel.  I had run out of money, so I cut down on the morphine and started looking for freelancer jobs online. After a few days I found some and I was working again. And that was that.

We´d still crossed each other’s paths once in while whenever we´d go to Bonilla. We´d have a few beers, reminisce about old times and then go back to whoever we came with. But we knew it wasn´t the same. We had all gone our separate paths and it had to be that way.  I still rode every day. I missed the crew, but still I knew it was time to move on.

Sometimes I found myself staring into nothingness, thinking about those days when all we cared about was riding, drugs and girls. It wasn´t that everything was ok when we were together, far from it, but that was the point, it didn´t matter.  When we rode we didn´t care about anything else, we just did it. Nothing else mattered, just us, our vehicle of choice and the road.

 Maybe one day when I manage to save up some money again, we´ll get together and hit the road once more. Or maybe our time as a crew will just be memory, ready to fade away like dust shifting in the wind at a cool desert sunset.

 

Jackie Coogan

October 23rd, 2055