#I remember being apart of the younger neighborhood kids who got screwed with by their best friends older brothers(and even their sisters)

[slime-hoe]

I am once again brought down to my knees by the knowledge that Billy Hargrove would 100% vibe with WAP if only because it’s exceptionally vulgar and makes people horny and or embarrassed .

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

If There’s a Place I Could Be - Chapter Forty Seven

If There’s a Place I Could Be Tag

May 7th, 1995

Remy sneered at Vanessa as she spoke. “It’s the little things in life that you have to appreciate, Remy—”

“—What little things are there to appreciate?!” Remy asked incredulously. “Everything is absolutely miserable and everyone only wants to tear you down to try and build themselves up! It’s stupid, it’s pointless, and it means there’s nothing to appreciate! It just means that everything is going to be absolutely miserable. And when things are absolutely miserable, you can’t exactly appreciate anything except when the misery finally goes away.”

Vanessa sighed. “Remy, I know life is hard right now, but you can’t exactly do anything about it. The least you can do is try to make yourself feel a little better with the situation you find yourself in.”

Remy scoffed. “Nothing will make this better,” he said. “Nothing will be better until I move out!”

  October 31st, 2001

Emile was pinching the bridge of his nose as Remy tried to stifle his giggling at Emile’s response to his “costume.” They were going to chaperone some of the homeless kids when they went trick-or-treating while the parents worked with Bernie to find housing options, and Emile had told Remy to dress up in a costume “for the kids.” So Remy had put on what he normally wore, saved a coffee cup from the trash bin, and took a piece of paper, written SLEEP across it in all caps, and taped it to his shirt. “You said to dress up as something I liked!” Remy said.

“I thought you’d do, like, a superhero or something,” Emile sighed.

“Well, it’s a little late to go change what I have now,” Remy said. “Unless of course you’d rather I steal one of your sweater vests?”

Emile turned an adorable shade of pink but shook his head. “Don’t come crying to me when the kids find you lame,” he said, tipping his cowboy hat at Remy.

“I don’t care if the kids think I’m lame or not, I’m helping make sure they get to go trick-or-treating. That makes me cool enough,” Remy said with certainty.

“You tell yourself that,” Emile said with an eye-roll.

Remy laughed. “Listen, Woody, you’re just mad because my costume took all of five minutes to put together and you only got yours because of an employee discount at Target.”

Emile stuck his tongue out at Remy and Remy laughed, sticking his tongue out back as the two of them left their apartment and headed to the shelter. Remy took Emile’s hand in his and swung their arms back and forth as they walked. “This should be fun, right?” Remy asked Emile. “Walking kids around a couple blocks of apartment buildings.”

“You remember how they once tried to make me a human sacrifice, right?” Emile asked. “They can be handfuls when they want to be. And costumes plus copious amounts of sugar means we’ll have a lot of work on our hands.”

“Okay, that’s...actually a good point,” Remy said, suddenly nervous. “They’re going to kill themselves if we’re not careful, and their parents will kill us if they’re dead.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Remy,” Emile said. “They kill us first so that they can then do all the stupid things they want and kill themselves in the process.”

“That does not help, Emile!” Remy protested.

Emile just laughed as they reached the homeless shelter. Immediately, they were swarmed by kids who were already dressed up. “Do we get to go trick-or-treating now?!” one of them asked.

“Yeah, Dad said that you two were gonna take us trick-or-treating!” another piped up.

“What are you wearing?!” one of the girls asked, pointing at Remy.

Remy looked down. “My costume!” he exclaimed.

“It’s just a piece of paper!” she retorted.

“Yeah, well, being the sandman would have taken a lot more time and money than I had,” Remy said. “So blame my boyfriend here. He was the one who said I had to dress up.”

“Hey!” Emile protested. “I also told you this wasn’t a costume!”

One of the boys grinned and said, “Both of you are to blame! And you know what happens when the adults screw up?”

“Oh no,” Emile muttered.

Remy looked between the boy and Emile. “What? What happens?”

“We get to kill them!” the boy cried, before immediately tackling Remy to the ground.

Total anarchy broke out as all the kids started dog-piling Remy, no matter what Emile did to try and stop them, and soon Emile had been tripped up and was also being climbed on. Emile looked at Remy and said, “You had to ask, didn’t you?”

A sharp whistle broke through the shouting and Bernie walked over. “That’s enough, all of you! Mister Emile and Mister Remy were nice enough to take time out of their night to take you trick-or-treating, you should be grateful, not trying to kill them!”

As the kids slowly clambered off Emile and Remy, Remy stood and helped Emile to his feet. “Well, at least my paper is still intact,” Remy said, smoothing his shirt.

“Yeah, nothing in my costume tore, either,” Emile sighed.

“All of you get ready, I’m going to bring the camera out and we can capture all your costumes so you never have to forget how cool everyone looked, sound good?” Bernie asked.

The kids all agreed and Remy nudged Emile hissing, “You didn’t say that they were going to take a picture!”

“I didn’t know they were going to take a picture,” Emile simply replied.

“Do they do the picture yearly or do you think it’s to immortalize our stupidity?” Remy asked dryly.

One of the younger kids gasped. “You said ‘stupid’!”

“I...yeah?” Remy asked. “I’m a grown-up, I can say what I want.”

“Stupid is a bad word, though!” the kid said.

Remy couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s not a nice word, but it’s not a bad word.”

“Yeah, bad words are the ones you can get spanked for saying,” one of the boys said sagely.

“When do you get to say what you want though?” the kid asked. “If you’re an adult when do you get to do that?”

“When you move out of your parents’ house,” Remy said matter-of-factly. “When you can have your own place, you can cuss all you want.”

The kid’s eyes widened. “You can?!”

“Remy, if you cuss in front of the kids I’ll kill you myself,” Emile warned.

Bernie came back with the camera and the conversation was officially dropped. All the kids lined up, Emile and Remy on either side of the line, and Remy grinned as the chatter and excitement surrounding this Halloween trip grew. These kids were just so excited over getting to go out trick-or-treating. It was simple, but the kids couldn’t think of anything more cool, and it put things into perspective for Remy.

Something as inconsequential as Halloween could mean a big deal to someone else, simply because they were excited for it. It was sort of like Remy with comic books, or Emile with cartoons. They might not mean a lot to other people, but because those two cared about those things, they became important. And what was important was different to each person, but everyone had something that they got excited over. Everyone had that thing that they felt was important. And to have those important things was vital to enjoying where you were in life. These kids...they would have every right to hate the world and bemoan their lot in life. And yet, Halloween made them happy enough to keep going.

What did Remy have in terms of that? He knew comic books, yeah, and helping at the shelter was nice, and hanging out with friends made the slow days bearable. But what else did he have? You also have Emile, his mind pointed out.

Remy paused. He did have Emile. Emile made him happy, and offered a new perspective on the world he hadn’t seen before. He smiled as the kids began to rush out the door, asking where they were going to go first. Emile made him happy, and excited, and made him look forward to the future, because that meant he got to spend more time with the man he loved.

...Wow, he had never considered that before.

Emile interlaced his fingers with Remy as the kids swarmed around them, and a few of the bolder ones led them out to the nearest neighborhood, debating the merits of checking the apartment buildings around too. Remy looked over at Emile and grinned. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you too,” Emile said, grinning back.

“That’s gay,” Remy said.

Immediately, the smaller kids started laughing. “That’s gay!” they parroted.

Shit, Remy thought. “Their parents are going to kill me when they learn how they picked that up.”

Emile laughed. “Time to sacrifice yourself for the cause, Rem, and be prepared to die by either the kids’ hands or via their parents.”

Remy groaned. “And just when I was learning how to appreciate the little things, too.”

They reached the first neighborhood and the kids all rushed forward, heading to the first door they saw with the porch light on. “Trick or treat!” the kids chorused as a young woman opened the door.

When all the kids had gotten candy, they moved to the next house. “Appreciating the little things? You?” Emile asked. “That’s something I never really expected from you, if I’m being completely honest.”

Remy stuck his tongue out at Emile. “Come on, I’m being serious here,” he protested. “I really hoped that I would have more time instead of being murdered.”

“Why’s that?” Emile asked, giving Remy’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Not the wanting to live longer thing. Why did you start appreciating the little things?”

Remy groaned and looked away. “You,” he admitted. “You just...appreciate so many little things. And once I can see what the little things are worth, and that they’re not so little after all...I appreciate them more. Maybe not in the same way you do, but I still appreciate them. And I’m learning to enjoy that. But now I won’t be able to because the second these kids go back to their parents one of them is gonna shout—”

“—That’s gay!” a young kid finished with glee.

Remy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “—And I’ll see my last day.”

“Or maybe not,” Emile said. He crouched down to the kids. “Hey, if you guys keep saying that, Mister Remy here might get in trouble. You guys know I love him, right?”

The kids all agreed.

“Well, that means that if he gets hurt, I’m going to get hurt, too, because I don’t want to see him in pain. And if both of us are hurt, than neither of us can come around anymore. Do you guys want to see us again?”

More noises and nods.

“Well, then you can’t keep repeating what Mister Remy says,” Emile said.

“Is it a bad word?” one of the boys asked.

“It’s not a bad word, but it’s not a word that you should be shouting just because,” Emile said. “Okay?”

Agreement all around. Relief flooded Remy’s body as Emile stood and held Remy’s hand again. “You’re a miracle worker,” Remy said.

“Not really, I just happened to be working in-depth on child psychology this semester,” Emile said with a shrug.

“Same difference right now,” Remy said.

Emile laughed. “Oh, come on, you can be good with kids too,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but you’re the one who understands how they tick the way they do,” Remy said. “I’d never be able to do that.”

“Well you might if you took psychology classes...” Emile said.

“No! No,” Remy said. “No, I don’t want to go back to college, Emile.”

“Well, if you decide you ever want to take classes without getting a degree from it, know that you can. It might be expensive, but you can do it,” Emile said.

Remy sighed. “Emile, college may be for you, but it is decidedly not for me. Even if I ever achieved that pipe dream of opening my own coffee shop, I wouldn’t want to go into business school. I know what I’m doing on that front, and besides, the Internet is free and can tell me all I need to know.”

“That’s a bit dangerous, relying on the Internet,” Emile said, as the kids kept moving house to house and they trailed behind.

Remy shrugged. “Eh, I’d make it work. And besides, it’s just a mental exercise.”

“You never know,” Emile replied with a shrug.

They went around two neighborhoods and one apartment complex before they went back to the shelter. All the kids thanked them and went to trade candy with each other while their parents looked after them. As Remy and Emile walked home, Remy brushed his hand against Emile’s. “Thanks for rescuing me earlier tonight.”

“Of course,” Emile said. “Tonight was fun. It wouldn’t do to ruin it by having you dead.”

[uta-h3m-vcd-tbw]

Who Am I?

I have attempted to dialogue the events in my life at least 100 times beforehand but probably more but could never bring myself to be completely honest.  Call this a personal inventory if you will.  I consider myself a better writer than most however when it comes to writing about myself my brain goes blank.  I know what I want to say, it’s just how do you go about telling anyone....”I am a Heroin addict.”  

I have read a couple books about other addicts & have watched countless documentaries, movies, & shows about addiction.  Always paying close attention to how the writer unfolds his/her story trying to translate it to my own with little success.  I eventually came to the conclusion that so much has happened in the two decades of drug use that there is no way fathomable to include everything...at least not in your standard literary fashion.  

A few days ago I stumbled across a new series on Netflix about a girl that liked to blog on Tumblr & suddenly I felt I may have an outlet to format this timeline of events.  Make no mistake about this...everything I write from this moment on is 100% true whether you choose to believe it or not.  Hell looking back....I don’t believe it sometimes & constantly find myself asking God why am I still here & why have so many perished before/besides me?  What makes me so special?

Most stories I read/watch about addiction are pretty generic.  It typically starts with someone who was injured & prescribed pain killers only to get cut off from the doctor & led down the dark & endless path of Heroin addiction.  They tell stories about the terrible things they did to maintain their habit & of loved ones they hurt along the way.  While I did horrible things as well, hurt & lost too many loved ones to addiction...this story is unlike any of the rest.  This is a story of addiction...obviously...but also one of organized crime, corruption, murder, extortion, jail/institutions, & love but mostly death.  

Every addiction specialist or rehab I have been to always had the same fault....they try to find some underlying reason as to why I started, “self medicating,” & attempt to address it.  I’ve had numerous heated arguments with councilors & doctors who insisted I was suppressing something deep down & may not even know it!  While I have heard of such instances to actually be the case I can very well tell you I am as normal as you are.  

I grew up in a child’s utopia in an upper-middle class suburb roughly 20 miles North of Detroit.  Think of the famous Tim Allen show, “Home Improvement.” Not only was I raised in Metro Detroit but I also come from a family of two parents, still married, & was the youngest of three boys.  I know most people’s perception of Detroit isn’t very high however in the 80′s & 90′s it was a great place to start a family.  Before the auto industry tanked most people skipped college to work on the assembly line at one of the, “Big Three,” (Ford, GM, or Chrysler) & lived comfortably.  My dad was a, “Safety Restraint Engineer,” for a subsidiary company with several patents still in use today!  We spent our days riding bikes through endless trails behind our house, building forts, playing back yard football, & camping in the backyard on warm summer nights.  My brothers & I were raised Catholic.  Went to Church every Sunday & Catechism on Thursday nights.  If I could change one thing about my childhood I wouldn’t.  It was that perfect!  My Father didn’t fail to raise a man...I failed to be the man he raised. 

When someone asks me why I started doing drugs I tell them because it was fun....simple as that.  I know it sounds cliche but it’s true, everyone was doing them.  My older brothers were way ahead of me, listening to Grateful Dead & dropping acid in middle school!  I just liked drugs a lot more than everyone else. My mother knew I had an addictive personality because I would take everything I did to the max & always looked for instant gratification.  I never wanted to wait/work for anything.  I think my brothers were aware of this as well because they would NEVER sell me pot in these early days.  They wouldn’t even talk to me about it.  So as far as being as normal as everyone else....maybe that one’s a stretch.  On the other hand I was years ahead of my classmates & understood how things worked much easier than the majority of my class.  

By the time I reached High School I was selling/smoking pot & hanging out with kids my age but it wasn’t long before I caught the attention of the older guys in the neighborhood.  I had already garnished a somewhat questionable reputation through my brothers by default & everyone knew my name from the paper route I had since I was roughly 12 years old.  At first they were intimidating & I hated whenever I had to deliver papers on one of their streets...praying they wouldn’t be outside playing basketball or something.  They always hung around the same two or three houses depending on who’s parents weren’t home that day.  If they saw me coming every one of them would stop what they were doing & aim their attention towards me.  All of them except one.  I knew his face & heard stories whispered about him in the hallways at school.  His name was Franco & he was not just the leader of their group...he was, “Head Fucking Hancho.”  You know the scene from mob movies where people from the neighborhood come to sit with the boss & ask him all kinds of favors in return for their loyalty?  That was Franco at age 15!  He had everyone’s respect....even that of my older brothers who looked up to nobody.  If you had a disagreement with Franco it didn’t go far.  I’ve seen him hit guys so hard they temporarily lost the ability to speak!  After a couple minutes of hazing from the guys he would shout from the porch telling them to leave me alone & they would scatter like roaches! 

These encounters would eventually lead up to my first drug deal.  Up until that point I had been stealing whatever I could from whichever brother wouldn’t notice at the time & smoking/selling it with & to my friends.  They eventually caught me & beat the living shit out of me.  I don’t think they were actually mad about the missing weed it was more about not stealing from your brother.  The same day I was caught stealing weed I planned on meeting several kids from school at a friends house & of course everyone was expecting me to bring the pot.  To this day I don’t know how I got the phone number or the guts to call it but I reached out to Franco’s best friend Mark.  I don’t really no why I chose him....any of the older guys could have found me weed.....but I knew Mark sold it regularly & to pretty much anyone.  There was no cell phones at this time so I had to call his house.  He wasn’t as angry as I expected & told me to wait 5 minutes before riding my bike towards his side of the neighborhood.  I did exactly as he instructed me to & before I could get to the end of my street he was pulling up in a dark green Ford Ranger...Frank was with him riding in the passenger seat.  Mark got out...threw my bike in the back of his truck telling me to hop in the backseat before getting back behind the wheel & pealing off.  The music was so loud I could barely understand the lyrics over the bass let alone what Frank & Mark were saying but it didn’t matter because they weren’t talking to me.  At the time I thought Mark must want to get out of the neighborhood before doing the deal but after getting to know him I learned...that was his, “thing”.  He loved to drive around, blaring music, & smoking weed with whoever was willing to tag along.  He hated driving alone & his truck was like his office.  Frank acted as if I wasn’t even there...holding a cool composure looking out the window while nodding his head to the music.  Eventually we pulled down a random street, where Mark turned down the music before pulling the truck over.  He turned around & asked me how much money I wanted to spend before opening a large grocery bag filled to the top with little, “dime bags,” or roughly a large gram of weed in each bag.  I don’t know if it was how he had them bagged up but it was more than I had ever seen in one place at the time & my brothers always had a lot.  I had a handful of crinkled five′s & one dollar bills I collected from my friends earlier in the day at school.  It came out to around $24.  I remember it was less than $25 because Mark insisted that an 8th cost $25 & that I was a dollar short.  I didn’t even know what an 8th was or how much it cost but didn't want to screw up my first deal so I pretended it was just an honest mistake & he threw three bags in my lap.  Franco asked where I was going & asked if I needed a ride which I humbly excepted.  

From that day on things changed little by little with every passing day.  I hung out less & less with the kids my age to be around Mark, Frank & the rest of the older guys.  They saw me as the kid who could sell a lot of weed since I already had that reputation from my classmates.  I saw them as a ticket to popularity.  In my mind it was an even trade.  My mother had an entirely different opinion.....constantly telling me I should be hanging around with my younger friends.  To me it was harmless....choosing to see it as normal for a kid my age.  I had no idea where this new found friendship would lead us.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  

As I was saying before....so much has happened since this day that I cannot even begin to piece it all together in a manner in which it flows conveniently into a timeline of events.  This is the beginning of my attempt & you will have to stick with me to learn more as I continue to publish.  I will warn you upfront that I will be changing some names, maybe even places or be vague as I am still getting death threats to this day & also don’t want to negatively impact any of the families that have already been ripped apart from unimaginable losses.  Lastly I am still weary about telling my story in it’s entirety.  I am sure those who are close to me will be able to figure out who I am since most of what I am going to tell you has never been a secret save one part.  I have never told ANYONE the FULL story other than my parents.  I feel it is the main reason I have struggled in all my attempts at telling/writing what actually happened.  Please understand that I take absolutely NO pride in the things I have done & only feel I need to document what I went through so maybe the next kid contemplating the path I chose....will rethink the decision.  I can tell you now their is no glory or honor in what we did & the end result was nothing but pain & suffering for our victims as well as ourselves.  I really hope nobody reads this the wrong way & that I am able to accurately portray the pain/anguish we caused so they realize how brainwashed we were & the impact you can have on others no matter how minor you think it is.  You have to stand up against what may seem to be the correct/hard decision at the time or even a harmless one that you know in your heart/gut is questionable & choose to do what you know to be right.  The definition of the word, “popular,” is; liked, admired, or enjoyed by many people or by a particular person or group.  The groups that are using/selling drugs are the minority & in the end you will find most are not truly your friend.  When I go on social media, looking back at all the kids I graduated with, I realize now that those who did well in school & actively participated were actually the, “cool kids.”  They are the ones posting pictures of new houses, nice cars & beautiful wives with blossoming families.  There is nothing cool about being alone & having nothing to show for the last two decades of your life but scars.  It is not romantic in any way shape or form.  You will not find comfort.  

Stay tuned for more to come! 

[huntertales]

Part One: Be Careful Who You Make Deals With. (Sacrifice S08E23)

Episode Summary: With Crowley poised to undo all the good they’ve ever done as hunters; Sam, Dean and the reader find themselves cornered. But with Kevin’s help, the Winchesters and the reader bound into one last play against the king of hell. However everything comes with a cost. What must the three sacrifice to seal the gates of hell for good? Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader Word Count: 4,544.

Previous Part | Supernatural Rewrite Masterlist

In the few times you made deals with demons and the devil himself, you learned you needed to give something they wanted. For some it was a soul, perhaps your body for them to do whatever they pleased with. Other times it was your complete and total submission to them. Crowley wanted none of those things, he wanted something much more. He wanted you exactly where he could keep an eye on you; right under his thumb, defenseless and holding a slab of stone that was the key to shutting him and everything else like him away for good. You needed the demon tablet in order to keep your end of the bargain. And the only person who knew the whereabouts of the tablet was Kevin Tran himself. 

You told him what you and the boys were planning on doing, the kid was on board. He told you the location where he stashed the tablet after he started growing paranoid when the king of hell started messing with his head. It was out in the middle of an empty stretch of road, a perfect spot for the word of God to be hiding. You saw Mrs. Tran's car with a new set of license plates parked on the side of the road where the Impala pulled up from behind as Dean parked. Across the way you spotted a sort of ironic billboard above Kevin as he continued digging for the demon tablet. You found yourself staring at the devil with a slightly confused expression from the backseat window. 

You got out of the car and made your way across the street, catching sight of a painted devil to greet you. It was an advertisement for some restaurant, why they chose Satan himself dressed in a chef's hat and apron was beyond you. You brought your attention over to Kevin who was shoving more dirt out of a shallow hole until he pulled out a dirty backpack from the ground. He took out the other piece of the tablet, your only bargaining chip if you wanted this to go exactly how you had been working towards for the past six grueling long months. 

"You hid the demon tablet underneath the devil?" Dean asked the prophet, finding the irony in all of this himself. It was a little on the nose for his taste. "Seriously?"

"What? I was delirious." Kevin said. He dropped the backpack to the ground so he could place both pieces of the demon tablet together after they were accidentally broken apart months back. You watched as by some force they were mended back, as if they were never broken in the first place. Kevin handed over your bargaining piece over to Sam for safekeeping. "You sure this is gonna work?" 

Sam examined the tablet to make sure that it looked exactly as the demon would remember, wanting nothing to go wrong. "What other choice do we have?"

"All right, listen, this is a secret lair. You understand me?" Dean took out the box that held the key to the Men of Letters and handed it over to Kevin for him. He was getting an upgrade in his living status. There would be no more houseboats. You had a room ready for him in the bunker. However there came some rules for the kid. "No keggers."

"I don't have any friends." Kevin reminded you of the sad fact about his life.

"Yeah, well, just lay low. Who knows?" Dean tried cheering the kid up, reminding him of the possibility that he could go back to his old life and have a little fun if this all went according to plan. "You'll be a mathlete again before you know it." 

Kevin tucked the key into his pocket for safekeeping until he got to the bunker. With everything that you needed, you and the boys started to make your way down the hill and back to the Impala. Before you could get too far, Kevin stopped you to say one last thing. "You guys? You're doing the right thing." 

You gave Kevin a small smile from the encouraging words. All of his hard work over the past several months weren’t going to go to waste. Sooner than he thought he was going to be able to go back to a life he once had before all of this started. Without worrying about a demon wanting to kill him or the people he cared for. And hopefully without being bothered with prophet duties. Once was enough. You had one shot at making this work. You weren’t doing this just for you and Kevin. It was for the people who lost loved ones because of demons. And for the next generation so they wouldn’t have to suffer in ways that you did.

+ + +

Trying to find a location to do this trade off was harder than you thought it was going to be. There was no way you were letting Crowley anywhere near the bunker. The both of you agreed the trade off needed to be on neutral territory where no outsiders were allowed. No extra hunters to help you keep the peace. And no demon bodyguards to protect the king of hell if things were to go south. If you were going to do this, you were going to do it right. The property you agreed on was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Crowley was in the neighborhood and decided to use a piece of property that had been deserted for a few years. He figured the owner wouldn't mind. He’d been dead for quite some time now, after all. 

You remembered the last time you stepped foot on Bobby's property. It was almost three years ago. Right after you learned the truth about why you were pulled out of the cage. You spent your last night in Bobby's study, the exact same room where you spent countless nights sleeping and researching ways to solve your problems. Now all that remained of the place was a graveyard of abandoned cars and a burned down home. The sight of all, what came of Bobby's place, made your heart sink. It was like you were reliving all of your grief for the man again. 

You found yourself staring at Bobby's old car that was a piece of junk from the beginning you first laid eyes on it. You were surprised it still ran half the time when he got it on the road. It was beat up and old like the owner. Now all that remained for the vehicle was nothing more than a place to collect dust in the junkyard. The driver's side window was broken and certain parts of the car were already rusting. It was good for nothing more than for weeds to grow and a critter to call home. You reached out a hand to trace your fingers over the metal. Bobby was in a better place thanks to you. He might have given you hell for doing these trials, but you had a feeling he would be proud of you for making this far. You were doing this for him, and everyone who had been screwed over by those black eyed monster. It ends today, you thought to yourself.

"Hello, boys. Kitten." Crowley had a way of appearing out of thin air. He greeted you and the boys in a particularly happy voice. You turned your head to see the king of hell in all of his glory. You stared at him straight on with a blank expression, giving him the idea that you were trying to hide your anger at how all of this was ending. Dean scanned the area to see if there was anyone else around. When all that remained was the four of you, all of you began taking a few steps forward. "What's that old expression? Success has many fathers. Failure is a Winchester." Crowley thought his joke was funny from the laugh he let out. You responded with a dirty glare, knowing exactly how the quote went and the implication he was making. "Where's the stone?"

"You show us yours, and we'll show you ours." Dean suggested to the demon.

"Really, Dean? I'm trying to conduct a professional negotiation here, and you want to talk dangly bits? The stone." Crowley always had a knack for twisting the simplest of words into something more different, He skipped right to his demands, wanting to see the very thing he'd been working tirelessly to keep in possession. After all, the demon thought it rightfully belonged to him. Sam attempted to reach inside his jacket to do exactly that, however the demon stopped him, wanting to use the most extreme of caution. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slowly." Sam did exactly as he was told. He cautiously slid a hand inside his jacket and pulled out the stone you had retrieved from the prophet himself. The sight of the demon tablet made Crowley smirk in delight. "There she is." 

Crowley promised you he was going to play fair when he opened up his jacket to show you the angel tablet that was tucked safely in the pocket of his own jacket after Dean demanded it as a fair exchange. While it was refreshing to see a demon trying to conduct business, this wasn't no ordinary deal. You raised your brow slightly, knowing he was one thing to make it official. You needed to sign on the dotted line in order for this to be complete. 

"And the contract?" You asked him. Crowley pulled out something from his jacket that resembled just that. However it seemed you underestimated what you were getting yourself into when the contract wasn't in the form of a piece of paper. Not even in a packet. You watched as he pulled out a scroll and tossed it, letting the paper roll all the way out, until it stopped right at your feet. The contract had to be at least ten feet long. You let out a frustrated sigh. "Yeah, I'm sure there's no hidden agendas in there." 

"The highlights—we swap tablets, you stand down from the trials forever." Crowley told you the key components all of you agreed to on the phone.

"You stop killing everyone we've ever saved." Sam reminded the demon about the most crucial part of the deal he might have forgotten about. It was the reason why the three of you were here in the first place, stooping so low just to keep a few lives still breathing. 

"Agreed." Crowley reassured the younger Winchester.

You and the boys exchanged glances, wondering one last time this was how you really wanted all of your hard work to end up. Backing down and taking a plea deal to stop from anymore innocent blood shed. It wasn't how you wanted this to go if you were being honest, but you knew it was the right thing to do. You nodded your head. Dean pulled out a pen from his jacket, deciding to be the one to read the fine print and sign his life away. Before he could bend down and grab the contract, Crowley immediately yanked it back by a few feet, stopping the older Winchester from doing such a foolish thing. 

"Unh-unh-unh. Nice, try squirrel." Crowley told the hunter. "Kitten is doing these trials. Kitten signs." 

"No, no, no.” Dean said. “She's not signing anything until I read the fine print."

You rolled your eyes in annoyance at how he was treating this whole situation and your role in it. Dean was always the one who took over and tried to save the day. It would come as no surprise to Crowley when you acted the way you always did, wanting to take control yourself. You snatched the pen out of his hands when he wasn't looking, wanting to do exactly what Crowley said to make sure this went properly. "Pretty sure I'm capable of reading it myself, Dean." 

"Hey, you wanted us here. We're here. But I'll be damned if I'm gonna let him screw us even more." Dean whispered his frustrations to you about how you were handling this situation more casual than he was. He did it just at the right level so the demon heard everything, exactly as you planned. 

"What's this? Trouble in paradise?" Crowley found himself chuckling at the sight of you two disagreeing. The both of you turned your heads to give the demon a dirty glare for poking his nose into a conversation that didn't concern him. "I don't mean to turn away from whatever domestic dispute you're having, but I'd like for things to keep moving.”

Dean grabbed the pen back from you before you could so anything stupid like you always did without thinking. He didn't sign the contract, instead, he took his sweet time reading every single word to make sure Crowley wasn't planning on doing something stupid. Along the lines of trapping your soul in hell when you die. Killing everyone for the hell of it. All around screwing your lives over for his personal benefit and entertainment. Dean made it halfway through the contract with only a few more feet to go through until he was finished. 

“You’re gonna move your lips up the whole way up here, aren’t you?” Crowley asked the man. Dean ignored the remark and continued on skimming the contract, taking another step forward to the demon so they were only about a few feet away from one another. “You know why I always defeat you? It’s your humanity. It’s a built-in handicap. You always put emotion ahead of good, old-fashioned common sense.” Dean looked up at the demon, knowing soon enough he was going to regret saying those words. “Let’s have Mommy Dearest sign it now, shall we?”

You began making your way over to Dean and the demon, Sam following behind. You knew the easy way out of this was to sign your name and hand over the tablet. You could go on with your life without worrying about the trials and having innocent lives in danger all over again. You could focus on more important things in life you had been put on the back burner. That would have been the easy option...but you weren't the one for shortcuts. You liked to stick to things until the very end. And there was no way you were quitting when you were so close to the finish line. You looked over at Dean when the both of you made eye contact. You nodded your head.

In one swift motion, Dean took out the handcuffs from his jacket pocket and slapped it on Crowley's wrist without having him realize until it was too late. All of this worked out easier than you thought it was going to be. Crowley's arrogance was always his downfall. He always thought of the big picture, never the little details that went into a plan. You were always one step ahead of him the entire time. He stared at the cuff around his wrist and the other one occupied by the older Winchester. Both of them were trapped together. 

“Is this a joke?” Crowley asked the three of you. You answered him by giving a smirk, knowing this was your turn to gloat in your victory at how you had him cornered. The demon thought you were stupid enough to put him in regular handcuffs. It seemed he didn’t notice the details in the metal. “You realize all I have to do is…” Crowley snapped his fingers, thinking that was going to be his key to escaping this situation. However you noticed he remained where he was. 

“Unh-unh-unh. Demonic handcuffs, jackass. No flicking, no teleporting, no smoking out—oh, and...no deal.” Dean told the demon about the real negotiations about how this was gonna go down. The poor bastard was never going to make it out of this deal with what he wanted. Because if you also learned anything about making deals with demons, it was that you screwed them over first before they could screw you. "Which pretty much means that you're our bitch." 

"Fine. You want to play chain gang? Let's." Crowley wasn't the least bit afraid about how all of this was gonna go down. He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty every once in a while, especially when it came to getting something he desperately wanted. He swung his fist right at Dean, landing a sucker punch to the man's face. "You saddled yourself to the wrong bull, mate." 

Crowley thought one punch was going to be enough for a man to break down a man who took beatings almost every week. Dean wasted no time in seeking his own revenge when he threw a punch at the demon after recovering from his own. He quickly grabbed the angel tablet from Crowley's jacket and handed it over to Sam for safekeeping. Dean grabbed the demon by the sides of his jacket so he was staring at him straight in the eye, wanting to make it clear a few love taps were nothing compared to what all of you were going to do to him. He’d get the crap beaten out of him if it meant he got the demon exactly where he wanted him.

"I can do this all day, 'cause you know what? Damn, it feels good! But sooner or later, you're gonna have to face it—you're ours." Dean told the demon about how it was going to go down. He might have kept every demon in hell away from you, but there was still one he didn’t take in account for. Himself. "Which means that your demon ass is going to be a mortal ass pretty damn quick." 

"What's he mouthing on about?" Crowley asked you, still not getting how screwed he was. 

“You can thank Y/N for what you got yourself into.” Sam said. “You’re the third trial, Crowley.”

You thought the demon should have known better than to try and mess with you. At least keep a promise he could fulfill. Crowley made it quite clear he wanted to seek a little revenge for how many times you screwed him over. However it seemed he was going to have to eat those words at the predicament he landed himself in by the sheer of his own confidence with how he thought he had a grip on things. Now the tables turned on him, and it was time for your to seek a little revenge of your own. 

+ + +

You and the boys already had a plan set in motion long before you had a demon in your grasp to complete the third trial once and for all. An abandoned church not too far out of town was the perfect location to cure a demon. Not only was it consecrated ground, there was nobody around for miles to disrupt you for the journey you were about to embark on. Six months of translating and putting your neck on the line to complete the first two trials, endless fights between you and Dean for what you were doing, all of it lead you to here. You sat in the passenger seat of the Impala while Sam drove, leaving Crowley and Dean to ride in the back. There wasn’t a chance you were going to risk of letting the demon get away. The handcuffs were working like a charm to keep him exactly where you wanted. And that’s how you were going to stay that way. 

When you saw the church pull up, you felt a sense of nervousness come over you at what you were about to do. This was really happening. By tonight you were going to have cured a demon. And you were finally going to be done with these trials forever, hell locked away for good. You felt a shift of movement in your stomach, a little punch from what it felt like. You hid the smile that wanted to spread across your face at feeling the baby move. They were giving you encouragement that everything was going to work out just fine. After tonight it was going to be all about them. How you were going to spoil them by giving them the best life they deserve. 

Crowley could pretend all he wanted that he wasn't the least bit scared at what was happening. But he had no chance of escaping. You had him chained down into a chair, extra tight from restraints on his hands and feet, along with a collar around his neck that had a chain to the floor to keep the demon from bashing his skull against yours. Or even biting for that matter. Dean finished up the final touches of the devil's trap to seal the demon for good, just in case he somehow escaped from the bonds, there was no way Crowley could get out from the circle. 

“You really think this is gonna hold me, that you’re gonna cure me, or whatever it is?” Crowley asked the older Winchester. Dean didn’t feel the need to respond to the demon considering the state that he was in right now. He tossed the spray can across the room, letting it hit the wall and land with a thud, slowly rolling back to the demon with no chance of him to kick it away. 

Dean made his way out of the church and headed over to the Impala where you and Sam had the trunk open, gathering all the supplies you need for this to work. While Sam poured some holy oil into a jar, you looked up to the cloudy sky when you heard a rumble of thunder. There was a storm brewing in the near distance, it had already been raining for quite some time now, considering the ground was reduced to nothing more than mud. You weren’t going to let a little rain ruin the good mood you had going for yourself. 

“He’s primed.” Dean said. “How you feeling?” 

“Honestly, for the first time in a long time, it feels like we’re gonna win, boys.” You admitted to them about your well being. You gave a small smile to reassure them you were going to be okay throughout all of this. “I’m good.” 

“All right, well, no dancing in the end zone until we’re finished. What’s the good father’s playbook say now?” Dean asked, curious to what the next step was for all of you.

"Well, now that we got the consecrated ground, I just slip Crowley one dose of blood every hour for eight hours and seal the deal with a bloody-fist sandwich." You told him the game plan, grabbing a small container from the trunk and pulled out a clean syringe. "That should do it." 

“Your blood’s supposed to be purified, isn’t it?” Dean asked you an important question. You knew the only way around this was to have you give Crowley your own blood. There was a risk of doing this, considering what you went through years back. But it was a risk you were willing to take. Sometimes all you needed to do was go to confession to be pure in the eyes of some religions. If it were only that easy. You might not have been born a human, but there was nothing a good old confession that couldn’t wash away your sins. "You ever done the 'Forgive me, father' before?"

"Well, once, when I came back from hell. The first time. And another time...a few months back after we worked that case with Prometheus and Zeus.” You admitted to them. Your hand reached up to clutch your locket that you always wore, wondering if that was truly a confession. And not along the lines of bargaining for help when you were desperate for it. "I don't know exactly what to say now.” 

"Well, I mean, I could give you suggestions if you want." Dean tried to be helpful. You didn't see any harm in it, wondering if he might be able to come up with some past mistakes you might have forgotten about. "Well, I'm just spit-balling here, but if I were you, uh...the whole deal you made with Crowley way back to stay a demon. The deal you made with Cas. The demon blood you gave to Sam while under the influence of Famine. Trusting Ruby. You helped free Lucifer. Not telling me you were alive when you came back from the cage. Sleeping with Sam behind my back—”  

“Okay, okay! I get it.” You stopped him from listing off any more of your accomplishments over the past handful of years that lead to failure. You had to admit you didn’t exactly take into consideration how much damage you inflicted. You stared at the church for a moment, suddenly realizing again what you were getting yourself into. Not only were you locking away every demon out there, you were also facing against your own. "Let's see how this goes."

"How about what you did to Sammy in the eleventh grade when we stayed with you that one summer?" Dean kept on throwing suggestions out there, bringing up some old prank that ended in a disaster. "Why don't you lead with that and trickle in with the big stuff later?"

“Wait, that was you.” You knew exactly what the man was talking about. You had your fair share of pranks over the years, however what happened was all on him. Dean realized that you were right, causing you to roll your eyes. “Dummy.” 

You left the brothers alone to discuss the prank that went south, you had to do a little confessing of your own. It felt a little strange when you stepped inside the church and made your way over to the confessional. You inhaled a deep breath and opened up the door, forcing yourself to step inside and shut the door behind you. Normally you weren't afraid of enclosed spaces, but for a moment you felt like you were back in the coffin again when you came back from hell the first time around. After you took the deal with Lilith that ended with you watching Dean get torn into pieces. Another thing you needed to confess to be forgiven from your mistake. Another sin you made. Your punishment was fighting for your life to get out of the box. 

You felt your breathing slowly turn into shallow breaths at the memory. The complete darkness, the pain in your fingertips from banging on the top of the coffin for hours. Confessing to anyone for a way out of there before you died again from the lack of oxygen. How desperate you were to be forgiven for your mistakes. Now this was your chance to do it right. You got down on your knees and folded your hands together, wanting to make sure you were doing this correctly. This was your only and only shot to do this right. You needed to make sure you got everything off your chest. You knew the big guy upstairs was listening, it was your turn to make sure you were going to give Him something worthwhile of His time. 

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[arctic-comet]

Fic: Full Moon Over Central Park (Jancy Week 2019 Day 5: AU)

Posted under the cut and here at AO3

Jonathan found himself lying on the moist soil of the cave he always locked himself into for his transformations. Groaning, he pulled himself up, the pain on his cheek telling him that something had cut into his skin sometime during the previous night. As usual, just about every bone, muscle and joint in his body was complaining. It always took him a while to recover enough to even dress himself and get home, so he grabbed the blanket he’d been smart enough to bring to the cave, wrapped himself into it and curled up into a fetal position. Just for a little while…

The cawing of a flock of crows woke him up again when the sun was already high in the fall sky. Hell. He’d totally overslept, not that he would be delivering any documents or packages today anyway. He wasn’t sure if he could even get on his bike to ride to the train station to go home. Eventually he forced himself off the ground and pulled a pair of jeans and a sweater on. The air was chilly, but that was just about the least of his problems anyway. 

As he pedaled to the station, he remembered fall days like this that he’d been able to spend at home, with his younger brother and their mom. His mom would make the most delicious hot chocolate before they all burrowed under blankets on the couch, where either Jonathan himself or she would read a book aloud. His brother Will had always preferred adventure novels, but Jonathan liked horror and science fiction. Well, at least he had until horror had become a permanent fixture in his life. 

 A bite during a full moon in the woods close to his home.  At first he thought it was a stray dog, then he’d determined it had to be a wolf. Fearful of rabies, his mom had taken him to the hospital. He hadn’t contracted rabies, but instead something much, much worse. 

It took him a little over an hour to reach his dingy apartment building in Brooklyn, and when he did, the place was surrounded by police cars and ambulances, all their lights flashing and making his sensitive eyes hurt and his head throb. What had happened? 

Approaching the nearest cop, he was determined to get inside. Shows. Food. Bed. “Excuse me? What’s going on? I live here,” he told the stern middle-aged man, who eyed him warily in response. 

“Can I see some ID?” He asked, and Jonathan reached into his pocket, hoping to God he hadn’t lost it last night. To his immense relief, he managed to locate his driver’s license.

“Here you go.”

The cop scanned the license, his eyes darting between the photo and Jonathan. He smiled nervously, uncertain and tired. 

“One of the apartments is a crime scene. It’s being sealed off as we speak , but you can go home. Someone will be there to talk to you later.”

“Why?” He asked, frowning. He had no desire to talk to anyone.

“We need to talk to all neighbors, to check if someone heard or saw anything suspicious last night.”

“I wasn’t at home last night,” he replied bluntly. Cops made him nervous due to his ‘condition’, as he’d been picked up by a squad car a few times after a transformation before he’d learned to stay away from people until he was truly lucid. 

“Doesn’t matter, kid. We’re going to talk to everyone,” said the cop, handing Jonathan back his license. 

With an acknowledging grunt, he left the officer behind. Lucky for him, the cop was approached by a woman mere seconds after he’d moved on. 

There inside of the building was swarming with cops, too, and he had to dodge at least three of them on his way to his 4th floor apartment. On the landing there were even more cops and the door to his neighbor’s apartment was open. He’d barely seen the woman a handful of times during the time he’d lived there, but a chill still ran through him. Was she dead? 

“Is this your apartment?” Asked a female cop standing guard at the crime scene, motioning to his door.

“Ummm, yeah, it is.”

“Can you please go inside for now? Someone will be in to talk to you soon.”

Yeah. That was exactly what he was afraid of. If his neighbor had been murdered, of course he’d do his best to help out the police, but the thing was… He knew nothing. 

As soon as the door slammed shut behind him, he realized how bad he smelled. Sweat and animal carcasses. Jesus. His sense of smell was still heightened, so the stench nearly made him hurl.

***

“Oh no, no, miss! This is an active crime scene,” growled the uniformed officer. 

Nancy Wheeler nearly rolled her eyes, but managed to stop herself in time. Well, no shit Sherlock, that was why she was there in the first place.

“What happened?” She asked, testing her ballpoint pen on her notepad. 

The cop snorted. “We’re not telling the press anything at this point, so I suggest you scamper.”

“This is a free country and I have every right to be here,” she argued. If she got a dime for every time she was dismissed both in and out of the office, she’d be a rich woman. Listening to police radio had become her biggest hobby since moving to New York, and she often hung around fresh crime scenes, hoping to get the scoop early and actually break something worthwhile. Maybe then Mr. Adrian would at least acknowledge her existence. 

Her hunch told her that they could be dealing with a multiple homicide. This wasn’t a particularly good neighborhood, but not one of the worst ones either. No rich people, but supposedly no gangs either. The scene had gathered quite a crowd, with curious commuters and other people passing by sticking around to stare. Not that there was much to see at this point, nothing nearly enough for Nancy get front page material.

“Besides, you just let that guy in there!” She continued, pointing at the back of the young man who she’d seen talking to the cop minutes before. 

“That guy? He lives there.”

If they were letting tenants in, it probably meant the crime scene was almost sealed off and that most of the police would be clearing out soon. Good. That meant she could go in soon herself, and talk to the neighbors. No doubt the police would be doing that, too, and she didn’t want them catching her doing it. If she got into real trouble with them, they’d end up calling the paper. Not to mention that she was currently supposed to be on her way to a Halloween fair in a small town in Long Island.  Screw that.

Biting into her lip as she considered her options, she spied a donut shop across the street.  Fantastic . The perfect place to survey the cops, particularly when they left the scene. 

She ordered a cup of coffee and a chocolate-covered donut and chose a window table with a good view of the building on the other side of the street. It turned out that she didn’t have to wait long to get something worth writing about, as a pair of cops stepped in and stood in the queue.

“Man, have you ever seen anything like that before?” Asked the younger officer. 

“Kind of, but that was years ago and when I was stationed in Harlem. Never seen anything this bad around here.”

“Sure makes you lose your appetite.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Finding the second body in the bedroom…”

“I know. Freaked the shit out of me too.”

So at least two people were dead. Nancy’s pen flew on the pad, writing down everything the cops said. She’d come to learn that eavesdropping was one of the most important skills a reporter could have. 

***

Jonathan groaned in desperation when there was yet another knock at his door several hours after he’d shut the door in the last officer’s face and retreated into his bed. He didn’t even bother turning the lights back on to answer the door this time. Why couldn’t these cops leave him the hell alone?

Practically yanking the door open, he expected to come face-to-face with another uniform, but instead there was a girl. Well, she was as much of a girl as he was a boy. She was… Girls like her- or even girls in general- or people- didn’t usually end up on his doorstep. And when he said usually, he actually meant never. She didn’t look like a cop, but there was a determined set to her jaw, making it clear she wanted something from him. And yet she wasn’t saying anything, seeming just as flabbergasted at the sight of him as he was of her. She was lovely, her wavy hair the color of chocolate, her eyes the deepest blue. 

“Hi,” she finally spoke, flashing him a smile that didn’t strike him as genuine. 

“Hi,” he replied. 

“I’m Nancy Wheeler, I work for the NY Daily Courier. I’m here to ask you about the murder-“

“I already told the police everything I know, which is basically nothing,” he said, interrupting her.

“Uh, right. I understand, but please, can I ask you a few questions?” 

Although he wanted little more than to get back under the covers, he found himself unable to deny her simple request. It would be a short talk anyway for sure, as he had so little to contribute.

“Okay,” he sighed, allowing her inside, before realizing how messy his place was. His face probably flashed red as he watched her curious eyes scan his dirty dishes and discarded clothes. He wasn’t even that messy of a person, but when the change approached, it always made him uneasy and somehow that uneasiness manifested itself as him skipping housework. Why did it even matter, though? She was a reporter, here only to do her job.

 “I’m Jonathan Byers, in case you want to put that in your notes,” he continued, realizing he hadn’t even introduced himself. His mom would smack him upside the head. 

“Thank you. So, how long have you lived here?” She asked, obviously wanting to get straight into business.

“A couple of years.” The manners taught to him by his mom nagged at the back of his head, insisting that he offer her coffee and perhaps a sandwich. “Would you like something to drink? I’ve got coffee, and some sandwiches.”

“Coffee sounds great, actually. How long did your neighbor live in that apartment?”

“I think she moved in a few months after me, so maybe about a year and a half.”

“Did she live alone?”

“I think so, but I can’t be sure… I- I guess I don’t pay that much attention to my neighbors.” And most of the time he hoped they didn’t pay attention to him either. That was why he only spoke to people when he absolutely had to, like at work. 

“Did you ever talk to her? What was she like?”

He shrugged. “I guess I ran into her on the stairs a few times. She seemed normal to me, nothing that would suggest-“ he began, struggling to find the right words. 

“An impending violent death?” She suggested.

He nodded. “Yeah. She never caused trouble here, as far as I know.” He would’ve looked for another place to live if the police had started coming around regularly. 

“Apparently there was a second body in the apartment.”

He raised a brow. “Really?” The police hadn’t told him that.

Nancy nodded.

“How do you even know that?” He wondered aloud, his brows rising in surprise. 

“I can’t reveal my sources, but I heard it from law enforcement.”

Jonathan nodded.  Impressive.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that. I wasn’t home last night, only got back this morning when the cops were already here,” he replied, almost apologetically. 

“So you wouldn’t know who was with her last night?”

Jonathan shook his head. “No. Sorry.”

“Well, I’ll keep looking. Sorry to have bothered you,” she said, standing up to leave. He walked her to the door, hoping that despite his haggard appearance and the state of his apartment, she wouldn’t remember him in a bad way. That was new, since usually he settled on hoping people wouldn’t remember him at all. Reporters were at least as dangerous to him as cops were, so wanting her not to forget about him had to be a sign of him losing his mind. 

“You- you didn’t bother me. Good luck with your story.”

“Thank you… Would you mind giving me your number, in case I think of another question you might be able to answer for me?” She asked.

That was a surprising request, but he recited his phone number to her automatically, although the only other people who even knew it were his current and potential employers. 

He watched as she turned the corner and began her descent. Just before he closed the door, he heard her knock on a door on the floor below him and introduce herself once more. He bet she’d already forgotten his name. He’d just be the clueless nextdoor neighbor of a murder victim, who she never had to see again.

***

Even as Nancy listened to the old lady prattle on and on about how wonderful and polite the murdered woman had been, her thoughts were elsewhere. She still wasn’t quite sure what to make of Jonathan Byers, nextdoor neighbor. He’d claimed to not have been home during the murders and she believed him, but something about him nagged at the back of her mind. The deep dark circles under his eyes and the fact that he seemed to be mostly skin and bones should’ve led to the conclusion that she’d just spoken to a drug addict. But this wasn’t that kind of a neighborhood, and he didn’t… He didn’t seem like an addict. Although how in the world could she know that? 

Either way, he’d struck a chord within her, which was unusual. As much as she would’ve liked to think it was only her reporter’s instincts sensing that something was off about him, she had to admit her desire to know more about him wasn’t only about that. Nevertheless, she had to focus on finding out all she could about the murder case, and unfortunately Jonathan didn’t seem to be able to help her with that. 

“What about Alaina Torres’s neighbor, Jonathan Byers? What do you know about him?” She asked in a whim before considering whether it was a good idea.

The old woman blinked at her, obviously confused as to why she’d want to know about Jonathan.

“Well, he’s a quiet boy, that one. Carried my groceries up the stairs once when I sprained my ankle, but I don’t believe he speaks much with anyone here.”

“Does he ever have guests?”

“I haven’t seen anyone. Why are you asking about him, do you think he may have had something to do with poor Alaina’s death?”

“Uh, not really, at this stage I’m trying to get a feel of the people who lived close to her,” she claimed, feeling embarrassed about lying. 

“Surely he can’t be a bad guy.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Mrs. Johnson,” she replied, flashing a smile. 

Her phone rang, filling the apartment with its shrill sound.  Shit. She should’ve muted it.

“Are you going to answer that?” Inquired Mrs. Johnson.

“Yeah. Uh, please excuse me for a minute.” Removing the phone from her purse as if it was a dangerous insect, she brought it to her ear. 

As usual, her boss didn’t bother with the basic niceties. “Where are you?” He demanded.

Biting into her lip, Nancy rolled her eyes. “I’m in Long Island at the Halloween fair you sent me to. Should be ready to come back to the office within an hour.”

“Well, get back here as soon as you can. I’ve got another job for you.” 

Really? Over the last few months, her naivety had dissipated little by little with every filler story she was asked to write. And yet she still held onto hope that one day she’d be given a chance to make her mark, to be the top journalist she aspired to be.

“What is it?”

“An adoption event for a local shelter in Queens.”

Nancy liked animals, she truly did, but this was yet another feel-good story gig. Nothing serious. Wat was even worse that this meant she’d be stuck in Queens until tonight, which meant having to give up on this case for now.

“I’ll see you soon,” she promised Mr. Adrian.

“Oh, that sounded exciting!” Exclaimed Mrs. Johnson. If she only knew… 

Responding with a tight smile, she explained to Mrs. Johnson that she had to leave. 

As she exited the building, she couldn’t help but turn to direct one last glance at Jonathan’s window. She could swear she saw the curtains move.

[devilbat]

Always yours

Warning: nothing really besides bit of angst, bit of fluff. Mention of family passing away.

A/n: this may have multiple parts. For sure a part 2 will be in the works. From a request.

Thomas Sharpe x reader.

Your parents were good friends with the Sharpe’s. They always had your parents over for dinner or parties at their lavish mansion Allerdale Hall. Beautiful place full of hidden treasure and wonderful hiding spot. You grow up with Thomas and Lucille. You were a bit younger then Thomas. As a child you clung on to Thomas like a lost puppy. Always following him and he loved it. It was someone different then from his sister. You always felt funny around Lucille, she scared you. Never knowing what really happened to them after you left with your parents for the evening. Always remember that sometimes Thomas would wince in pain after you gave him a hug.

The day his Parents passed away, was a sad one. You and your family attended the funeral you stood by Thomas’s side that day. His sister was no where to be found. He had told you she sent to finish school. But it wasn’t the funeral that made your heart break or that started tears to fall. It was what Thomas told you. He was to go away for sometime to a boarding school. That day was one of the worst of your young life, losing your best friend. He was 11 at the time. As you walked with him to the carriage. He promised you that he would write to you. You made the same promise to write him as well. He also promised he would come back for you. That he would marry you some day. Which made you giggle in away you were to young to think about that. But for Thomas he had already grown up some from the horrors that had happened in that house.

Thomas made good on his promise of writing you. You got letters ever week. Making you heart whole. The letter in the beginning were of innocent children. When you were old enough. You had decided to visit Thomas. Even telling him you would. The school aloud visitors at times. Though your father had to accompany you. You were a bit nervous as you looked for the perfect dress to wear. You hadn’t seen him in a few years. Both of you had grown and with every letter Thomas wrote you, your love for him grow. Remembering a time when yours and Thomas father, had mentioned about arranging you to marry Thomas. That day Lucille went on a rant about it should never happen. Her mother screamed at her to stop her. It had scared you as you hide behind Thomas.

Once in the carriage you started to get too nervous. What if he didn’t like what he saw. You weren’t that little girl he always promised to protect you were a young lady. Yes he was a man now but it was all new even the letter had changed from a boy to a young man. The thought of what he could look like also ran through you head, and was he like the other boys his age. Mean and treated women like they were beneath them. You father and mother taught you to be strong yet lady like. They wanted the best for you. You were a bit different the the other girls.

Thomas watched out the window when the carriage pulled up. He knew it was you by the you’re family crest on the door. Thomas ran down the stairs almost running over a few of his fellow classmates. Bursting through the doors. Your father stepped out first offering his hand for you, helping you out of the carriage. When you stepped out Thomas came to a holt. His jaw dropped at the sight of you. See you all grown up in to the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He couldn’t move suddenly everything had stopped even his heart. He tried desperately to swallow the lump that invade his dry throat. His own body seemed to ache for you. To hold you, to touch you, to kiss you, to call you his.

“Ah, Thomas young lad. You turned in to a might fine young man.” You Father spoke first. Bring Thomas out of his thoughts. As you father reached his hand out to Thomas. Finally seeing Thomas as your father brought you to attention. He took your breath away. When your eyes landed on him. This was not the same boy you once knew. You suddenly felt shy. Almost hiding behind your father.

“Yes, it is good to see you Mr. y/l/n.” Thomas voice was higher then normal he could control his excitement. As he took your fathers hand and shook it. Before tuning his attention back on to you. “Miss. Y/n. Your look stunning.” Tomas smile. Oh dear god his smile was about to bring you to your knees. Thomas took your hand into his and with a bow, placed a soft kiss on your knuckle.

“Thomas.” You squeaked out, as you curtsied, though you couldn’t control your giggle or the heat that ran to your face. For it being cold day it felt hotter then the hottest day in summer.

Managing to get you alone, Thomas walked you around the area. With your arm tucked under his. Your father had wanted to check out the school. But as you were a girl you were not allowed to go in so Thomas had reassured your father he would keep an eye on you. Once you two were alone, making sure no one was around. Thomas turned around to embrace you in a long awaited hug. That lingered long then what would be deemed as appropriate. You gladly clung on to him. Like he was going to disappear.

“Oh Thomas,” You buried your face into his strong chest. “I’ve missed you so much.” You felt like crying. Being held so tightly by him. Like when you were kids. His sent had changed from when he was a boy. It was enticing, welcome, and wanted.

“I’ve missed you as well y/n, my love.” He cooed. As one hand moved away from you, the other still pressed around your waist firmly. His free hand moved under your chin holding it between his fingers, as they guided it up. To have you look at him. His head lowering down to yours to press his lip upon yours. Even if you wanted to move way the grasp on your chin would not allow it. You whimpered under his kiss. You found yourself breathless.

“Thomas!” You both heard from afar. Making you both jump apart from each other. If it weren’t for the fact that is was a feminine voice you would have expected it to be your father. Both of you looked over to see Lucille run towards Thomas. You sighed as you glanced over to Thomas. The moment over, as his eyes lit up to see his sister who he hadn’t seen in a very long time. She practically knocked him down when she engulfed him in a hug. After that day everything changed and you never saw Thomas after that day.

*10 years later.*

Thomas’s most resent wife had passed away by the hands of Lucille. He never wanted to to do this. But Lucille weaseled her idea on him using him like a fertile. Giving him love he thought he needed love that he missed. The love he never could feel. Like he did when he was with you. Deep down he knew this was wrong he tried to find you. After Lucille pulled him from boarding school. But your family had moved. He hated himself after that day at school when his sister showed up. He should have told you. He loved you and proposed to you that day.

Thomas was in town for a few days, really he wanted to get away from his sister. He just wondered around, it was a nice spring day. His feet carried him to your old neighborhood. Passing you house. He stopped for a moment to remember the times he had with you. The moments he regretted. He didn’t really pay attention to the woman that was coming out of the house. He was just lost in his own memories.

Permanent tags: @kitkatkl @lokilvrr @instantnoodlese @drakesfiance @meyoko10 @jackheart180 @miraclesoflove @wolfcore227 @mr-hiddlestons-pet @madleiine @teageowen @scorpionchild81

Tom/Loki Tag’s: @theoneanna @graveyard-groupie @silverquartx @moonfaery @kcd15 @moonlightprime @youveseen--thebutcher @shockwavee @sabine-leo @screw-real-life-i-pick-fandoms @vethrvolnir @darkprincessloki92

[petri808]

Links in a Chain

The complete story for the Dragons Week 2019.  Prompts in order: Kija, Shin-ah, Jae-ha, Zeno, Family Bonds, Old Gen vs new Gen, Future.  ~~ breaks left in because Tumblr posts weird  

AU story, Canon divergence. Each of them came from different backgrounds, but there was something that tied their lives together and, in the end, they learn how family meant much more than just by blood.    

Don’t get it wrong, Kija had a good life, great family, anything he possibly could need, but he was so… lonely.  Toy’s weren’t much fun if you didn’t have anyone to play with.  School was miserable when all the other kids were, well, stuck up. Sometimes he wished his parents would just send him to the local public school.  Whenever they passed by it, the kids in the playground looked like they were having so much fun!  And then he would arrive by chauffeured car to his private school, where all the kids had their noses in the air and were more interested in one-upping each other in who had the most of, whatever was the item of that day.  Kija wasn’t like them at all.  Oh, he could act a bit on the spoiled side but, let’s just say, his personality was much more naïve and preferred simpler things.

Their neighborhood wasn’t much help in this regard, the other families with children around his age either attended his school or the matching girls one.  Yeah…. Life for Kija were days often spent with nanny’s trying to keep him entertained.  But he did have one saving grace.  Mr. Mundok down the street had taken in his grandson Hak just over a year ago and they were only one year apart in age.  Kija had heard his parents whispering about it at the time.  Father died while serving in the military overseas… mother couldn’t handle the loss and took off leaving her son behind. That boy was sure lucky to have a grandfather to take him in.  

Kija knew old mister Mundok because their families were acquainted and of course the idea that another little girl was always over at that house caught the boy’s attention too. At first Kija thought little Yona was the man’s granddaughter but turns out her father is an old business colleague. Not that young Kija cared about such details for the only thing that mattered was the blooming of hope and maybe friendship for a lonely child.  And Yona was a total darling.  There was just something special about her and she was turning into the little sister that Kija’s parents never gave him.    

But Hak, now there was a kid that wasn’t the easiest to be around.  If he wasn’t being moody or sarcastic with Kija, the boy would sometimes not talk at all preferring to tinker around with his grandfather’s martial arts stuff rather than deal with people.  Mr. Mundok explained once that his grandson was still dealing with some of the things that happened and hopefully, he’d get better with people soon. By far, the best times was when Yona was visiting and the three of them hung out.  That girl had a knack for getting Hak to play with them no matter if he whined, he’d still do as she asked.  Yeah, the three of them was still a whole lot more fun than none and things were about to get even better…

~~

In another section of their vast metropolis, a young boy had glued himself into the corner of a closet.  For all of his short life, the shy but astute child knew nothing of warmth or affection, just the bitter darkness that was his world.  The few interactions he had with adults were mostly formalities, they fed and clothed him, taught him basic language skills but that was all, he didn’t even know who he was for they only referred to him in pronouns.  It was a strange life to say the least.  They never harmed him, at least not physically laid a hand on him, but it was as if they didn’t really want to touch him or get too close.

The sparsely furnished room was all he really knew about the world aside from the few storybooks that gave him a fantasy view of what might exist. 23 hours a day locked in with only a bed, a lamp, a desk with a chair and a handful of toys like a small bouncy ball that he had to play with quietly or risk getting yelled at.  Even at such a young age, he realized something was very odd about his circumstances, but he was too shy or scared to say anything like now as he huddled in the closet.  The weird chanting and sounds coming from the other room.  He could hear many adults talking… about him.

Look at his eyes, they are not normal.  Evil.  We have told you, he will grow up and bring anger from our Gods.  We will not tolerate this blasphemy any longer, either you get rid of the spawn or you must leave our sanctity!  

“Shin-ah, Shin-ah wake up…”

In a start, the young boy shrieks, scrambling over the bed and pressing himself against the wall with his eyes screwed shut.  He feels the bed shifting and a warm hand coming to rest on his knee.  A sweet girls voice breaking through his panicked mind…. It was so soothing…

“Shin-ah it’s okay, was it that bad dream again?  You’re safe now remember, here at grandpa Mundok’s.”

Shin-ah…. That’s the name she gave me when I got here.  He flashes back again to the river and tries to shake the memories out of his head.  That was 3 months ago.  He’d been so scared when the adults yanked him out of the closet and left him near a river with nothing more than the clothes on his back.  After a day, starved and cold a passerby found him and took him to the authorities but with no way of identifying who he was, they placed him in this home for boys.  That’s where I am now.  

He peaked out with one eye, and sure enough the angels voice belonged to Yona.  Seeing him coming around she smiles and moves her hands to take hold of his.  “It’s gonna be okay Shin-ah, no one will hurt you anymore, I promise.”  There was still a lingering fear but so far, she had spoken the truth.  It was all so different for him to go from a lonely existence to one where the people actually talk to him and make him feel wanted.  He nods his head slowly and after Yona scoots off his bed, crawls back under his blanket.  “Goodnight Shin-ah!”

As much as he didn’t want to get his hopes up, the peace that little girl could always bring him began to lull him to sleep once more.  Maybe… maybe it will be okay…

~~

“Get back here kid!”

There was no way Jae-ha was gonna let them catch him and take him back to that hell hole of a home. No thank you!  He truly thought that no one would believe the stories of how he was beat and starved, shackled by a long chain to the wall heater so he couldn’t escape.  Freedom was what he craved for and it fueled his drive to break free.  

Too bad freedom didn’t come with a meal.  

It had been a week now of playing cat-and-mouse with the authorities.  But as his stomach growled, he stopped to looked around and realized he had wandered onto a street of affluent homes.  Thievery was not something Jae-ha wanted to resort to, but what other options did he have?  All the darkened homes, quiet while their occupants slept peacefully in beds. Jae-ha scoffed, lucky bastards.  These were the kinds of people that could afford to share their food, right?

Picking the simple lock was the easy part and luck have it that the back door had led straight into the kitchen!  Hallelujah! It was like sun rays shining down upon him as he opened the fully stocked refrigerator!  

“Shin-ah is that you raiding the fridge again?”  The young boy freezes in place, slowly turning around to see another boy, slightly younger, rubbing his eyes and staring at him.  “You’re not Shin-ah, what are you doing with our fridge?”

“Yoon, what’s going on down there?”

Shit!  It’s an adult’s voice!  Jae-ha glances at the back door.  He could out run the kid, no problem and takes a step in that direction.

“Are you hungry?”  The kitchen light snapping on causing Jae-ha to flinch again.  He was busted, the older male was standing near the door now.  Jae-ha presses himself against the counter afraid to say a word, studying the situation and looking for his way out.  But again, the older gentleman asks the same question and this time Jae-ha is starting to notice the softness in the man’s tone. “Boy, I can see you must be starving. Yoon will you make him a sandwich?”

“Sure, thing grandpa!” the other child ignores the fact that there is a stranger in the room and simply goes around focused on his task.  

“My name is Mundok, gramps to these boys.”  He stays his ground near the door for now watching the frightened child.  “I’m not gonna hurt you.”  

Jae-ha was sure this was just a ploy to catch him so they could call the police.  Since when are people so kind?  He continues to watch the old man until the other child walks up and sticks the plate out to him.  “Here, you should eat.  It hurts when your stomach is empty, I know.”  Jae-ha looks at the plate, it did look so tempting….  “Gramps isn’t lying,” Yoon cut through the young boy’s thoughts. “He ain’t my real grandpa, just the guy that took me in.  There’s two other boys that live here too.”

“I can help ya boy, but you need to talk.  If you ran away from home it was for a good reason, I’m sure, cause no one runs away unless they got a dang good one.”  He moves away from the door and takes a seat on the opposite side of the island counter. Yoon places the plate on the counter and fixes a glass of water too.  “Yoon, you should get to bed it’s late, but could you grab one of Hak’s outfits and bring it to me first, I think it would fit this young man.”  Yoon nods and leaves the room on his task.  Mundok chuckles, “Yoon is such a great kid,” turning to look at Jae-ha who still hasn’t moved a muscle, “his family was too poor to care for him, so he had resorted to dumpster diving.  I convinced the family to let me adopt him and brought him here.”  

Yoon returns a few minutes later and places the shirt, shorts, and underwear on the counter before waving and skipping back upstairs.  “Tell ya what son,” the old man stands up slowly, keeping his hands resting on the counter, “I’m old and tired so I’m gonna go back to sleep.  You should eat so ya ain’t starving tonight, take the clothes too and if you want,” he points to a utility room, “there’s even a shower if you wanna use it.”  Standing straight now, “stay, go, the choice is up to you, I won’t stop ya if you wanna leave.”  Mundok starts to walk away, still talking as he does.  He points to another room, “living rooms got a couch if you’re tired,” waving without turning around, “night kid.”

Was it really possible that this old guy was for real?  Jae-ha stares at the food, the clothes…. He glances around the room as tears slowly trickle down his face…  

~~

It was a little weird when he first moved in.  You’d think he’d be used to living in a house full of boys, but these weren’t his relations. The old man that took him in, told him to call him gramps and think of this as his new family.  Could he really do that?  They were all younger than he was.  The two oldest Jae-ha and Hak didn’t seem very interested in getting to know him.  Shin-ah, well that boy was just eerily quiet, but Yoon at least said hello.    

Zeno knew that they often wondered about him, this aloof kid, how the hell could he smile after what happened to him?  To be honest, he wasn’t sure either.  To the world, Zeno practically radiated sunshine but inside the nightmares still plagued with him, toying with his sanity.  Mundok had sat all the kids down, including Kija and Yona, like he always did when a new child joined the household and told them.  But the old man only gave them the info they needed… a lone survivor of a horrific car crash with no living relatives.  That was how the 11-year-old came to live with them.      

But Yoon knew the truth. The roommate heard the quiet sobbing or witnessed the sleepless nights and did his best to comfort his new friend. Both boys assumed gramps had designed it that way, pairing them up while putting Jae-ha and Shin-ah in the other room. That old man had a knack for tactical strategies and a gift for the human condition.  Somehow, he just knew the young boy would provide a comforting shoulder without being laced with judgment.  It came-in handy when once, after a pretty terrible nightmare Zeno confided that he felt bad for out living his other siblings or parents, that he couldn’t understand what had made him special enough to survive.

That had to be tough to live with.  

“There must be a reason,” Yoon had pointed out that night, “look at how much you make people smile around you Zeno, that’s a pretty cool thing, I think.  There’s so much bad stuff in this world, it needs people who can still be so happy.”  

“How are you so smart for an 8-year-old?”  Zeno had sat back in his bed and laughed from the young boy’s serious expression.

Yoon had just shrugged,“the library is free, so I spent a lot of time there.”

Zeno had settled under the covers at that point, “Thanks, it’s nice having someone to talk to, makes me feel less lonely.”

“Same,” the boy smiled, “good night Zeno.”

After a few months the nightmares fizzled away and while he still thought about his family, Zeno realized that he had been blessed with a new one.  Three brothers had been lost, but even more gained plus a sister, and that made Zeno smile.  He loved them all, even the sarcastic Hak.  With Yona, it was absolutely wonderful having her around and while Kija didn’t live there, he visited so frequently it was as if he was part of this mixed family unit.  Zeno had gone from being the baby of the family to the eldest sibling.      

As he looked around the dining table one evening, watching everyone laughing and talking about their day, he couldn’t help but smile and believe it…  Maybe there was a reason after all.

~~

All the previous years had barely prepared them for this moment.  They were better now and now it was their turn to be the strong ones.  The six young men huddle around the young teenage girl as she stares at her father’s casket.   Mundok places a hand upon her shoulder, “it’s gonna be okay Yona, we’ll help you get through this.  I’ll make sure your father’s business and legacy continues, I promise.”

Yona could only stare forward in disbelief.  Her hands hung at her sides, “But I still don’t understand w--why….  How could he hurt my dad like that when he was just trying to do the right thing?”  She looks up at her best friend Hak who just stood to her side.  The whites of his knuckles, the scowl and narrowed expression… her dad had treated him like a son, so his anger made sense.  Yona tugged gently at his sleeve, “Hak?”  He was so focused on the casket that it took a couple of pulls to gain his attention.    

When he finally turns and looks, to see her riddled with pain and eyes misted over, his heart clenches tighter along with his fists.  Yona didn’t deserve this, that bastard!  How could he hurt his cousin like that!  Her eyes crinkle at the corners causing the tears to pool in them.  She’d held back the tears but there was no stopping them now and in a surprising move she launches into his chest, buries her face into the fabric and hands gripping. It takes a couple seconds to register in the young man but when it does, he wraps his arms around the girl.  His anger swept away by the need to console her instead.

Each of the other five boys immediately moves in to embrace Yona until she was buried beneath a sea of arms and bodies.  She was their little sister and big brothers protect little sisters.  If she was in pain, they would be there for her, just like she had been for them years ago.  Her sobbing continued but at a milder pace, tucked away in Hak’s arms and soothed by the rest of them.  Kija, Yoon and Zeno, Shin-ah and Jae-ha all cooing and whispering their consolations.      

There wasn’t a dry eye to be seen.  

Mundok simply stood back and watched it unfold.  He never imagined all those years ago when he’d taken the first child in, that this would be where his life would end up.  It warmed his aging heart, and in that moment, he knew they truly would be okay. All of those boys with heartbreaking stories of their own had come so far…. They will be great men, he mused, no, they were already amazing young men. Bonded through adversity, they would stare down the future together in a way that was yet to be seen, but Mundok was certain, they would be victorious in wherever their paths led them to.        

After a few minutes, they untangle themselves and lead Yona to the seats that were set up for the family so the funeral could commence.  As she sat between them, Yoon held her hand on one side, Hak kept his arm around her from the other, and the other four sat behind like guardians. Mundok took a seat next to Hak and closed his eyes, “She’ll be okay Il, you rest in peace old friend…”

A couple of weeks later the lot of them were busy at the Il family home, “Hey gramps,” Hak points at the faded scroll painting hanging on the wall, “do you know what that’s from, even Yona had no idea about it.”

“It’s a cool painting,” adds Yoon, “it like one of those fairy tale fantasy stories or something.”

Mundok walks over, “ah the Legend of the Five Dragons, it’s an old tale that supposedly took place over two thousand years ago here in Kouka.  I’m surprised you kids didn’t learn about it in history class.”  Taking the painting off the wall.  “Tell ya what, were almost done packing up this house, so when we get home, I’ll tell you guys the tale.”

It took them about a week to pack everything up, and six strapping young men sure made the move a lot quicker.  Mundok made sure that anything of real value or sentiment was kept for Yona in the future, but he had made the difficult decision as executor to sell her family home and for her to move in with them instead.  She understood, a house was just a house, but being with a family unit meant more.  Mundok’s home was already bursting at the seams but in a couple of months a new room would be finished and until then she could stay in Hak’s room.  

Once the final moving process was complete and they are hanging out after dinner, Mundok pulls out the scroll, laying it out on the table.  “You guys ready to hear the story?”  The group nods, some leaning forward, others relaxing back in their chairs.  “Kija, you sure you can stay longer for this?”

“Yeah, I told them I’d be staying through dinner.”

Mundok sits back and crosses his arms, “Over two thousand years ago this place we now call Kouka was nothing more than a land filled with warring tribes consumed with taking control and ruling over the peoples.  There was much bloodshed and chaos.  From the heavens the Hiryuu dragon watched all of these events unfolding and it began to break his heart because he loved humans and wanted there to be peace.  So, against the wishes of the other dragons he descended and took human form, even forgoing his powers to do what he could. Unfortunately, he was eventually caught and just before he was to be executed, the Hakuryuu, Seiryuu, Ryokuryuu, and Ouryuu dragons stepped in.  They didn’t want to see their beloved friend die so they made deals with four warriors to take their blood and a part of their powers on condition to protect Hiryuu for all time.”

He takes a drink of water before continuing.  “With the four dragon warriors at his side, Hiryuu was able to sweep through the lands and finally after many hard-won battles, united the peoples into one and Kouka was born.  So, what do you guys think so far?  Crazy or maybe it really happened?”

Hak scoffs, “these were probably just skilled warriors that the people called divine because they couldn’t explain how they were so good at what they did.”

“That could be true,” the old man nods, “it is often a human trait to attach such supernatural powers to those that seem inhuman.”

“Well I think it’s still cool to learn about the past,” Yoon smiles, “please continue gramps.”

Mundok grins, “I shall describe these dragons first starting with King Hiryuu.  They say he had purple eyes that shone bright with kindness and a personality to match, and yet his wavy red hair was seen as a raging inferno to his enemies ready to burn them to the ground…”  Suddenly the room fell silent as all head turned to young Yona.

“Whoa!” Zeno sits straight up in his chair, “you match the guy in the story Yona!”

“…Hakuryuu was physically strong with the power to crush his foes with his bare hands.  But his hair was softer, like the white snows from the mountains and eyes as blue as a glacier’s ice reflecting the sky….”  Now all eyes switched to Kija.

“…Seiryuu’s powers were the most dangerous of all for he could prey on people’s minds and drive them crazy.  One look from his serpentine yellow eyes and the last thing they may remember is his blue hair swaying in the breeze…”  By this point, the coincidences were starting to become quite eerie and Shin-ah shrank in his chair from the extra attention.  

“…Ryokuryuu,” Mundok chuckles, “they say he was quite a character always sarcastic but very caring. He loved keeping his green hair up in a pony tail and legend has it his purple eyes were fond with the ladies…”  

Jae-ha smirks and crosses his arms, “sound like a charmer to me.”

“…And finally, Ouryuu, the yellow dragon warrior with golden hair and a sunny disposition.  He was beloved by his fellow warriors and Hiryuu for he kept their spirits up even under the harshest of times.”

Unable to take the similarities anymore, “oh, this is some crap,” Hak waves an arm at the others in a fit, “how come they get to look like some ancient warriors of heaven! Did you just make it all up?”  

Yona places a hand on her friend’s shoulder, “it’s just a coincidence Hak, you don’t need to get so upset over it.”

“Yeah it’s just a story,” Yoon chimes in, “I ain’t in it either but I’m not mad.  You can see five characters on the scroll too.”

But of course, the jokester of the group couldn’t stay quiet.  “Awww, poor Hak.  Maybe you’re the Prince who sweeps in and steals one of Hiryuu’s daughters,” Jae-ha grins and gestures at Yona.  “We can call you the black dragon, since you’re always so moody.”

Mundok shifts in his seat expecting a fight to break out between the two boys.  But Hak’s face switches from anger to contemplation. Bringing a hand up to rub his chin, “I kinda like that… black…. Maybe the darkness dragon,” turning and smirking at Yona, “yeah… the one who wins the Princess’s heart.”  Groan erupt around the table while poor Yona is turning bright red.    

“Okay, okay,” Mundok cuts in, “so basically, after uniting the kingdom, peace reigns, everyone lives happily ever after, the end.”

“Wait that’s it?” Kija questions.

“Well considering there wasn’t anything of significance to happen since then, what else is there to tell?” Mundok counters.  “The rest seems even more farfetched.”

“We’re listening,” Hak retorts.

“Okay fine, they say that the warriors had lived on, that their blood would be passed down along the generations and that one day a reincarnation of Hiryuu would bring them together once more.”

“Tch,” Hak leans in, “old man what do you think this is?” Gesturing around him, “reincarnation,” he points at Yona, “four warriors,” he points at the other boys, “you think this is a farfetched?”  

~~

How many seasons have come and gone before this moment?  While never forgotten, the years since the accident have become a distant memory and so many wonderful new ones have taken their place.      

“Next we have our Philosophy majors…”

Zeno stood from his seat and followed behind the other students waiting in line for their diplomas. One by one their names are read as they stepped onto the stage and as his was called, shouts rang out from the stands.

“ZENO!!!! ZENO!!!!!  ZENO!!!”

His brothers and sister screaming and waving with banners.  Zeno chuckles when he sees gramps flashing away with a camera as he accepts his degree.  He shifts the tassel over and raises the diploma case above his head.  It was a proud moment for not just him but his family, all of them.  For the brothers and parents, he lost, and the siblings and father he gained…

“First of us to graduate!” Jae-ha claps Zeno on the back.  “How does it feel old man?”

With tears streaming down his face and a babbling wreck, “My boy!” Mundok hugs Zeno tight.  “I’m so proud of you!”

Hak rolls his eyes, “Geez gramps the water works, you gonna do this every single time one of us walks the line?”

“Damn straight I am!” Mundok wipes away the tears.  

Zeno smiles, “Thanks!” his eyes crinkling at the corners.  “I’m glad I have you all here to share this moment with.”

“Last of us guys to move in, first of us to move on huh,” Jae-ha quips.

“We’ll miss you when you leave,” adds Kija.

“Nope,” Zeno hugs the diploma to his chest, “I’m a homebody, so I’m not leaving anytime soon, I’d miss you guys too much.”

“Aww, you’re such a dork Zeno,” Jae-ha rubs his head, messing up his hair.  

For the next few minutes the boys joke around and chatter together sharing in some hugs, and a few more tears.  Mundok hangs back with the widest grin still plastered on his face. He knew it was only a matter of time before one by one they will move on in their lives but that was okay.  Yoon came starved and now look at him healthy and fit.  Kija was such a lonely child and yet here he was laughing with life-long friends.

Shin-ah, sweet Shin-ah was still quiet, but he’s come so far from the emotionally bereft child he once was to one who could now be in the middle of a crowd without running away. Jae-ha, the problem child who swore to never be tied down.  Mundok had a feeling he might end up being the last to leave the house.  Then there was Hak and Yona and a knowing smile crosses his lips.  Those two still hid their feelings, but as anyone watched them, like now, he stood with his arm around her shoulders as she leaned in to him.  One day they would provide the next generation of the Son family.

Mundok thinks back to the dragon lore, wouldn’t it be crazy if it had come true?  Laughter rings in his head.  And why not?  They were like a modern-day version, he mused.  

“Hey boys,” gathering them back together, “let’s get a picture then we can head on home for a small party.”

“Whoo hoo! Food!”  Shin-ah starts to sneak away.

“Oh no you don’t,” Jae-ha grabs his brother and pulls him to his side as the others bunch together in front of the camera.

“3…  2…  1…”

Within the month a new canvas painting hangs prominently next to the scroll in Mundoks living room… 

[lifesjustdesserts]

The Story of Josephine Wingly.

It's been a while since I've really engaged with this community, hasn't it?

People barely know about me as it is... I might as well tell you all a bit about myself.

Where to start..?

Well, I'll start by where I was abandoned. It was around 1891.

My adoptive mother, Cynthia Wingly... had recently opened up her bakery on the third isle of Inkwell when she found me on her doorstep. Back then, it was called Cindy's Cakes and Bakes. According to her, I was probably almost one year old when she found me.

She was a middle-aged blackbird who always dressed in a very old-fashioned way, and I always called her "Gram" throughout my life.

Yeah, go ahead and laugh. She wasn't fond of the name, but eventually grew to it. Anyways, I don't remember my birth mother or father. Gram said that the night she found me, she noticed that someone was running away from the bakery.. and that I had a note pinned to my baby dress. It simply said my name: "Josephine", a date - December 19th - and a plea to take care of me in the stead of whoever left me there. She then decided to adopt me, raise me, and love me as her own daughter. Growing up wasn't easy for either of us. Gram was balancing her brand new business alongside raising me. I had the same kind of childhood as most of the kids in our neighborhood had growing up during that period... although Gram was still trying to learn more about me as much as I had to. No other children in the city were like me. As a toddler, when I played with the neighborhood girls, when they ran, I tried to run, but ended up falling flat on my face. Neither Gram nor I understood how I was supposed to walk or move around at first. I only had what seemed to be a screw acting as a bottom half for where legs should be. Gram wondered if I was a robot at first, or some magical automaton. But eventually I learned to maneuver around in my own way, by being able to physically use the drill-like and became accustomed to it. ~ As I grew up, I learned to bake by watching and helping Gram make different cakes and breads for customers. Gram couldn't afford to send me to school, so I was home-schooled. At times, it got boring sometimes being in the shop all day and barely going out to do anything because of the work and schoolwork I had to do. Everything changed the night that she took me to the newly-opened theater to see the premiere of a new opera. I was entranced by the theatrics, singing, stage effects ... that seemed to draw me in instantly. I told Gram that night that I wanted to be on stage, to be a famous performer that people'd love, and earnestly begged her to let me become one. She was reluctant at first, but on my 10th birthday, she surprised me with an acceptance letter for a local performing arts academy that was affiliated with the theater. I didn't know till later that she had saved up a lot to pay for the application. Nonetheless, it was the best birthday I've ever had. We learned different things at the academy; the history of dance, what we'd be performing... mostly things like that. It took me quite some time to learn it, and my teacher was especially strict... and couldn't understand "how a gal with a drill leg managed to drag herself into the dance studio" (her words). With my ... well, body shape... I couldn't do most of the leg-oriented ballet poses we had to learn, and most of the other girls made fun of me. Except for one.

Sally Stageplay.

Aside from my Gram, she was the only person that seemed to have any faith in me. She was a year younger than me, but she was my only friend during my time at the academy. She tried to help me get into the swing of things as best as she could to dance like the other girls... but I often messed up, and the girls usually made fun of me. One day, when we were taking a break outside, Sally and I were playing around on the monkey bars, and when I was swinging around, she and I both attempted to dismount. While Sally flew up and landed down face-first in the sand, I managed to somehow keep my balance when I was doing a handstand on the monkey bars.

It certainly got everyone's attention. Sally and I were both surprised, and I was staying upside down for a good minute before swung off the monkey bars and dismounted perfectly on point.

My teacher... and I myself... started realizing my talents, and I managed to get a handle on my dancing. Over the years, I'd be practicing my own form of dancing, and I eventually started getting singing lessons on the side for fun. In the meantime, Sally and I stayed the best of friends.

When I turned 18, Sally and I graduated from the academy (people were impressed that Sally graduated at a younger age than most girls). We were practically inseparable; we started off as background dancers, spent birthday parties together, nothing could split us apart. We were often 'rivals' (mostly for show by the director), since she and I would be cast back-and-forth with starring and supporting roles.

When I wasn't performing at the theater, I was helping Gram with the bakery. She supported me as best as she could, and I wanted to repay her... I even wanted to put some of the pay I started to receive into supporting the business, since it wasn't getting many customers (despite Gram's insistence otherwise). Some people eventually recognized me when I was working, and started flocking because of my rising fame.

~~~~

Ever since I was a child, I was told by Gram never to go into the cavern that laid beyond the "ghost tracks". She told me that "demons spawned from there, and to never follow anyone down there". At some point, we started getting drunkards stumbling into the shop that we realized that they might've come from whatever was in the cavern. My life was sublime, I felt like I was on top of the world.

That was... until he came onto the scene. He was so handsome back then. Word was going around that he was working with a new business nearby and was representing them in financing the theater. It was typical of the girls in the theater to gawk and stare at the handsome gentleman waltzing around the theater. I'm somewhat ashamed to say I was one of them. I found out later that his name was "Dicell". I noticed over time that he would start coming to my stage shows and performances. I met him after one of my larger revues, when he came by to my dressing room to compliment my performance himself, and he even gave me a beautiful bouquet of roses. Over the course of a few months, we started to get to know each other... in secret, of course. Both for professional reasons, and because Gram was highly suspicious of strangers.

However, I gathered up the courage to tell Gram about him, and asked if we could invite him for over for dinner. She trusted me, and agreed to have him over. He came back with me after a performance one night, was a complete gentleman towards me and Gram. Everything went well.

Or so I thought.

After he left, Gram told me that she didn't want me seeing that man anymore. When I asked why, shocked, she told me that there was something about him that set her off, and she was concerned for my safety. I was in my mid-30s at this point, and though I've always trusted her judgement, I thought it was insane at that time.

Things still seemed to be going smoothly in my life, but I couldn't say the same for Sally. Even though we were stayed friends, her life wasn't going very well. Despite being in a loving relationship with her future husband, she confided to me that the lack of work at the theater was taking a toll on her economically. She was already behind on rent and was worried that she and her future husband would be left on the streets. Even though I tried talking the director into using her more and paying her more, he simply shrugged it off and didn't seemed bothered by it.

For a week, I couldn't find Dicell in the audience nor saw him after my shows. I did notice that he was chatting with Sally more often. I didn't think anything of it... until I noticed one day that they both came out from the cavern, with Sally seeming very happy and excited over something.

After Sally left, I confronted Dicell and asked about what was going on with them, and he said with a straight face that nothing was going on. ~~~ I haven't been the same after... after I was essentially given the boot. After nearly 17 years. It was as if overnight that Sally Stageplay started getting more billings for performances at the theater. I was obviously happy for her... but then my workload and pay started decreasing. I was shy of 35 when the director essentially told me:

"Look, Jo... you've been doing a heckuva job getting money flowin' for this theater... but we've really need... well, younger blood to keep this place afloat. And to be frank... the reviews with you haven't been too friendly lately... I'm sorry, Jo, but we gotta let you go. No hard feelins'."

It was as if my entire world was crumbling in on me. Attempting to swallow my pride, I bid farewell to my friends, co-workers, everyone... and simply wished them all the best. They seemed sad to see me go.

But I couldn't find Sally anywhere. Or Dicell. Gram was sympathetic, despite me feeling as if all the work I've put into this wondrous life I've made for myself, and the sacrifices Gram made for me to get there had all gone to waste within an instant. After getting booted from the theater, I stayed full-time to help Gram with the bakery for the last 6 years of her life. We started seeing less and less customers. I stopped hearing from Dicell, so we lost touch. Gram's health started getting worse. She went through a near-fatal heart attack and was no longer able to operate the bakery, thus I inherited the shop and began doing all the physical labor while she handled finances. I never could figure out how Sally rose to fame that fast.

Until the day the Cup-brothers stopped by our bakery.

This was around the time that they were hunting the debtors of the Devil's Casino and reclaiming their soul contracts. They both came in, much to Gram's delight, for some reason. She asked them what they were up to, as I got to work on serving a cake I recently finished. Cuphead told us what had happened, how they got involved in the first place (the poor souls), and that they were going after the pirate Brineybeard down by the docks. Out of sheer curiosity, I asked who else was on their list.

Mugman yanked the list out of Cuphead's hands and handed it to show us as they scarfed down the cake I had served them. It was a miracle how the scroll didn't tear in my hands.

                                      Sally Stageplay was on that list.

I was severely enraged. Everything that had happened to me, that meeting Sally had with Dicell, how we lost touch, how Sally suddenly became a hit sensation overnight... all the pieces fell into place.

I held in my rage until after the Cup boys left. When they bid farewell, I muttered under my breath: "Give Sal' a swift kick to the bloomers while you're at it."

Gram heard me, however, and criticized me for my language. I honestly didn't care anymore.

When the sun came down, I told Gram I had to go take care of something after closing up shop, and would come back as soon as I could. I ended up breaking my promise to Gram when I was told where Dicell - who now went by the name of "King Dice" - worked.

He had become the Devil's right-hand man. And I confronted him when I saw him standing guard at the doors of the Casino.

If I had a penny for every swear I threw into his face, I could easily flood the streets of Inkwell Isle III.

I told him I knew of Sally's deal with his 'boss'. I told him I realized the cause of the loss of my dream job. The last thing I asked him was: "...Why did you do this to me?"

He simply just smirked at me, and responded: "It's just business, sweetheart. Honestly, you should have expected this." I was confused.

He lifted my chin, and said: "Sally's been aiming for your spot for years, we're the ones she came to and we just gave what she deserved. Nothin' personal."

I angrily slapped his sleazy hand from my face. I could barely find the words to say anymore. Nothing that would change anything.

I had returned home in an angry, heartbroken huff. I noticed that the lights upstairs were still on, which was weird since typically Gram was always insistent on saving what resources we had left. I went upstairs to find her asleep in her rocking chair. I gently shook her shoulder to tell her I'm back home, and sorry for taking longer than planned.

She slumped to her side.

In a panic, I called an ambulance and she was instantly taken to the closest hospital.

Gram passed away in her sleep, at the age of 89 years. And I wasn't even around to say goodbye to her. ~~ A small handful of people came to her funeral, to my surprise, including Elder Kettle, the elderly caretaker of the Cup brothers. It turned out that he was a close friend of Gram's, and said he'd be happy to help me in any way I could. Things got calmer on the Inkwell Isles after the Cup boys defeated the Devil and freed all the debtors. I was considering confronting Sally about her deal with the Devil, but even stepping foot outside the theater brought back sour memories, and couldn't bring myself to face her.

My neighbors, bless their souls, helped to support me as best as they could. Over time, I renamed the shop to Swingin' Sweets, started focusing more on sweets and candies than cakes and bakery items, and hoped to make a fresh start.

*~*~* It's been nearly a year since Gram passed, and since I officially took over.

Business has been slow, but I'm still try to make the most of it. Just making it to the end of each day is a blessing in of itself.

*~*~*

I’m somewhat surprised at how this took to write, but I hope that somewhat gives you a better idea about who I am.

                                                 So... ask away.

(Special thanks to my awesome friend @lifeismarvelous for the drawing of teenage Jo and Sally Stageplay, go check out her stuff!)

All other art in this post was drawn by the ShadowMun, aka @ShadowGirl7, aka me.

[onestowatch]

Q&A: Homeshake Talks Touring With Mac DeMarco, His Love for Migos, & Has an Existential Crisis

Peter Sagar, more popularly known as Homeshake, found his first bout of success as the guitarist for Mac DeMarco. But success was never what Sagar was in search of. Rather, the Canadian artist wished to pursue solitude, a sentiment that bleeds out in his airy, downtempo R&B. Having since left Mac DeMarco some time ago to fully invest himself in his Homeshake project–with no ill feelings, as the two regularly hang out when they find themselves in the same city– Sagar rarely tours despite his rapidly growing cult-like fanbase. In many ways, Sagar’s own fans embody the same frenzy that came to be associated with DeMarco’s live shows, but Sagar is the one in control now. His latest album the critically-acclaimed Fresh Air, is the culmination of that complete creative freedom.

A Homeshake show is a rare sighting, and much like the rarest of sightings, it is not be missed. His most recent show saw him play The Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, to an audience of avid fans, taxidermy dioramas, and prehistoric fossils. An odd venue for music by all accounts, but an all too fitting one for Sagar. Homeshake’s otherworldly music, often amplified by his penchant for vocal modulation, feels as if it’s perfectly designed for unique moments such as these. So, as I sat down to speak with the reclusive artist, adorned in a Sade shirt, I was introduced to an entirely new Homeshake than what I had come to expect. Instead, I learned of a Homeshake who was quick to express his love for pop and trap and who had come to find joy in making music entirely on his own terms.  

OTW: Any plans while you’re in town?

Sagar: Um, I got a lot of friends that live out here.  

OTW: Yeah, you have Mac out here, right?

Sagar: Mhm, yep. We had tacos with him last night.  

OTW: So, speaking of this whole set up. Pretty cool venue to play, right?

Sagar: Yeah, I like it. I really like this kind of museum, there’s one in Edmonton, and I used to always love it. I loved going there on school trips. Specifically, I liked the animal dioramas with all the weird … what’s it called? What is this stuff? Dead animal stuff?

OTW: Taxidermy?  

Sagar: Taxidermy! Yeah, all the taxidermy displays. So sweet.

OTW: Yeah, I used to go on school trips here a lot growing up. Have you played any cooler venues?

Sagar: I don’t know. All the venues, all the memories disappear.  

OTW: I want to say that I love all of your album artwork and everything that’s associated with it. I’m very embarrassed, but I’m wearing one of your shirts right now. My girlfriend gave me so much shit when I was leaving the house. I know your partner Salina does all your artwork. How does that collaboration come about?  

Sagar: Well, it just worked out very well because we’ve been together for like nine years. She started helping me make covers and stuff while we were still living in Edmonton, and a couple of times I would tell her an idea of what I thought looked good, but that never worked out well. So, I generally just let her do whatever she wants. It’s the best way. It’s the best way to just let Salina do whatever she wants, and it will be amazing.  

OTW: And does she just listen to the album and go from there?  

Sagar: I think so! She asks me if I have any ideas and I’m like, “No, we’re not going there. You can just figure it out.” And then it’s always perfect.

OTW: So, in the early days when you were first releasing music as Homeshake, you were still touring with Mac right? Was there a turning point when you decided that you wanted to fully devote yourself to Homeshake?

Sagar: Yeah, I was just in a very dark place and it was sort of just a never-ending tour schedule. Then trying to balance that and Homeshake and my relationship, it was just impossible. So, one had to go, so I choose Salina and myself.  

OTW: That was a good choice.

Sagar: Yeah, I think so. It worked out well.

OTW: So, now that with each new release you're growing a similar cult following. Do you ever worry about not being able to balance everything?

Sagar: No, I’m in control now. So, things only happen as I want them to. The difficulty with Mac was just that I had no control really because everyone else was down for everything, and I wasn’t going to be the wet blanket all the time. I still was. Now I just choose everything, so that’s why we tour so little.  

OTW: So, you’re originally from Edmonton, but then moved to Montreal and that’s where you adopted the name Homeshake. I saw that you just let go of all your other projects at that point. What were the earliest days of Homeshake like?

Sagar: We lived in a really small apartment in Montreal, and it wasn’t even cheap enough for how small it was, it was so shitty. We were there for like two years out of just laziness. I would make stuff on some really, really bad gear in my living room, and then I recorded some stuff in Mac’s living room. I recorded some stuff in a studio that I ended up renting and rehearsing at for a long time. It was just like slow, because I would be working on it and then suddenly have to go on tour for like seven months. So yeah, everything just took a long time.

OTW: What is the creative industry like in Montreal, as opposed to places like Los Angeles?  

Sagar: I mean, I don’t really know what it’s like here. It’s like all famous people, right? Everybody is famous? Every person in LA is famous?

OTW: Every single one. Yeah, just in this lobby alone. (laughs)

Sagar: (laughs) In Montreal the majority of it varies from neighborhood to neighborhood. Like there’s a lot of intense punk kids, but I don’t go there. But most of the musicians I know are DJs, everyone’s a fucking DJ in Montreal, and that’s fine. But yeah, it’s a lot of parties and a lot of raves, and I don’t participate in any of it all.

OTW: Not a big raver?

Sagar: No, I like dance music a lot. I like electronic music, but I don’t participate. I don’t know what Montreal is like anymore, I checked out. Not interested, really.

OTW: Speaking on your own music, it’s obviously very R&B driven which seems so different from your influences, well you have a lot of influences, but you like top 40s, trap, Migos…

Sagar: Mmm yeah, I love Migos.

OTW: Yeah, Migos are amazing. Have you always loved R&B, or did that come at a certain point?

Sagar: I wasn’t into it when I was younger, but when I was a kid, like the late 90s, early 2000s, I would watch everything that was on MTV, and like 80% of the music videos were R&B. So, I knew all the songs, and it was kind of like a guilty thing. I liked guitars, and I thought those were cool. So, I was wrong obviously (laughs). So that stuff was always kind of like inside my brain. And then it was actually Salina that kind of drew it out of me because she has a very encyclopedic knowledge of ‘90s R&B. It takes her a long time to remember whatever it is, but she always knows the song. It’s all her. I just steal the things she likes. (laughs)

OTW: So, speaking of Fresh Air, I read that name for the album came from smoking weed and just stepping out onto the balcony for fresh air. I wasn’t sure if that serious or not…

Sagar: Yeah.

OTW: Are there any other inspirations behind Fresh Air besides just good weed?

Sagar: (laughs) I don’t know, they all kind of have something. Most of the songs are pretty specific. I would have to look at a list of them and think about it for a really long time.

OTW: One thing that I really like about your music is what I’m guessing is vocal modulation. Particularly, the ones that kick off each album. They remind me of those rap skits from old hip-hop albums for. Where did that come from?  

Sagar: I don’t know, I just like sped-up and slowed-down voices. I used to record everything on cassette. And I would just always slow it down, speed it up. The regular speed is really boring. Yeah, I love high voices and low voices. I think they are kind of funny and kind of scary. So yeah, I’m not sure where I lifted it from. I just used to listen to a lot of screw tapes, so that probably gave me the idea. It’s certainly not an original idea by any means.

OTW: Well, you do it well for sure.

Sagar: (laughs) Thank you.

OTW: I also wanted to talk about how outspoken you are about political issues. As an artist with a platform, do you feel there’s a certain responsibility to be as outspoken?  

Sagar: Yeah, like I’m no expert. I don’t know all the details. You know, we are all stuck in the infinite scroll looking at headlines, but then you have to keep scrolling. It’s also like inescapable shit, so I kind of slowed down on it because it was such a constant inundating flow of information. It just feels like white noise at this point. Yeah, you kind of have to make your opinions clear, because what if I never did and then a bunch of Nazis liked me? That’s my fucking nightmare. So, I did an interview that came out at the beginning of Fresh Air and some of it was about how I got into some arguments online with some fucking alt-right losers that had previously liked my music, but now no longer do and that was good. It’s good to shed the trash from your life.  

OTW: Do you think you’d ever make a protest song or anything along those lines?

Sagar: No. (laughs) I can only sing about myself being like a sad loser. I could never take on real issues like that.

OTW: Do you have any favorite protest songs or albums?

Sagar: My favorite band until I was like seventeen was Rage Against The Machine. The other day we were in Texas, and I just was craving Rage Against The Machine, so we listened to some on the way back to the venue and had it at full blast as we pulled up in front, like cutting through the line of kids outside. It was kind of embarrassing, but it was amazing.

OTW: Such a good time.

Sagar: God, I love them.  

OTW: I mean, hopefully, they’ll come back one day soon.

Sagar: Yeah, Tom Morello is the greatest guitarist of all time.

OTW: So, I have definitely used a lot of your songs for mix tapes for friends and it definitely got me a girlfriend or two I’d say, so thank you for that. It just has such a vibe to it. What would you say is the ideal setting to listen to your music in?

Sagar: Just a relaxing one for whoever is listening to it. The place where I can write from is wherever I’m most relaxed and calm. That’s, I guess, why I don’t make like weird, screechy, angsty music or anything. I like comfort and solitude. So that’s probably what it would lend itself to the best.

OTW: And is your songwriting typically one of solitude?

Sagar: Yeah, I haven’t collaborated with anyone in a long time. I had for the three records I put out. I had guys running the board and helping me mix and stuff, but I write alone. I don’t remember what it’s like to collaborate with people. I’ve been trying to do that lately, and it’s been a real struggle. It’s like, “I don’t know what you want.” (laughs) I’m just really selfish. I was trying to produce for some people, just passing some things around, but I never want to give out the ones I really like, I want to keep it for myself. Yeah, very alone in it.

OTW: Just a sad lonely boy.

Sagar: (laughs) Yeah, something lame like that.

OTW: So, I know you’ve mentioned Fresh Air existing as part of a trilogy, with the first albums being the first parts of the trilogy, but there is still more Homeshake to come right?

Sagar: Oh yeah, I’m always working on more stuff. I was recording up until the day we came here, in between the Texas tour and before that. One of my most essential music machines at the moments is really on the fritz, and I think I have to like ship it back to its maker to get it fixed, so I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do for like three weeks while that’s happening. It’s freaking me out.  

OTW: So, what’s the plan to make music until then? 

Sagar: Oh, I don’t know, I’ll just have to use something else to make it. I just won’t be able to use my sampler drum machine which is the core of what I’m working on right now. I don’t know, I guess I’ll just make ambient music until it gets back.

OTW: I heard at one point you did want to make a droney ambient project.

Sagar: Yeah, I like that but when I try I don’t think I’m very good at it. There’s a real textural ASMR thing to that, and I need to work on it.  

OTW: Who are your Ones To Watch?

Sagar: One is definitely Un Blonde from Montreal. They’re very, very, very spectacular. Let me just scroll through the old music thing here. Yeah, he’s an amazing songwriter, Jean who’s like the center of that project. Oh God, I only listen to like super pop music these days (laughs). I really like Yves Tumor, I don’t know how small he is, but he should be bigger. He makes spooky, weird shit that I like a lot. Mmm, I know I’ve got friends.  

OTW: Anyone in the band make music? 

Sagar: Yeah! Brad is the lead-guitarist in another band called Nap Eyes. I feel bad because they’re on tour without him in Europe right now, but he’s here with us. So definitely shout out to Nap Eyes because I just took their fucking guitar player. Greg used to play drums for a lot of bands, but he moved from Montreal to the woods in BC now. I don’t know. I’ve totally isolated myself from everybody around me in Montreal, so I don’t even know what any of them are doing anymore. Oh God, very crazy reality check.  

OTW: Having an existential crisis right now?

Sagar: (laughs) Yeah, a little bit. I don’t know, I do like a monthly NTS show where I put all the weird stuff that I like. So, my ones to watch are whoever I played on it that last month.

OTW: Oh one quick last question. What’s your favorite dinosaur? 

Sagar: Brontasaurses. I’ve always loved the absolutely massive ones.

[rilenerocks]

At seven years old, I have now become a Chicago girl. My family has moved into the third floor of an apartment building at 7746 S. Cornell.

One block to the west is Stony Island which is a major thoroughfare through the city. The Chicago Skyway is close by and we are never supposed to play in those places because of the heavy traffic and the stranger danger. But I look at them from our alley and from the back porch steps three stories high, where the boiling afternoon heat turns our apartment into an inferno in the summer. There are so many vehicles moving in steady streams in many directions. I am not in Sioux City any more.

This apartment only has two bedrooms. Mom and dad are in one. My two sisters and I are in the other. My brother is in some makeshift space on the back porch. There is aluminum foil put up to reflect the sun away from his bed. I am too young to be upset at the major downsizing from our Iowa house to this small space. In retrospect I realize that this move was much harder for my older brother and sister who were more established in their Sioux City lives. They have to adapt to a new social structure because we are now living in a much more sophisticated and wealthy area than in Iowa where class didn’t seem as obvious. Or maybe I was too little to notice class then. Our apartment building is on the fringe of that wealthier neighborhood and we go to school with kids who are used to a whole other economic existence.

As kid number three, I have the advantage of observing the problems of my siblings and figuring out strategies to survive. My parents,who were driven by desperation to make this move, didn’t have the psychology chops to understand the ramifications of this sea change. They were naive. This move created what my mom called “two separate families,” my parents with the older siblings and my parents with me and my younger sister. Whether true or not, I think my mom was wrong to tell us that. At least she told us two young ones. I really am not sure what she said to the big kids. Dorothy the boundary-less. But I digress. Mrs. Miller is our landlady.

She is broad, with greasy, straight salt and pepper hair which is straight, cut in one length to just below her chin. She is brusque and I want to be away from her. Sometimes her family comes to visit and by their accents, it seems they’re from the south. There is a pale-skinned, pale-haired, pale-eyed girl about my age. We play together in the gangway which separates our apartment building from the one next door. I make up most of the games. I did the same thing with Robin, the boy I loved in Iowa. With him we played, the butterfly, the spider and the fly. He had a dual role as the mean spider and the savior fly. I was the butterfly. With this pale girl, we are playing island natives. We trade off who is the girl and the boy. The heroine’s name is Fayaway. She is always in danger, being captured and then being rescued. Although nothing actually sexual happens between us, through the prism of time, I recognize that these were erotic forms of play. Apparently I am always in love, as soon as I recognized the beginnings of that feeling.

Our block is primarily apartment buildings, some three units and others six units. There are a few duplexes. There is only one empty lot on the block. I go down there to collect grasshoppers. In summer, my sister and I screw our roller skates to our shoes and go down the sidewalk making metallic, grinding sounds on the journey to collect the bugs. I bring them back to the ledge at the front entry of our building and conduct experiments. I dissect them and move their pieces around to see what happens. Sometimes their separated parts keep moving after my operations. I have no idea how that works but it interests me. We say that the grasshoppers are spitting tobacco juice at us. Our lawn consists of a small patch of dirt, maybe 4’ by 4’ with some wan blades of grass. I am now in the urban world of bricks and mortar. That’s what I adjust to, with the alleys, sidewalks, gangways and apartment basements as my play ground. Iowa becomes a memory. In summer and on weekends, kids pour out of the buildings and we all play together. Our hide and seek games have a two block radius because there are so many kids in the game. We need lots of space for hiding. I remember going into dark basements and have a hard time believing the freedom of those days. We play kick the can in the alley, concentration and those hand clapping games that have songs attached.

Concentration is a game where you say, thinking of, names of, cars, beginning with, A. We go from cars to colors to flowers and so on. This is semi-spoken and semi-sung. The hand games have songs too like, a sailor went to sea, sea, sea to see what he could see, see, see. Our hands move fast and we have special clapping styles. Sometimes if we go too fast, the game breaks down and we start over. We play jump rope and hopscotch.

There is always something to do outside. My mom opens the front window of the apartment, calls out or whistles and we run home for dinner. After we eat, a big gang of kids runs to the corner to wait for Harry, the ice cream man.

He wears a white coat and hat and rides a bike with small freezer on the front of it. For a dime you can buy a popsicle, a fudgsicle, an ice cream bar, a dreamsicle or a push-up. I love chocolate popsicles the best. I am bigger than a lot of the kids. While we wait for Harry, I lie on my back and flex my knees toward my chest. The smaller kids sit on my feet and I push them through the air. I push Johnny Lothrop so far that he flips over and breaks his collarbone. His parents are very angry and I’m afraid they want my parents to pay. Johnny has to wear a neck brace. For days I’m afraid to go out and I stand in the little front hallway, looking out longingly at everyone playing. Our block is filled with all kinds of people.

We have several Greek families living near us. Elaine and Anna Sonios live across the street. They’re older than me. Their parents own a grocery store on 79th Street. They celebrate different holidays than we do and on occasion we get invited in and are given treats. We get Greek halva which is nougat with pistachios. I can still taste it. Elaine and Anna’s parents are very strict. When they have lots of guests, the girls climb out the windows to run around with the rest of the kids. Constantine Athanasoulias lives on our block as does Johnny Latsoudis. Johnny is handsome. There’s another cute boy on the block named Kenny Jones. I have a crush on him. He has a line in the middle of his lower lip that makes him look special. He has an older brother named Edward James but everyone calls him Edgy. The first African-American student at my elementary school, Horace Mann, moves onto our block. Her name is Sandra Greene. She is tall and athletic. Her skin has reddish tones and her face has high cheekbones. I think she’s beautiful. I often wonder whether she is part Native American. Down the block there is a family from somewhere in the Middle East. A little girl whose name is Lu-el plays outside. She is odd. The big kids try to make her eat dirt with a stick. Sometimes when I look back I feel like the kids are just this side of Lord of the Flies. One day Lu-el drops to the ground and is having a seizure. We run and get my mother who comes and puts a tongue depressor in her mouth so she won’t swallow her tongue.

Our block is full of action. One day I am outside when a mean-faced teenager named Harry Hess comes up to me and calls me a fucking kike. I know this is bad so I go tell my mother. She comes storming outside and yells at Harry and explains to me that some people don’t like us because we’re Jewish. I’ve never heard the “f” word either. I’m getting my first lessons in prejudice. Cornell is an ethnic swirl and there’s a lot to learn.

My grandparents live right around the corner on 78th Street. I can still smell their hallway. It smells like chicken soup and pepper and schmaltz. Schmaltz which is flavorful chicken fat is saved and put in a jar in the fridge and is used for cooking and us smeared on everything. Why did everyone not die of heart attacks? My grandmother is a wonderful cook. But when we visit, we sit at her white porcelain table with blue embossed flowers and eat apricot jelly on rye bread and cantaloupe cut into chunks. The chicken and friccasees are for special occasions. One of my uncles and his wife live “north” on Kenmore but then they are suddenly south on Euclid. We get together with the extended family every weekend and have big meals. We sing a lot. Favorites are You Are My Sunshine, Tell Me Why and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. We shop locally on 79th Street.

There is Heller’s drugstore and Feldstein’s delicatessen. Feldstein’s has a big barrel full of penny candy. There are yellow jawbreakers wrapped in red rope candy. There are little wax bottles filled with juice. Wax is definitely a thing because there are big was lips you bite down on and wax mustaches. There are white candy cigarettes with pink tips and pastel gums that are shaped like cigars, with a gold label like the ones on real cigars. There are pink, yellow, white and blue hard sugar dots that are baked onto paper- you bite those off. You can get a package of pixy sticks or Lick-a-made which is nothing but flavored sugar. Tiny ice cream cones filled with colored marshmallows. Chum gum. Those were the treats we got on hot Saturday afternoons when we all piled into the laundromat with our bags of clothes, sheets and towels. How I hated the laundromat. The wringer washer in Iowa was long gone. My parents wouldn’t own a machine again until they moved near me in my adult life, almost 30 years later.  But while we took turns there, swapping out the wet loads and folding the hot things from the dryer, there was shopping.

  There was Dessauer’s butcher shop where my mom would order a piece of book roast. I don’t even know what that is. The butcher shop smelled of blood. I knew that even though I hadn’t smelled blood before. There was Wee Folks, the toy store where you could get Silly Putty. Eventually I got a Barbie doll at that store. Mine had red hair and a hole in her head. She could wear either a bubble hairstyle or if you wanted a change, you’d reach into the hole and pull out a ponytail. My favorite doll was one I’d gotten in Iowa from my grandmother. She was a Madame Alexander doll with a porcelain face and a stiff blue dress with white trim. She had one other outfit. Buying doll clothes was too expensive so I made more out of Kleenex and rubber bands. I still have her, though she is in pieces.

The Avalon theater was on 79th Street, within walking distance of our apartment. Sometimes we went with our friends. It was a fine old theater with stylish boxes and a balcony. If we shared a box of Milk Duds, they were real caramel with real chocolate covering that cracked when you bit them. I saw scary movies with Vincent Price and always liked the cartoons that played before the feature film. Movies were pretty cheap. Life felt good to me in those first years on Cornell.

We went to Rainbow Beach on the weekends. The adults all stayed on the grassy lawn of the abutting park  but I went to the water where I learned to swim by copying other people’s actions. My brother worked at the concession stand there and it felt exciting to eat something away from home. They put mustard on the hamburgers which came wrapped in thin white tissuey paper. Mostly we ate at home. On weekends, we got food from the deli, like salami and bologna and bagels and lox. Those were welcome treats. For the most part, I was a happy kid. But there were troubles brewing. My dad worked for the Chicago Motor Club in the day and at Polk Brothers at night. My mom worked occasionally but she had bad bouts of ulcerative colitis and often wound up staying home. She worked at Time-Life Books and The University of Chicago hospital where she was in accounts and the beginnings of Medicare. My dad was the one who came to bring my little sister and I home for lunch as our school didn’t have a lunchroom. We ate a lot of eggs and salami. I knew there was economic stress. I always worried about my mother’s health. She would go in and out of hospitals, events which frightened me just like the first time it happened when I was four. My brother and sister were adapting but they each had struggles. My brother became a fringe person who only had a few friends. My sister was more socially entrenched but she was unhappy. The small space we shared rumbled with emotions, some spoken and others beneath the surface. I kept my younger sister close to me. She was physically little and I wanted whatever was coming in my direction from the big people to be kept away from her. I was pretty young to be thinking those thoughts but I was worried a lot about the obvious economic stressors and the impact they were having on our household. I was impacted too by those like everyone else. But I found ways to respond that prompted my dad to give me my new nickname – weasel. I liked that one. I thought it was apt. When I felt the anger, sadness and anxiety of the older people, I wanted to make things better, for them and for me. So I found my own ways to deal with the childhood issues that have big impacts on how we feel about ourselves. My go-to skill became lying. When it was picture day at school and so many girls pranced in dressed in fancy outfits with fancy shoes, I’d get asked, “where are your dress shoes? It’s picture day.” And I would clap myself on the forehead and say, “oh I forgot.” Worked like a charm. I started to figure out that there might be a way around, over, under or through  any obstacle or problem that was in front of you. While I was playing and doing my little kid stuff, there was another part of me developing, the part that is the core of who I am as an adult. No depression, no acting out, no ulcerative colitis for me. I was going to be the person who found my way through everything, with as little personal damage to me as possible. I am still that person. The Chicago school days are next up in my memory journey which I’m going to leave for my family.

The Living Spaces #2 Chicago Girl At seven years old, I have now become a Chicago girl. My family has moved into the third floor of an apartment building at 7746 S.

[manleycollins]

Journal Entry #30 - Let's Talk About The Elephants....Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression....What Happened During the Process? And my visions? Part Two

JOURNAL ENTRY #30 Name: Manley M Collins Social Security Number: 5 7 9 - * * - 6 5 4 1 Date of Birth: 06/21 Place of Birth: Washington, District of Columbia Country of Birth: United States of America Date: January 1, 2020

TOPIC: Let's Talk About The Elephants....Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression....What Happened During the Process? And my visions?

DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Justice DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Education DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Health DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Transportation DEPARTMENT: United States Department of Labor

Part Two (2)

Guess what? It seems life does not want me to have anything nice or make an independent living especially in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia.  Since I mentioned I am not getting anything for taking everything away or telling right, read this on my brand spanking new Suzuki Burgman 650 Executive. I randomly parked my vehicle throughout Zone 6 where the vehicle is registered from 18th St SE, G St SE, 6th St SE, 4th St SE, 18th St NE, 4th St NE, G St NE, L St NE, 3rd St NE, 3rd St SE, M St NE, etc, the list goes on.

1. It was parked on the 400 block of M St NE.....guess what - tags stolen.  So I bought anti-theft screws, thanks to Rhode Island Ave AutoZone Auto Parts.

2. It was parked on the 300 block of A St SE....guess what - total loss while parked.  Let me tell you the story behind this one.  I made sure it stayed in one place until I move since I was doing bicycle.  Saturday, November 2, 2019 around 12  NOON, I checked the motorcycle was fine and standing upright, I checked the tires, tags, felt all over it to make sure nothing happened.  There are no emergency parking signs posted and everyone else's car is sitting in place. Wednesday, November 6, 2019 at 9 AM, motorbike sitting on its side with the evidence that another vehicle hit it very hard and left no information...the paint was red and white from the other vehicle.  I was hot, angry, and upset on how everyone else's vehicle still in place and still no signs posted.  Thanks goodness for full coverage GEICO insurance, right?  I did call 9-1-1 twice to get a cop out to the scene immediately.  The resident of 313 A St SE comes out and she (middle aged, white, plus size woman) says the vehicle was down on its side, Monday morning, November 4, 2019.  My memory bank had to search through every action like a 5Ghz computer chip to understand how did this happened to a parked vehicle.  The resident of 315 A St SE comes out and he (older close to death, white medium sized man) says a truck hit it and signs were posted, and I should give him my information for anything that happens while he was hopping in another car.  The construction crew from across the street comes out and asked what happened.  I am submitting the evidence and information on my insurance claim while waiting for towing service.  The resident of 311 A St SE saw I was waiting by the motorbike until towing came, she (a 50ish, white brunette lady, slender) tended to her two dogs and paid me no mind.  The resident of 309 A St SE saw I was waiting by the motorbike until towing came, he (a younger, white brown-to-black haired dude, medium sized) seem to be heading to work...I was going to talk to him to validate 315's story. Towing arrived....guess who came back at the time of arrival of tow truck?...the resident of 315 A St SE.  The resident of 315 A St SE and I had a discussion before about the bike and his car, but did not exchange information.  Back story to 300 block A St SE, I stayed one day in October 2019 to due touchups on my vehicle and I saw people rotating and moving their cars around to either escape DC parking enforcement for visitors or provide a different scene for the DC parking attendant.  Back to the original story, as I was working with the tow truck driver to move the motorbike on the truck, 315 A St SE resident and I are going back and forth about he did not know if my vehicle was registered or had a residential parking permit (which is posted on front windshield of bike) and also you can check the vehicle tags, and he was trying to validate his story of the truck that came and hit it and it was no way to catch the tags, and I asked him where were the signs.  315 A St SE owns a red mustang permanently parked in front of his residence with a beatup front bumper that seems to ran into many things....so my suspicious lies there because no one from the block can validate his story and neither the cops.

Guess what else happened?  As I am doing my claim, Thursday, November 7, 2019, the independent valuation company and GEICO came with estimate $7,173.  I financed $12,000 for the vehicle.  I wondered why so low.  I always had full coverage on all my vehicles and insurance always paid them fully.  I went the to dealer and service department.  The estimate to repair my vehicle was $7,804, which makes the vehicle a total loss to insurance company. I sat down with the dealer manager and we talked.  He said since I did not put anything down and did not have GAP insurance that I am on the hook for remainder of the loan. I am still getting through my mind, they sold me a $7,000 vehicle for $11,000 with full coverage insurance and extended warranty, and he stated I needed GAP insurance because my depreciation did not catch up with my payments on vehicle. I was about to blow a fuse.  So if my FULL coverage insurance does not pay this vehicle off, that poor GAP loan money will just have to wait until all depreciation catches up with it because it will not be paid.

Friday, November 8, 2019, I surrendered my tags to the DC DMV and submit paperwork to insurance company.

The insurance company sent me a letter that I had options for my insurance. They actually validated the dealer's story in keeping the vehicle as a salvage vehicle and can have unlimited total losses. I thought decades and ten vehicles later that this knowledge came to me.  Anyways, I canceled insurance and let the vehicle go.  It was interesting that I did more paperwork for this vehicle than my previous vehicles.  For the very first time and remembering what my stepdad did (for our green limo/bus), I am going to participate in an auto auction.

Highest memory of the Suzuki Hayabusa was riding it from Springfield, Virginia to Washington, DC in the HOV lanes...kept up the cars and got the bike up to 110 miles per hour.  It was a great adrenaline rush.

Also, for anyone with a motorbike, the best place to play is Dupont Circle on Connecticut Ave NW under the bridge...I got the bike up to 90 miles per hour.  Another great adrenaline rush during travels or deliveries.

--------------------------------------------

On Friday, November 8, 2019, Smoothie King was my final W-2 position in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. The reason for the abrupt ending was to focus on the transition and watching what else does happens when I person stays in place.  I also had two total losses of brand new vehicles in one year by no fault of my own under the same insurance company in the same city.  However, let me talk about H Street NW Smoothie King. It was a small format red and white.  We became an instant family and met the owner's family.  It was truly Smoothies with a purpose. Smoothie King was to become apart of the everyone's active and healty lifestyle, and a portion of the profits went to the owner's neighborhood in Ethopia.  It is the best recommended store I do not mind being associated with for healthy and performance enchancing smoothies.  Of course, the store was located on the strip of all kinds of activity - homeless, oils, singles, alcohol, theft, etc.  The store owners were a white male, ethopian lady, and the kids and they had another location in DC.  The store had a morning female manager and evening female manager.  It had a morning male shift lead - the owner's junior manager.  I was a blend employee promoted to mid afternoon shift lead.  The original female evening shift manager was doing super big personality and did not care in a way that it was hard to get through the day.  The female evening shift manager was combining construction, retail, homeless, and restaurant all at the same time.  The original female morning shift manager was very good and it showed from her experience including her structure.  However, the morning shift manager had everyone at the store - all her family and phone calls to the store were off the hook - it was funny.  The male shift lead from New Orleans was a funny dude with his administrative/office background.  He would leave messes for other people to clean up and moved slow as a turtle.  He kept twerking and dancing everywhere. Some people liked my extrovert personality because I was the promoter of anything Smoothie King, I ensured about 80% of the customers have that personable experience, or say something to somebody when their message does not get through to the person. My job was handling the front of the house/store, do rotations, do retail, translate/transfer all management messages to the next shift, and talk to the customers. A brother and sister was working in the store.  The two siblings had two different personalities.  I enjoyed their little sibling disagreements and agreements all at the same time.  The girl sibling kept long nails, Diana Ross hair, and always kept talking to family and friends on the phone.  The girl hair kept falling in the ice and DC Health customers complained about it. The boy sibling wore pants with a string tied around it and a customer complained for seeing his underwear.  After the original female evening manager was fired/terminated, another young lady with dreads was trained to close the store.  She had another job during the day.  She had all her personal business go haywire in the store with domestic violence spilling over to the store.  She and the boy sibling with dreads had this love and hate relationship going that it was funny. She kept telling the boy sibling to do stuff, and he would do the opposite and not listen. She had fun mocking people, and I was unsure if she was talking to herself or someone on the phone.  They all knew I spoke to myself silently when stressed or alot pushing through my mind.  The Ethopian soccer boy kept flying from the cash register to pouring smoothies in a flash.  I thought I was fast, but he kept doing it.  He was funny, but kept coming in with his funky Smoothie King shirt.  We gave him cologne and throw it in the washer/laundry.  He insisted on keep coming smelling like the soccer field he just played on.  The Ethopian girl was funny too by coming in messing up operations and the system we (the two morning leads and I) had.  The Ethopian girl normally would go to Rhode Island Row and work.  She was a messy girl when making smoothies. Powder be everywhere.  Juices all over the place.  She definitely does some of the cross contamination of products.  One African-American girl from Connecticut and student at a college was only working one day a week and hardly to keep working on that day.  She would call out at the last minute/one hour before her shift starts.  Also, she was giving free cups like water to anyone who asked.  Another new black, young girl came from Rhode Island and hired through the Marion Barry program was cool a little, but kept doing Rhode Island stuff at H Street by combining same smoothies in one blender.  I know they are disappointed I am gone especially when I was the most flexible person that filled in for most callouts or messed up scheduled times by owner.  Smoothie King does provide fresh products, but overprepping does lead to expired product which is still served to the customer.  I do like the concept of the clean blends and the no-no list of products not in the smoothie.  Smoothie King can get big like Popeyes or Starbucks.  Customers sometimes assume we are the former Starbucks that was in the location or Capital One that was also in the same location.  Customers did have some funny ways to make a smoothie especially the ones that take everything out of the smoothie, and put a whole bunch of different ingredients knowing they not going to drink it.  The scamming professionals - one pretty young lady came in mentioned she spoke to me and the manager that she had a bad experience with a smoothie last week. This pretty young lady had no receipt and no smoothie.  We had one young girl on cruthes ordered a drink with everything in it, stated she worked for the company, and she always get the same smoothie all the time.  She kept giving us a hard time on the smoothie while the line out the door, then did not have a penny to pay for it. The neighborhood high school kids felt bad and paid for it.  Another homeless lady come in and grab retail, head straight to the bathroom to eat the product and leave the evidence, and smelled so bad.  A construction latino male came in and kept trying to connect with me stating he is pro-life and needed to roll up his drugs/weed in the bathroom, and he is going to purchase a smoothie.  I had to think why he needed to tell me what he is going to do in the restroom.  Homeless males were the boldest to panhandle in the store or right at the door.  One homeless male kept passing the door back and forth, then came in to talk about owning the block and throwing homophobia slurs and talk.  We made customers pay for using the restroom by asking them to make a purchase even it is just a cup of ice or water.  The majority of support came from the neighborhood high school kids and the high school sports teams, the neighborhood community college, apartment complex, a major retail store, and neighboring businesses and organizations.

Email went straight back to DC Metropolitan Police Department.

I thought of a new concept for every call on 9-1-1 to follow up with email for credibility.

---------------------------------------------- My November 5, 2019 Physical Report

Unity Healthcare Upper Cardozo Health Center 3020 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20009

Composite Metabolic Panel (Overall Result = normal)

Glucose (Value = 78)(Reference Range = 65-99 mg/dL)

BUN (Value = 17)(Reference Range = 6-24 mg/dL)

Creatinine (Value = 1.05)(Reference Range = 0.76-1.27 mg/dL)

eGFR if NonAfricn Am (Value = 87)(Reference Range = >59 mL/min/1.73)

eGFR if Africn Am (Value = 100)(Reference Range = >59 mL/min/1.73)

BUN/Creatinine Ratio (Value = 16) (Reference Range = 9-20)

Sodium (Value =142)(Reference Range = 134-114 mmol/L)

Potassium (Value = 4.3)(Reference Range = 3.5-5.2 mmol/L)

Chloride (Value =104)(Reference Range = 96-106 mmol/L)

Carbon Dioxide, Total (Value =23)(Reference Range = 20-29 mmol/L)

Calcium (Value =9.3)(Reference Range = 8.7-10.2 mg/dL)

Protein, Total (Value = 7.0)(Reference Range = 6.0-8.5 g/dL)

Albumin (Value = 3.8)(Reference Range = 3.5-5.5 g/dL)

Globulin, Total (Value = 3.2)(Reference Range = 1.5-4.5 g/dL)

A/G Ratio (Value = 1.2)(Reference Range = 1.2-2.2)

Billrubin, Total (Value = 1.2) (Reference Range = 0.0-1.2 mg/dL)

Alkaline Phosphatase (Value = 72) (Reference Range = 39-117 IU/L)

AST (SGOT) (Value = 17)(Reference Range = 0-40 IU/L)

ALT (SGPT) (Value = 12)(Reference Range = 0-44 IU/L)

RPR (Overall result = negative)

RPR (Value = Non Reactive)(Reference Range = Non Reactive)

Trichomonas (Overall result = negative)

Trichomonas vag by NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference Range = Negative)

HIV (Overall result = negative)

HIV Screen 4th Generation wRfx (Value = Non Reactive) (Reference Range = Non Reactive)

CBC without diff (Overall result = wnl)

White Blood Cell (WBC) (Value = 4.3)(Reference Range = 3.4-10.8 x10E3/uL)

Red Blood Cell (RBC) (Value 4.32)(Reference Range = 4.14-5.80 x10E6/uL)

Hemoglobin (Value = 13.7)(Reference Range = 10.0-17.7 (g/dL)

Hematocrit (Value = 40.7)(Reference Range = 37.5-51.0 %)

MCV (Value = 94)(Reference Range = 79-97 fL)

MCH (Value = 31.7)(Reference Range = 26.6-33.0 pg)

MCHC (Value =33.7)(Reference Range = 31.5-35.7 g/dL)

RDW (Value = 11.4 [Low]) (Reference Range = 12.3-15.4 %)

Platelets (Value = 229)(Reference Range = 150-450 x10E3/uL)

QuantiFERON TB Gold Plus (Overall result = negative)

QuantiFERON Incubation (Value = Incubation performed)

QuantiFERON TB Gold Plus (Value = Negative) (Reference Range = Negative)

QuantiFERON Criteria (Value = Comment)(The QuantiFERON TB Gold Plus result is determined by subtracting the Nil value from either TB antigen (Ag) tube. The mitogen tube serves as a control for the test.

QuantiFERON TB1 Ag Value (Value = 0.03) (No reference range in IU/mL)

QuantiFERON TB2 Ag Value (Value = 0.03) (No reference range in IU/mL)

QuantiFERON Nil Value (Value = 0.03) (No reference range in IU/mL)

QuantiFERON Mitogen Value (Value = >10.00) (No reference range in IU/mL)

Chlamydia trachomatis, NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

Neisseria gonorrhoeae, NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

------------------------------------------------- My November 11, 2019 Sexually Transmitted Diseases Report

Whitman Walker 1525 14th St NW Washington, DC 20005

Chlamydia/GC Ampli. Ureth, Cerv, Urine STD Kit Chlamydia trachomatis, NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

Neisseria gonorrhoeae, NAA (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

IH Rapid HIV L-HIV 1/2 ELISA (Value = Non-Reactive/Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

RPR With Reflx to Quanti and Confirmatory FTA RPR (Value = Non-Reactive) (Reference range = Non-Reactive)

Chlamydia/GC NAA, Pharyngeal STD Kit C. trachomatis, NAA, Pharyn (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

N. gonorrhoeae, NAA, Pharyn (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

Chlamydia/GC NAA, Rectal STD Kit C. trachomatis, NAA, Rectal (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

N. gonorrhoeae, NAA, Rectal (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

Syphillis (Value = Negative) (Reference range = Negative)

-------------------------------------------------

My December 5, 2019 Physical Report

Unity Healthcare Upper Cardozo Health Center 3020 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20009

Blood Pressure 93/43 and 95/45 (low blood pressure)

Heartbeat 67 beats per minute

Weight - 168 lbs to 171 lbs

Psychiatrist suggested two options for me Abilify or increase dosage of olanzapine to 10mg.  I told her I would not be able to function at 10mg.  She states 2.5mg is not working and it is the dosage of a two (2) year old.  Citalopram is sedation too and works great....no comments on taking that one.  We discussed all the medications regarding sedation and non-sedation. I enjoyed the sedation part of olanzapine.  When I came off olanzapine, that named city 'C' happened with the participation of New York, District of Columbia, and South Carolina. When I researched the side effects of Abilify and that named city 'C' aunt came through so big, yes they f*cked up their own brother (my daddy) to death as nurses.  You will have figure a new way to do the son (or nephew) while on olanzapine up and down dosages and he will never speak or see any family until April 3, 2056.  Life according to olanzapine and me while taking it everyday works for me until the rest of my life or until all manufacturers stop making it.  I am still Superman and Queen Elsa combined (ice, cold, and angry)....life took Princess (Queen) Anna (warmth and care) away April 3, 2016.

--------------------------------------------------

My December 10, 2019 Physical Report

Unity Healthcare Upper Cardozo Health Center 3020 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20009

Blood Pressure 103/56 and 100/53 (low blood pressure)

Heartbeat 55 beats per minute

Weight - 168 lbs to 171 lbs

My last talk with the primary care physician.  I told her everything was okay.  We went over my numbers and tests.  She did confirm that according to my weight that a lipid (cholesterol) test was not necessary.  She and I talked about the level of voices that was going in my head...I stated it was residual voices and families.  She and I discussed getting more exercise, getting rest, monitoring weight, and eating healthy.  She advised of a new app called Insight Mediation for sleep music.  She discussed the monitoring of kidneys and liver while on Truvada and so far my kidneys and liver are functioning healthy.  She stated all my blood count and numbers are appropriately healthy.  She also stated low blood pressure is my normal window for the past several years.  I did not tell her about the bike accident that gave me a mild concussion in Washington, DC and almost took out my left arm...saving that examination for South Carolina.

----------------------------------------------------

To cap off the divorce with my birthplace metro area (Washington, DC), I was traveling in the southbound lane of North Capitol St NW on my way to perform a delivery.  Guess what happen?  An SUV parked  on North Capitol St NW in front of GPO building decided to open its door without looking. Cross street is H Street NW.  I swerve and hit the door, then slid into the middle lane in which a smaller sedan slammed on brakes hitting me.  Thank God my left arm took the brunt of the impact and my bike helmet giving me a slight concussion, temporary blackout, and anger release.  Yes, the bike was fine.  The same MPD officer showed up that took my first bike accident in the area few months ago.  The driver of the Maryland SUV was a black female and had a teenager female passenger.  The driver of sedan was black older female and mentioned she had a scratch on the bumper.  Everyone (DC MPD and US GPO Officers) kept asked for my driver's license.  I guess it was an assumption that I would have a different state/city driver's license. I came to and felt fine.  I declined the ambulance because I wanted to get checked out elsewhere and not in Washington, DC.  The headache and left arm soreness came the next few days.  Poor Maryland SUV girl stated it could have been worse.  True, it could have been avoided if she looked out of her driver's mirror to watch for bicyclists.  She stated ride on the sidewalk, but DC is a city made with bike lanes. ��If you are driving any type of vehicle of four wheels or more in any metropolitan city, then you have to watch for pedestrians, bicycles, scooters of two motorized types, skateboarders, segways, uniboarders, etc.  I am not pursuing paperwork on any of the drivers' from any of my accidents because DC MPD does not get it right, and I am leaving DC, Virginia, and Maryland for good.  Life already stated I am getting nothing out of the situation.

From that moment of recovery, I had to rush through all my talk, memories, and what I sent to the universe for such an accident happen.

Again, biological family of all types, I do not want to see, talk, or speak with you until April 3, 2056.  All biological family make sure you have the medical, witness and legal proof to be called "family" after April 3, 2056.

Time to occupy my time with track and field competitions, and gun competitions (did not know this existed).  NRA has rifle competitions, but I have no place to store a rifle.  NRA, I will stick with pistol competitions and I have plenty of places to store my pistol accompanied with knife.  Why all the Glock Sight and Lasers accessories all sold out?

Regarding IAAF (International Amateur Athletic Federation), USATF, and World Athletics, life showed me all the missed opportunities if I would have stuck with that one track and field sport via YouTube.  I am slightly angry and pissed.  The masters division have similar activities, but not as exciting nor as much television and media coverage.

It is very interesting how Muscle and Fitness, and Men's Health came back into my life through International Federation of Body Building (IFBB) and YouTube.  All the celebrity athletes I remembered came back through YouTube on how they developed their bodies.  I did want muscle big when I was younger, but I do not want to be that big...I was aiming for power for sprinting.  I am going the other direction (slender figure) which means lighter due to running in my age group and very healthy living plus healthy numbers.  However, if I can get a Mr. Olympia Physique competition and place first (1st) twice, I would be happy.   It hurts like h*ll in losing weight and keeping it off.  Everyone remembers a small Marvell and yes, he is going back to small Marvell.

Eventually, I will look for employment.

I visited Shiloh Baptist Church in Shaw neighborhood in DC....it was a wonderful experience with African-Americans again. To experience something different, the entire church did the entire Doxology in sign language.  It was good to see.  Gallaudet University, if you need a church or watch Shiloh on public television, I recommend it 100%.  Greater Mt. Calvary (Edgewood/Brookland neighborhood) and Shiloh (Shaw neighborhood) signs the entire service.  I have not been to an African-American church in three years....I almost did not know how to act, but it was fun.

--------------------------------

I was very surprised to be able to gain access to a former consumer technology tool that had my account since 2001.

[wavenetinfo]

How rare it is to find a romantic comedy about a middle-aged couple in this day and age of American cinema. The marriage at the core of Azael Jacobs’ “The Lovers” is so authentically rendered to the audience that many of the scenes come off as painfully real.

“The Lovers” is about those who love, but also about those who discard love. The couple at the center of this tragi-comedy are Mary (Debra Winger) and Michael (Tracy Letts), both pursuing seperate affairs and all, but having given up on their marriage. Don’t be discouraged by the morose nature in which I describe “The Lovers,” for it springs surprises of hope and healing in its tightly-knit running time o 94 minutes, that no writer should reveal.

The film is a scathing, but humorously authentic take on the state of true love and being faithful to one another. Its young writer-director, helmer of the vastly underrated “Terri,” is asking tough, everlasting questions about what love means and if it could ever be realistically sustained trough a lifetime. The film implies that middle aged couples can be, and are, as sexually screwed up as any younger couple in their mid-20s.

Debra Winger is at the center of these sustained, depth-filled questions. She gives one of the very best performances of her career as Mary, a woman filled with disappointment, wounded by a lackluster marriage and on the brink of telling her spouse she’s had enough. There’s an abundance of passion and wit in Winger’s tour-de-force performance. Unpredictable, intense and filed with abundant wit, Winger shows a vulnerable side to her art by opening herself up to a role that Jacobs had specifically written for her.

She spoke to me about the film and what it means to have such a depth-filled, female role come her way at this stage of her career, a role which, as I cross my fingers, could land her a fourth Best Actress nomination.

It’s a pleasure meeting you, despite this little hiccup we just had on the phone. What was that music as we weren’t being put on hold!?

Hello Jordan, did you have the same technological glitch there? From my perspective I was stuck in what sounded like, you know the music you have no control over when you’re on hold, it was sort of like an elevator between a piercing place and a tattoo salon, the kind of music they would play in a place with that hybrid.

I think that’s what I was listening to as well

So we’re already on the same page here [Laughs].

Well, I have to say, loved your performance, loved the movie so it’s very exciting to talk to you about this. So I presume you still have offers to act in movies. What made “The Lovers” the right movie for you? Did it come at the right time?

I had met [director] Azael Jacobs before, so I knew him. I had written him a letter, I had asked him if he ever had anything where he felt like somebody like me could be in. So we kept a relationship where we spoke a couple times a year. At some point the script arrived and I knew that I really wanted to work with him.

Oh really? So you write notes to directors often? Or was it just Azael?

I wouldn’t say often, but I have been known to drop the occasional fan note.

Any other directors you would be allowed to name check in this interview?

Oh, I think I’ve written notes to Paul Thomas Anderson, I think I’ve written notes to Mike Leigh, Olivier Assayas, yeah I’ve written some notes [Laughs].

You definitely have good taste

So you like the film. You sound like a younger person.

Yeah, I loved it. I got married a year ago, so it still feels fresh.

So this movie didn’t depress you?

No, because I know all about the territory that I’m getting myself into.

Yeah, that’s true. You don’t have to be married to know that the institution creates some traps. I remember the first time I got married around 31 years ago. The first movie that we saw, oh shit can’t remember the title, but it was Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Nora Ephron wrote the screenplay about marriage, and it was so depressing and it was like everybody hated each other, marriage was horrible and I was like this is not a good honeymoon movie.

Are you talking about “Heartburn”?

“Heartburn,” yeah, but I feel like “The Lovers” is a cautionary tale and I think in my life, as far as love is concerned, because I do love love stories, always liked to tell love stories, I find them mysterious and the question about how to make love stay is a lasting question and I like to keep asking it and I think cautionary tales are a good thing.

Well, I find the movie is, in the end, not that depressing because it feels almost hopeful, it gives you hope!

I agree.

It also explores all the strains that eventually develop in marriage and how to defeat those demons.

Right, and how easily we could fall asleep and how we don’t even notice it because it just seems more convenient not to confront it. And also I have this whole theory going in that good writers don’t even realize it, they’re writing on such an intuitive level, that when the actors start pulling it apart and inhabiting it, things come out. And when we got up to Santa Clarita, where it was shot, and I saw where we were going to shoot, this suburban middle class neighborhood, I was like, man this is a whole sector of America that is white-knuckling it right now, you know? And it’s a luxury to afford to divorce. You’re not getting along, your relationship isn’t going well, “oh let’s get two apartments, pay two electric bills.” People don’t realize what a privilege decision that can be.

Oh yeah, completely agree with that. That side of the story is never tackled.

So, I was very interested in the socio-economic side of it in that, you stay in the same house, you kind of avoid each other, you try to find some happiness wherever you can, then one day you wake up and you’re like “wait a minute, this is my life?”

I know a couple that’s in that situation. They’re pretty open about it as well.

Yeah, well it moves to that stage if it doesn’t move to the other stage, which is where “The Lovers” is. I think it also is a timing thing. You could do that for a while, but when your kid goes off to college and you’re left with this glaring lie in your life, it’s pretty hard to realize that you’re not doing well. We forget how tentative we are, we’re only here for a little while.

That moment of finiteness. But, yeah when the kid goes to college you both just look at each other and you’re like “Ok, I have to be with YOU now?”

Well, you know, if you’re doing this whole sneaking around and cheating thing just to keep the structure of a marriage which is somewhat familiar to a child, that tends to fall apart, plus, for the most part, you find out that he’s known all along anyway because as we know when we have a baby they are totally vibratory creatures, I mean they pick up on everything and it doesn’t matter what they “know or don’t know”, they know it in their bodies.

The chemistry that you have in the movie with Tracy Letts to showcase these details is quite incredible. I know him mostly as a playwright, what was it like working with him?

Yeah, he’s been a sort of late bloomer to movies and, as he would tell you, usually plays the guy in a suit ordering the drone strike. For him, I think he was kind of lit up by the role itself. You know, being able to be in that situation in a film, I mean, I’m sure he’s done it on stage, but I was just so delighted because he was just so available and for me, I say yes to a director, and I mean YES. I show up and if I’ve said yes, I’m pretty much willing to explore anything. If you make yourself available you don’t really have much protection and that can be super painful, not in a physical way, but it’s like any other situation in life, movies are no different if you’re doing it right, so I don’t have a craft that allows me to go in and protect all my corners and, sort of, nooks and crannies and give an honest and open performance. I have to be in a trusting environment and I think Azael created that and I think Tracy was just so up for that, that’s how he looks at having a scene partner. We hit it off and we used that feeling and we ran with it and I think that when you’re younger you mistake that feeling in life and that’s when so many actors screw up [Laughs].

A whole bunch of stuff happens

Yeah, a whole bunch of stuff happens in a movie because you’re emotionally available and, in this case, the right exact thing happened. You know, we’re both happily married to other people and we just access that part of ourselves that would have probably gone wild and off the rails years ago.

How long was the shoot?

24 days.

That’s fairly …

Shocking. That was shocking to me. I mean, I come from a world where we shot almost three months on a film. I’m telling you, it was rollicking, I don’t mind it, but I think that a few more days would have been nice.

That’s actually a very common thing for an actor to tell me these days, that the shoot was way too short.

Well, because independent films now are just, you know, shot out of the canon. There’s usually not a lot of time for preparation, I was lucky enough to have some time on this, and you’re working, you know, 14 hour days, and you’re driving yourself to locations. I’m really hoping that the business is finding its watermark because when the bottom fell out of the independent film business it was just so shocking that all that could be made was a 500 thousand dollar or a 500 million dollar film and we’re starting to see the advent between a $1M movie and a $30M movie, which we haven’t seen since, I don’t know, the late ’70s early ’80s. I made one called “Mike’s Murder,” sort of at the beginning of the independent film boom and then, of course, “Big Bad Love” was at the end of it, so I think we just have to find this place where we can make right-sized movies that good actors want to make and you don’t have to sit for five hours and have to play a superhero’s movie or a purple Amoeba from another planet, but that you can tell some stories that we need to hear. Hopefully the budget can come up a bit from this one and give you a little more time so you all don’t fall under the weather and we can make some movies.

I guess this is a little better than shooting “Sheltering Sky” for, what was it, five months?

No, I don’t think it’s better. That was a transformational experience. I had my kid with me, I had my whole life with me, I loved that shoot, I have no complaints about that shoot. I don’t think every movie should be five months. I do also find that the experience of making “The Lovers” was transformational for me because, at my age, to be able to tell a story about the vivacity and the connection into life that I feel inside, it so rarely finds a place in society to live. You know, we like to put older people in a box and keep them separate and believe that it’s never going to happen to us. I’m here to say that at 61 it’s a really vibrant time.

I’m sure you’re always searching for those opportunities

I am, I just don’t think that they’re written for the most part.

    1 June 2017 | 5:24 pm

Jordan Ruimy

Source : Awards Daily

>>>Click Here To View Original Press Release>>>

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); June 01, 2017 at 11:54PM

[rilenerocks]

At seven years old, I have now become a Chicago girl. My family has moved into the third floor of an apartment building at 7746 S. Cornell.

One block to the west is Stony Island which is a major thoroughfare through the city. The Chicago Skyway is close by and we are never supposed to play in those places because of the heavy traffic and the stranger danger. But I look at them from our alley and from the back porch steps three stories high, where the boiling afternoon heat turns our apartment into an inferno in the summer. There are so many vehicles moving in steady streams in many directions. I am not in Sioux City any more.

This apartment only has two bedrooms. Mom and dad are in one. My two sisters and I are in the other. My brother is in some makeshift space on the back porch. There is aluminum foil put up to reflect the sun away from his bed. I am too young to be upset at the major downsizing from our Iowa house to this small space. In retrospect I realize that this move was much harder for my older brother and sister who were more established in their Sioux City lives. They have to adapt to a new social structure because we are now living in a much more sophisticated and wealthy area than in Iowa where class didn’t seem as obvious. Or maybe I was too little to notice class then. Our apartment building is on the fringe of that wealthier neighborhood and we go to school with kids who are used to a whole other economic existence.

As kid number three, I have the advantage of observing the problems of my siblings and figuring out strategies to survive. My parents,who were driven by desperation to make this move, didn’t have the psychology chops to understand the ramifications of this sea change. They were naive. This move created what my mom called “two separate families,” my parents with the older siblings and my parents with me and my younger sister. Whether true or not, I think my mom was wrong to tell us that. At least she told us two young ones. I really am not sure what she said to the big kids. Dorothy the boundary-less. But I digress. Mrs. Miller is our landlady.

She is broad, with greasy, straight salt and pepper hair which is straight, cut in one length to just below her chin. She is brusque and I want to be away from her. Sometimes her family comes to visit and by their accents, it seems they’re from the south. There is a pale-skinned, pale-haired, pale-eyed girl about my age. We play together in the gangway which separates our apartment building from the one next door. I make up most of the games. I did the same thing with Robin, the boy I loved in Iowa. With him we played, the butterfly, the spider and the fly. He had a dual role as the mean spider and the savior fly. I was the butterfly. With this pale girl, we are playing island natives. We trade off who is the girl and the boy. The heroine’s name is Fayaway. She is always in danger, being captured and then being rescued. Although nothing actually sexual happens between us, through the prism of time, I recognize that these were erotic forms of play. Apparently I am always in love, as soon as I recognized the beginnings of that feeling.

Our block is primarily apartment buildings, some three units and others six units. There are a few duplexes. There is only one empty lot on the block. I go down there to collect grasshoppers. In summer, my sister and I screw our roller skates to our shoes and go down the sidewalk making metallic, grinding sounds on the journey to collect the bugs. I bring them back to the ledge at the front entry of our building and conduct experiments. I dissect them and move their pieces around to see what happens. Sometimes their separated parts keep moving after my operations. I have no idea how that works but it interests me. We say that the grasshoppers are spitting tobacco juice at us. Our lawn consists of a small patch of dirt, maybe 4’ by 4’ with some wan blades of grass. I am now in the urban world of bricks and mortar. That’s what I adjust to, with the alleys, sidewalks, gangways and apartment basements as my play ground. Iowa becomes a memory. In summer and on weekends, kids pour out of the buildings and we all play together. Our hide and seek games have a two block radius because there are so many kids in the game. We need lots of space for hiding. I remember going into dark basements and have a hard time believing the freedom of those days. We play kick the can in the alley, concentration and those hand clapping games that have songs attached.

Concentration is a game where you say, thinking of, names of, cars, beginning with, A. We go from cars to colors to flowers and so on. This is semi-spoken and semi-sung. The hand games have songs too like, a sailor went to sea, sea, sea to see what he could see, see, see. Our hands move fast and we have special clapping styles. Sometimes if we go too fast, the game breaks down and we start over. We play jump rope and hopscotch.

There is always something to do outside. My mom opens the front window of the apartment, calls out or whistles and we run home for dinner. After we eat, a big gang of kids runs to the corner to wait for Harry, the ice cream man.

He wears a white coat and hat and rides a bike with small freezer on the front of it. For a dime you can buy a popsicle, a fudgsicle, an ice cream bar, a dreamsicle or a push-up. I love chocolate popsicles the best. I am bigger than a lot of the kids. While we wait for Harry, I lie on my back and flex my knees toward my chest. The smaller kids sit on my feet and I push them through the air. I push Johnny Lothrop so far that he flips over and breaks his collarbone. His parents are very angry and I’m afraid they want my parents to pay. Johnny has to wear a neck brace. For days I’m afraid to go out and I stand in the little front hallway, looking out longingly at everyone playing. Our block is filled with all kinds of people.

We have several Greek families living near us. Elaine and Anna Sonios live across the street. They’re older than me. Their parents own a grocery store on 79th Street. They celebrate different holidays than we do and on occasion we get invited in and are given treats. We get Greek halva which is nougat with pistachios. I can still taste it. Elaine and Anna’s parents are very strict. When they have lots of guests, the girls climb out the windows to run around with the rest of the kids. Constantine Athanasoulias lives on our block as does Johnny Latsoudis. Johnny is handsome. There’s another cute boy on the block named Kenny Jones. I have a crush on him. He has a line in the middle of his lower lip that makes him look special. He has an older brother named Edward James but everyone calls him Edgy. The first African-American student at my elementary school, Horace Mann, moves onto our block. Her name is Sandra Greene. She is tall and athletic. Her skin has reddish tones and her face has high cheekbones. I think she’s beautiful. I often wonder whether she is part Native American. Down the block there is a family from somewhere in the Middle East. A little girl whose name is Lu-el plays outside. She is odd. The big kids try to make her eat dirt with a stick. Sometimes when I look back I feel like the kids are just this side of Lord of the Flies. One day Lu-el drops to the ground and is having a seizure. We run and get my mother who comes and puts a tongue depressor in her mouth so she won’t swallow her tongue.

Our block is full of action. One day I am outside when a mean-faced teenager named Harry Hess comes up to me and calls me a fucking kike. I know this is bad so I go tell my mother. She comes storming outside and yells at Harry and explains to me that some people don’t like us because we’re Jewish. I’ve never heard the “f” word either. I’m getting my first lessons in prejudice. Cornell is an ethnic swirl and there’s a lot to learn.

My grandparents live right around the corner on 78th Street. I can still smell their hallway. It smells like chicken soup and pepper and schmaltz. Schmaltz which is flavorful chicken fat is saved and put in a jar in the fridge and is used for cooking and us smeared on everything. Why did everyone not die of heart attacks? My grandmother is a wonderful cook. But when we visit, we sit at her white porcelain table with blue embossed flowers and eat apricot jelly on rye bread and cantaloupe cut into chunks. The chicken and friccasees are for special occasions. One of my uncles and his wife live “north” on Kenmore but then they are suddenly south on Euclid. We get together with the extended family every weekend and have big meals. We sing a lot. Favorites are You Are My Sunshine, Tell Me Why and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. We shop locally on 79th Street.

There is Heller’s drugstore and Feldstein’s delicatessen. Feldstein’s has a big barrel full of penny candy. There are yellow jawbreakers wrapped in red rope candy. There are little wax bottles filled with juice. Wax is definitely a thing because there are big was lips you bite down on and wax mustaches. There are white candy cigarettes with pink tips and pastel gums that are shaped like cigars, with a gold label like the ones on real cigars. There are pink, yellow, white and blue hard sugar dots that are baked onto paper- you bite those off. You can get a package of pixy sticks or Lick-a-made which is nothing but flavored sugar. Tiny ice cream cones filled with colored marshmallows. Chum gum. Those were the treats we got on hot Saturday afternoons when we all piled into the laundromat with our bags of clothes, sheets and towels. How I hated the laundromat. The wringer washer in Iowa was long gone. My parents wouldn’t own a machine again until they moved near me in my adult life, almost 30 years later.  But while we took turns there, swapping out the wet loads and folding the hot things from the dryer, there was shopping.

  There was Dessauer’s butcher shop where my mom would order a piece of book roast. I don’t even know what that is. The butcher shop smelled of blood. I knew that even though I hadn’t smelled blood before. There was Wee Folks, the toy store where you could get Silly Putty. Eventually I got a Barbie doll at that store. Mine had red hair and a hole in her head. She could wear either a bubble hairstyle or if you wanted a change, you’d reach into the hole and pull out a ponytail. My favorite doll was one I’d gotten in Iowa from my grandmother. She was a Madame Alexander doll with a porcelain face and a stiff blue dress with white trim. She had one other outfit. Buying doll clothes was too expensive so I made more out of Kleenex and rubber bands. I still have her, though she is in pieces.

The Avalon theater was on 79th Street, within walking distance of our apartment. Sometimes we went with our friends. It was a fine old theater with stylish boxes and a balcony. If we shared a box of Milk Duds, they were real caramel with real chocolate covering that cracked when you bit them. I saw scary movies with Vincent Price and always liked the cartoons that played before the feature film. Movies were pretty cheap. Life felt good to me in those first years on Cornell.

We went to Rainbow Beach on the weekends. The adults all stayed on the grassy lawn of the abutting park  but I went to the water where I learned to swim by copying other people’s actions. My brother worked at the concession stand there and it felt exciting to eat something away from home. They put mustard on the hamburgers which came wrapped in thin white tissuey paper. Mostly we ate at home. On weekends, we got food from the deli, like salami and bologna and bagels and lox. Those were welcome treats. For the most part, I was a happy kid. But there were troubles brewing. My dad worked for the Chicago Motor Club in the day and at Polk Brothers at night. My mom worked occasionally but she had bad bouts of ulcerative colitis and often wound up staying home. She worked at Time-Life Books and The University of Chicago hospital where she was in accounts and the beginnings of Medicare. My dad was the one who came to bring my little sister and I home for lunch as our school didn’t have a lunchroom. We ate a lot of eggs and salami. I knew there was economic stress. I always worried about my mother’s health. She would go in and out of hospitals, events which frightened me just like the first time it happened when I was four. My brother and sister were adapting but they each had struggles. My brother became a fringe person who only had a few friends. My sister was more socially entrenched but she was unhappy. The small space we shared rumbled with emotions, some spoken and others beneath the surface. I kept my younger sister close to me. She was physically little and I wanted whatever was coming in my direction from the big people to be kept away from her. I was pretty young to be thinking those thoughts but I was worried a lot about the obvious economic stressors and the impact they were having on our household. I was impacted too by those like everyone else. But I found ways to respond that prompted my dad to give me my new nickname – weasel. I liked that one. I thought it was apt. When I felt the anger, sadness and anxiety of the older people, I wanted to make things better, for them and for me. So I found my own ways to deal with the childhood issues that have big impacts on how we feel about ourselves. My go-to skill became lying. When it was picture day at school and so many girls pranced in dressed in fancy outfits with fancy shoes, I’d get asked, “where are your dress shoes? It’s picture day.” And I would clap myself on the forehead and say, “oh I forgot.” Worked like a charm. I started to figure out that there might be a way around, over, under or through  any obstacle or problem that was in front of you. While I was playing and doing my little kid stuff, there was another part of me developing, the part that is the core of who I am as an adult. No depression, no acting out, no ulcerative colitis for me. I was going to be the person who found my way through everything, with as little personal damage to me as possible. I am still that person. The Chicago school days are next up in my memory journey which I’m going to leave for my family.

The Living Spaces #2 Chicago Girl At seven years old, I have now become a Chicago girl. My family has moved into the third floor of an apartment building at 7746 S.

[rilenerocks]

At seven years old, I have now become a Chicago girl. My family has moved into the third floor of an apartment building at 7746 S. Cornell.

One block to the west is Stony Island which is a major thoroughfare through the city. The Chicago Skyway is close by and we are never supposed to play in those places because of the heavy traffic and the stranger danger. But I look at them from our alley and from the back porch steps three stories high, where the boiling afternoon heat turns our apartment into an inferno in the summer. There are so many vehicles moving in steady streams in many directions. I am not in Sioux City any more.

This apartment only has two bedrooms. Mom and dad are in one. My two sisters and I are in the other. My brother is in some makeshift space on the back porch. There is aluminum foil put up to reflect the sun away from his bed. I am too young to be upset at the major downsizing from our Iowa house to this small space. In retrospect I realize that this move was much harder for my older brother and sister who were more established in their Sioux City lives. They have to adapt to a new social structure because we are now living in a much more sophisticated and wealthy area than in Iowa where class didn’t seem as obvious. Or maybe I was too little to notice class then. Our apartment building is on the fringe of that wealthier neighborhood and we go to school with kids who are used to a whole other economic existence.

As kid number three, I have the advantage of observing the problems of my siblings and figuring out strategies to survive. My parents,who were driven by desperation to make this move, didn’t have the psychology chops to understand the ramifications of this sea change. They were naive. This move created what my mom called “two separate families,” my parents with the older siblings and my parents with me and my younger sister. Whether true or not, I think my mom was wrong to tell us that. At least she told us two young ones. I really am not sure what she said to the big kids. Dorothy the boundary-less. But I digress. Mrs. Miller is our landlady.

She is broad, with greasy, straight salt and pepper hair which is straight, cut in one length to just below her chin. She is brusque and I want to be away from her. Sometimes her family comes to visit and by their accents, it seems they’re from the south. There is a pale-skinned, pale-haired, pale-eyed girl about my age. We play together in the gangway which separates our apartment building from the one next door. I make up most of the games. I did the same thing with Robin, the boy I loved in Iowa. With him we played, the butterfly, the spider and the fly. He had a dual role as the mean spider and the savior fly. I was the butterfly. With this pale girl, we are playing island natives. We trade off who is the girl and the boy. The heroine’s name is Fayaway. She is always in danger, being captured and then being rescued. Although nothing actually sexual happens between us, through the prism of time, I recognize that these were erotic forms of play. Apparently I am always in love, as soon as I recognized the beginnings of that feeling.

Our block is primarily apartment buildings, some three units and others six units. There are a few duplexes. There is only one empty lot on the block. I go down there to collect grasshoppers. In summer, my sister and I screw our roller skates to our shoes and go down the sidewalk making metallic, grinding sounds on the journey to collect the bugs. I bring them back to the ledge at the front entry of our building and conduct experiments. I dissect them and move their pieces around to see what happens. Sometimes their separated parts keep moving after my operations. I have no idea how that works but it interests me. We say that the grasshoppers are spitting tobacco juice at us. Our lawn consists of a small patch of dirt, maybe 4’ by 4’ with some wan blades of grass. I am now in the urban world of bricks and mortar. That’s what I adjust to, with the alleys, sidewalks, gangways and apartment basements as my play ground. Iowa becomes a memory. In summer and on weekends, kids pour out of the buildings and we all play together. Our hide and seek games have a two block radius because there are so many kids in the game. We need lots of space for hiding. I remember going into dark basements and have a hard time believing the freedom of those days. We play kick the can in the alley, concentration and those hand clapping games that have songs attached.

Concentration is a game where you say, thinking of, names of, cars, beginning with, A. We go from cars to colors to flowers and so on. This is semi-spoken and semi-sung. The hand games have songs too like, a sailor went to sea, sea, sea to see what he could see, see, see. Our hands move fast and we have special clapping styles. Sometimes if we go too fast, the game breaks down and we start over. We play jump rope and hopscotch.

There is always something to do outside. My mom opens the front window of the apartment, calls out or whistles and we run home for dinner. After we eat, a big gang of kids runs to the corner to wait for Harry, the ice cream man.

He wears a white coat and hat and rides a bike with small freezer on the front of it. For a dime you can buy a popsicle, a fudgsicle, an ice cream bar, a dreamsicle or a push-up. I love chocolate popsicles the best. I am bigger than a lot of the kids. While we wait for Harry, I lie on my back and flex my knees toward my chest. The smaller kids sit on my feet and I push them through the air. I push Johnny Lothrop so far that he flips over and breaks his collarbone. His parents are very angry and I’m afraid they want my parents to pay. Johnny has to wear a neck brace. For days I’m afraid to go out and I stand in the little front hallway, looking out longingly at everyone playing. Our block is filled with all kinds of people.

We have several Greek families living near us. Elaine and Anna Sonios live across the street. They’re older than me. Their parents own a grocery store on 79th Street. They celebrate different holidays than we do and on occasion we get invited in and are given treats. We get Greek halva which is nougat with pistachios. I can still taste it. Elaine and Anna’s parents are very strict. When they have lots of guests, the girls climb out the windows to run around with the rest of the kids. Constantine Athanasoulias lives on our block as does Johnny Latsoudis. Johnny is handsome. There’s another cute boy on the block named Kenny Jones. I have a crush on him. He has a line in the middle of his lower lip that makes him look special. He has an older brother named Edward James but everyone calls him Edgy. The first African-American student at my elementary school, Horace Mann, moves onto our block. Her name is Sandra Greene. She is tall and athletic. Her skin has reddish tones and her face has high cheekbones. I think she’s beautiful. I often wonder whether she is part Native American. Down the block there is a family from somewhere in the Middle East. A little girl whose name is Lu-el plays outside. She is odd. The big kids try to make her eat dirt with a stick. Sometimes when I look back I feel like the kids are just this side of Lord of the Flies. One day Lu-el drops to the ground and is having a seizure. We run and get my mother who comes and puts a tongue depressor in her mouth so she won’t swallow her tongue.

Our block is full of action. One day I am outside when a mean-faced teenager named Harry Hess comes up to me and calls me a fucking kike. I know this is bad so I go tell my mother. She comes storming outside and yells at Harry and explains to me that some people don’t like us because we’re Jewish. I’ve never heard the “f” word either. I’m getting my first lessons in prejudice. Cornell is an ethnic swirl and there’s a lot to learn.

My grandparents live right around the corner on 78th Street. I can still smell their hallway. It smells like chicken soup and pepper and schmaltz. Schmaltz which is flavorful chicken fat is saved and put in a jar in the fridge and is used for cooking and us smeared on everything. Why did everyone not die of heart attacks? My grandmother is a wonderful cook. But when we visit, we sit at her white porcelain table with blue embossed flowers and eat apricot jelly on rye bread and cantaloupe cut into chunks. The chicken and friccasees are for special occasions. One of my uncles and his wife live “north” on Kenmore but then they are suddenly south on Euclid. We get together with the extended family every weekend and have big meals. We sing a lot. Favorites are You Are My Sunshine, Tell Me Why and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. We shop locally on 79th Street.

There is Heller’s drugstore and Feldstein’s delicatessen. Feldstein’s has a big barrel full of penny candy. There are yellow jawbreakers wrapped in red rope candy. There are little wax bottles filled with juice. Wax is definitely a thing because there are big was lips you bite down on and wax mustaches. There are white candy cigarettes with pink tips and pastel gums that are shaped like cigars, with a gold label like the ones on real cigars. There are pink, yellow, white and blue hard sugar dots that are baked onto paper- you bite those off. You can get a package of pixy sticks or Lick-a-made which is nothing but flavored sugar. Tiny ice cream cones filled with colored marshmallows. Chum gum. Those were the treats we got on hot Saturday afternoons when we all piled into the laundromat with our bags of clothes, sheets and towels. How I hated the laundromat. The wringer washer in Iowa was long gone. My parents wouldn’t own a machine again until they moved near me in my adult life, almost 30 years later.  But while we took turns there, swapping out the wet loads and folding the hot things from the dryer, there was shopping.

  There was Dessauer’s butcher shop where my mom would order a piece of book roast. I don’t even know what that is. The butcher shop smelled of blood. I knew that even though I hadn’t smelled blood before. There was Wee Folks, the toy store where you could get Silly Putty. Eventually I got a Barbie doll at that store. Mine had red hair and a hole in her head. She could wear either a bubble hairstyle or if you wanted a change, you’d reach into the hole and pull out a ponytail. My favorite doll was one I’d gotten in Iowa from my grandmother. She was a Madame Alexander doll with a porcelain face and a stiff blue dress with white trim. She had one other outfit. Buying doll clothes was too expensive so I made more out of Kleenex and rubber bands. I still have her, though she is in pieces.

The Avalon theater was on 79th Street, within walking distance of our apartment. Sometimes we went with our friends. It was a fine old theater with stylish boxes and a balcony. If we shared a box of Milk Duds, they were real caramel with real chocolate covering that cracked when you bit them. I saw scary movies with Vincent Price and always liked the cartoons that played before the feature film. Movies were pretty cheap. Life felt good to me in those first years on Cornell.

We went to Rainbow Beach on the weekends. The adults all stayed on the grassy lawn of the abutting park  but I went to the water where I learned to swim by copying other people’s actions. My brother worked at the concession stand there and it felt exciting to eat something away from home. They put mustard on the hamburgers which came wrapped in thin white tissuey paper. Mostly we ate at home. On weekends, we got food from the deli, like salami and bologna and bagels and lox. Those were welcome treats. For the most part, I was a happy kid. But there were troubles brewing. My dad worked for the Chicago Motor Club in the day and at Polk Brothers at night. My mom worked occasionally but she had bad bouts of ulcerative colitis and often wound up staying home. She worked at Time-Life Books and The University of Chicago hospital where she was in accounts and the beginnings of Medicare. My dad was the one who came to bring my little sister and I home for lunch as our school didn’t have a lunchroom. We ate a lot of eggs and salami. I knew there was economic stress. I always worried about my mother’s health. She would go in and out of hospitals, events which frightened me just like the first time it happened when I was four. My brother and sister were adapting but they each had struggles. My brother became a fringe person who only had a few friends. My sister was more socially entrenched but she was unhappy. The small space we shared rumbled with emotions, some spoken and others beneath the surface. I kept my younger sister close to me. She was physically little and I wanted whatever was coming in my direction from the big people to be kept away from her. I was pretty young to be thinking those thoughts but I was worried a lot about the obvious economic stressors and the impact they were having on our household. I was impacted too by those like everyone else. But I found ways to respond that prompted my dad to give me my new nickname – weasel. I liked that one. I thought it was apt. When I felt the anger, sadness and anxiety of the older people, I wanted to make things better, for them and for me. So I found my own ways to deal with the childhood issues that have big impacts on how we feel about ourselves. My go-to skill became lying. When it was picture day at school and so many girls pranced in dressed in fancy outfits with fancy shoes, I’d get asked, “where are your dress shoes? It’s picture day.” And I would clap myself on the forehead and say, “oh I forgot.” Worked like a charm. I started to figure out that there might be a way around, over, under or through  any obstacle or problem that was in front of you. While I was playing and doing my little kid stuff, there was another part of me developing, the part that is the core of who I am as an adult. No depression, no acting out, no ulcerative colitis for me. I was going to be the person who found my way through everything, with as little personal damage to me as possible. I am still that person. The Chicago school days are next up in my memory journey which I’m going to leave for my family.

The Living Spaces #2 Chicago Girl At seven years old, I have now become a Chicago girl. My family has moved into the third floor of an apartment building at 7746 S.