Year of the Rooster

YEAR OF THE ROOSTER

by

Trevor C. Smith

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Rebel Satori Press on Smashwords

Copyright 2010 by Trevor C. Smith

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For Tara, because she saved me.

Money is only ever as evil as the hand that holds it.

Chapter One

My name is Johnny Means.

I am standing in the dank underbelly of an abandoned industrial building that once housed the production of ball bearings. Surrounding me is an ocean of sweating bodies, men and women so overwhelmed with anticipation that the adrenaline screaming through their veins threatens to rupture their hearts. Money is being thrown around like . . . well, like only money can be thrown around.

I am the center of attention to this mass of Carnage Junkies. I am their Pogrom Pusher. I am standing in a large cage. In this cage with me are two other men. The two men, they’re each holding a long metal pole. Leashed to the end of those poles are two frothing at the mouth, snarling rabid dogs which, given the chance, would be deliriously overjoyed to tear me limb from limb.

I stand between these dogs. In each hand I hold a .44 Magnum revolver. In each revolver there is a single live round. In each round there is assured, thundering destruction. The muzzles of these guns are held to the dog’s heads.

This is a game I host. A kind of roulette. No casino, racetrack or fight ring can hold a candle to the windstorm of carnage I provide. I am the M.C. of Bloodshed. I am the Host of Death.

This is what I am because this is what I do for money.

It’s not as bad as it looks.

Dogs have always hated me. I have always hated dogs. This is a mutual understanding we have had ever since I can remember.

It should be noted here that I did not start this rivalry. It was the dogs. My parents told me that this contention began the first day I was brought home as a swaddled bundle of gurgling, shitting, pissing and puking newborn joy. Apparently I was left in my baby seat contentedly staring in fascination at a chandelier when my parent’s dog Ringo nefariously snuck up, grabbed a mouthful of my baby blanket and proceeded to whip me about the living room as if I were a doggy toy. My parents heard the commotion and came into the room. My mother emitted a scream that could kill an erection then fainted immediately. My father ran from the room, then returned moments later with a large cast iron frying pan. My mother tells me that she still, to this day, finds shards of Ringo’s teeth and skull fragments in the carpet and curtains. Needless to say, that event left and indelible impression on me.

As well, it did not go unnoticed by my parents that whenever they dressed me up and brought me over to their friend’s home to showboat me, their new little treasure, that the dog of the house would let it be known by growling and raised hair that my presence was most unwelcome.

The pattern continued.

My earliest recollection of this ongoing, and I believe karmic, rivalry was when I was around nine years old. It was a gorgeous summer afternoon. The sky was that shade of blue you would expect to see on baby blankets. The heat was rising in rippling waves off the asphalt road distorting the horizon, making the trees appear to dance. There I was, like a true life version of a Rockwell painting. I was pulling along a red wagon with rusting wheels wearing my favorite tattered jeans and a white t-shirt and a pair of red canvas runners.

A little James Dean.

I remember being soaked in sweat, constantly wiping my brow to keep it from creeping into my eyes and stinging them. And you have to see after all, when you’re ditch hunting.

It’s amazing what people throw out of their cars. You can find anything if you scour enough. It was all there. A person can find great watches still in perfect working order. Money. There was always loads of pennies and change but periodically there were bills. There was a fifty-dollar bill once spattered in blood. Every item of clothing a person needs can be found strewn along the road in a variety of sizes and styles. And there were always wallets. In the bottom drawer of my dresser there was a collection of wallets from ditch hunting. People, in the middle of the night, pull off the road for various reasons. Sometimes it’s to just relax by the road for a break and sometimes to take a piss or have a fight or have sex. Regardless of the reason stuff just falls out of their pockets.

On that brilliant sunny day I was collecting bottles and cans scattered along the ditch for the return money. You can go ditch hunting all day and not find any treasures, but you will always find bottles and cans.

From behind a fence a very formidable black dog began barking at me and gnawing at the fence just to let me know he meant business. Remarkably, despite all that has happened to me during my life regarding dogs, I am not afraid of them. However, I think this only serves to piss them off even more. The dog, named Killer if I heard the owner properly, refused to calm down and whipped itself up into a blinding frenzy. The dog leaped to the top of the fence, its hind legs scratching and clawing to heave its hind quarters over, the whole time he was growling and snapping his jaws at me, saliva flying.

My instincts told me it was time to run like fucking hell.

So I dropped the handle of my wagon and I ran like fucking hell. I had a good start on the dog because he was still struggling to get over the fence. Here’s the problem with trying to outrun a dog: they are capable of running very fucking fast. I managed to make it to my street, and as I rounded the corner I peeked over my shoulder and saw Killer streaking after me. I ran faster and began screaming for my father. I made it to my house. Here is the problem with my house: it is entirely fenced in with a gate that, at my father’s insistence, is always closed and latched. I decided to forgo the formalities of the gate and jump over the fence. Now it was my turn to hang over the top of a fence and kick and claw as I screamed for my dad, saliva flying.

The pain I felt next forced a shriek from me that I later found myself embarrassed about. Killer had leaped up and sunk his teeth into the largest and most vulnerable target that was available to him. That target just happened to be my scrawny ass.

Now, there are animals such as frogs and lizards and others that defecate for defensive purposes. I’ve seen raccoons and rabbits cornered, frightened literally shitless, emptying their bowels as a desperate and final line of defense. But I had no idea this would be my own body’s reaction to being attacked by a dog. Regardless, my ass exploded with a briny discharge, the stench of which certainly sent the dog into confusion. I was pulled backwards off the fence and fell on my back, smacking my head on the ground. The dog went right for my throat and was holding me down. Fear and pain overwhelmed me and I began to black out.

When my vision cleared again I was staring up into the blue sky. There was a tall figure over me that gradually came into focus. It was my father. He was holding a large cast iron frying pan.

As far as I was concerned that day, that dog’s behavior was a willful act of war.

Of course, most people would not blame the dog. They would say that he was only doing what comes naturally, reacting on instinct. I have acted similarly before, on instinct I mean, and have been reprimanded. Told I should know better.

Go figure.

Which brings us back to me killing dogs.

But hold on. I’m getting way ahead of myself here. And besides that, I feel the need to explain myself. Fill in the blanks. Tell the whole story. It should be noted that this is not going to be pretty. I’ll warn you of that now. It’s full of ugly realities most of us pretend don’t happen in this world. The ones we try so hard to filter out of our minds.

Avoid, deny, repress. These are the things we do best. But not this time. So be ready for it.

Like any story this ugly it’s best told honestly. Straight up and without excuses. Just reasons. This is not a memoir. It’s more like a confession to the world. This is not a petition for sympathy, just a listening ear.

Though you’ll probably still think I’m a piece of shit in the end.

Chapter Two

There’s no way I could do the same thing my father did. I don’t think any less of him for it. I’m not ashamed of him. He’s a good man. In fact there is a good amount of admiration due a man who has that degree of self-discipline and strength. My father did what he had to do to feed six children, clothe them and provide shelter. But there was just no way I could bring myself to do what he did.

I could not imagine myself working at the same job for twenty or thirty years. I mean, no wonder our fathers are all angry.

The drudgery of going to the same job day in and day out for the best third of my life was simply beyond my comprehension. The boredom of performing the same job with little hope of doing anything else is a frightening proposition. Just as disturbing is the thought of watching my income rise by tiny increments once a year, and the idea of having to pray for the generosity of my employer for that Christmas bonus. It made little sense to me to devote myself to a company that would just as soon can my ass the moment I became a nuisance.

We regret to inform you Mr. Means, you’re too old.

We regret to inform you Mr. Means, you’re no longer economically viable.

We regret to inform you Mr. Means, your function has become obsolete. Here’s a lovely letter of dismissal and a wristwatch. And however useless, since no other company would be in need of your services either, attached you will find a shining letter of reference. Good luck in your future endeavors!

There was no way I was going to allow that to happen to me. The thought of that kind of dependency and vulnerability made me uncomfortable. Which made me an outcast, an embarrassment to the family.

They’d say, You need to go out and get a steady job, a trade.

They’d say, You have your future to think about.

They’d say, You’ll have to make a Living.

This comment I found most ironic of all, referring to a full time job as a Living.

I mean think about this. You get up every day at the crack of dawn in your four-bedroom home. You eat breakfast and drink your coffee. You kiss your wife and your two-point-five kids goodbye. You go to your two-car garage and you get in your car. You drive to work and sit in your chair breathing recycled air consisting of your co-worker’s stale breath and farts. You stay there for god only knows how long because the workload demands from your greed driven boss cannot be denied because you just bought a cottage or a boat or some other anchor around your neck, so you can’t afford to lose your job. The daily repetition of your job becomes so excruciating and mind-numbing that you can’t even escape it in your sleep. At the end of the day you come back home to a family you are becoming more and more distant from and hardly know anymore. For this they resent you. Their resentment only makes you want to work even more overtime so your weekends become nonexistent and your annual holidays a miserable facade that you can’t wait to escape.

The whole time your ass just keeps getting wider and your skin just keeps getting baggier. You do all these things so you can afford to keep your flings quiet. You do all these things so you can afford all your habits and your hobbies and all the possessions you have that you’ve been convinced you need after you become obsolete or too old.

The irony is they call this Living. Note the capitol L.

I certainly don’t claim to know everything, but it seems to me that in the grand scheme of things all we’re doing is just keeping ourselves preoccupied until we die.

We all have to do this, preoccupy ourselves, and in my humble opinion everyone has a right to do that any way they want. But in our society it’s presumed there is something wrong with an individual if they haven’t dropped all the dreams of their youth and build a rigidly structured lifestyle designed around some sort of gainful occupation. A job that can finance the life that we lease. This employment, no matter what form or level of prestige, becomes so entrenched in our psyche that it defines what we are. Even to one another.

When you are asked what you do for work, the standard response is I am a dentist. I am a garbage collector, I am a retail cashier.

This is what I am because this is what I do for a living.

The job defines the person.

For me, I was determined to find another way. There simply had to be something else, some way to break the mold that society has dictated to us. In the meantime I took whatever meaningless jobs came my way.

I also quit whatever meaningless jobs came my way. This is very empowering. It is also something most people dream about doing.

Fuck you and your job.

This is an expression I have delighted using about four to five times a year, minimum. It’s like a natural amphetamine. Some people snort blow, smoke pot, pop uppers, downers and become weekend