Berserker Part 1

The following is part of a novel I first started writing when I was 14. I quite liked it, though I ran out of steam about a quarter of the way through because I couldn't figure out a way to advance the storyline. Keep in mind it's got terrible punctuation and probably uses far too many passive sentances, but it's still quite enjoyable. Maybe someone will have an idea or make a suggestion that might help give me some idea where to take the story. Comments of any type are, as always, quite welcome. (Please bear in mind that if you've a mind to insult it or mefor no reason, I am chronically ill person with not much to lose. Flame at thine own risk)

“No!,” Jarn, screamed. Watching helplessly as the rest of the Flameheart clan’s warriors were cut down around him, slowly succumbing to the onslaught of the Bloodthorns. Alternately crying, hurling imprecations, and hacking blindly at enemies too numerous to count, he caught a glimpse of his father next to him. The man was at the front of a failed V shaped wedge in the middle of the single road which ran straight through the center of their small village. His hulking frame being pulled down by the seemingly endless goblin hordes. All the while, his father, the clan warleader, swung his gigantic broadsword, cleaving through droves of the dirty, green-skinned monsters.

Jarn, now the last of the Flameheart clan, was surrounded. He raised his war axes high, waiting for the first Bloodthorn to rush him, knowing that while goblins fought with an unheard of ferocity when in large numbers, none were courageous enough to make a sacrifice by starting the assault. Also hampering them were the numbers of slaughtered bodies on the ground, goblin and warrior alike. The Flameheart warriors had fought valiantly and had taken a fair number of the enemy to the grave with them, but there were too many of the damnable goblins for the once mighty tribe.

“Fight me!”, he screamed “Finish what you bastards started!”. The unexpected raid had come in the night. It was thought among the elders that the mountains which were home to the Bloodthorn goblins were at a relatively safe distance from the village. The goblins would have been desperate to brave the dangers of mountain and swamp that lay in their path.

Their clan’s sentries had been overtaken with no apparent signs of struggle or shout of warning, the women and children had been murdered in their beds. Their bodies, or what was left of them -the Bloodthorns had a nasty reputation for cannibalism, understandable given their gnashing and rotted teeth- were found strung up by the roofs of their homes. The men had found them in the morning, when they had returned from the celebration of inducting a new warrior into their fold.

If the warriors hadn’t been away, conducting my blooding rite, they all would’ve died too, Jarn thought. Well, sooner at any rate. I guess I’ll be seeing them all soon. With this thought and that of the extinction of the proud Flameheart clan, Jarn felt an overpowering rage filling every fiber of his being. Jarn had felt anger before, his people were known for their battle rages, but unlike the slow fires of anger that were more common, this feeling had become a white-hot inferno, threatening to consume him. The elders had talked of this. They said that it was the gods’ gift to the Flamehearts in times of war and pain, a force they spoke of could make one man as powerful as a hundred, driving him to feats thought impossible by any other.

Jarn’s vision dimmed and turned red, he started breathing hard, as if he was pumping the bellows of the giant forge for the village smithy. This time, the flame he fed was inside. Obviously frightened by his twisted visage, some of the goblins fell back, but not far enough. Seemingly without having to move , Jarn had already overtaken them. Emitting a scream of rage and pain suggesting whoever did so was intent upon conveying that pain to others as quickly as possible, he became a whirlwind of flashing steel. The two giant axes he held seemed to weigh nothing for the speed and accuracy with which he ripped through six goblins before the rest had time to react.

The goblins quickly readied their clubs and swords, and began circling Jarn. This didn’t seem to worry him much, he was content for the moment to hoist his kills into the air, and throw various appendages with great force at his enemies. Although this did no physical damage to the Bloodthorns, being pelted with parts of their neighbors, friends, and possible spouses -it was hard to tell with goblins- had some psychological effect on them, two score flung their weapons to the ground and ran away screaming, heads down and legs pumping for all they were worth.

They have killed everyone I knew, everyone I cared about, and they have defiled the homes of my ancestors! Jarn, last of the Flamehearts thought. Taking their lives won’t be enough.

Throwing his great axes with unerring aim, they whirred end over end, barreling through arms and legs, finally finding homes in the chest and neck of two goblins in the rear. Jarn charged as soon as he released them, putting him in the middle of the Bloodthorns. He tore apart the wretched creatures, unarmed. Snapping necks, crushing throats, pulling off limbs, and ripping apart their chain mail and dirty leather armor as if it were paper. The shrieking of his victims only drove him to greater heights of brutality.

Amid the carnage, Jarn’s mind surfaced from the turbulent waters of his rage, he realized that despite the damage he was causing, he was sustaining wounds that would eventually drain him. A nick here, a cut there, slowly sapping his strength. A surge of panic sent ice water through his gut and dissolved his courage, he immediately broke and ran from the fray, searching for any weapons he could find.

Please god, let me find something, anything! I can’t go to meet my ancestors after making such a stupid mistake! A shield, a knife, a club.... Anything. What? Despite the closing tsunami of biting teeth, stabbing knives, and pounding clubs about to overtake him, Jarn felt the world disappear as he gazed upon the torn body of his father, his expression was unchanged, seeming ready for anything even in death. He still held onto the broadsword that marked him as clan warleader. It seemed that his father, Kathur by name, held the weapon out to his son.

He took it reverently, having remembered how he was belted the one time he dared touch it without his father’s permission. He had been knocked straight through the hut’s thin wall. Kathur had been an imposing figure while the child was young, his dear mother having been killed during his birth, but he was not an unkind man, and Jarn respected him for it. He never knew his mother, but from the way Kathur had acted whenever she was mentioned, he had loved her very much and her loss pained him deeply.

Jarn jerked away from his nostalgic revelry as he was knocked to the ground from behind. One of the goblins must have worked up the nerve to attack. How dare they make me defile my father’s weapon with their blood! This is his and his alone, they will die by my hands just as others did at the hands of my father! He rolled and quickly brought the broadsword to bare, never realizing how heavy it was. Barely managing to dodge the next club swing of his now-visible assailant. He whipped the blade of the weapon around with all his strength, passing right through the midsection of the goblin. The upper half fell cleanly over with the most puzzled look in its face, the lower half stayed standing, as if nothing had happened. This weapon has existed for several centuries and still retains its edge! Heavy, but sliced that bastard right in half.
As Jarn continued to hack and slash at the few members of the raiding party that were still standing, he dimly became aware of the wounds that the goblins were inflicting upon him, they were learning to wait until after he swung the heavy sword. They would then attack while Jarn tried to regain his balance. He forced the idea that such vile creatures could learn from his mind and concentrated on his swings, yet the goblins kept scoring hits. His frustration slowly gave way to anger, the sword suddenly seemed lighter in his hands. The annoying cuts were now being scored less often, those that did make it past his defenses fueled his rage until he became that unstoppable berserker he once was.

Time passed without Jarn’s permission, the light of day, which had once made the ruby red blood of his enemies sparkle, began to wane. Even though Jarn barely felt tired, his limbs began to slow, he started to control his thoughts, and the pain of his wounds returned. It wasn’t until this happened that Jarn realized that the goblins fled long ago. All that kept him company was the corpses of his enemies, it looked as if they had not only been killed in a gruesome fashion, but deliberately tortured beforehand. Some had arms and legs removed, others had seemed to have been flayed alive, their skin hanging off their bodies in strips. Recollecting what he had been doing for the last couple of hours was impossible. Jarn shivered at the thought that such violence could have been committed in front of him and he had not seen it. Who could have done such things!? Even to goblins. My god, what am I going to...Jarn never finished that thought. He fell, exhausted and bleeding, lying with the corpses of his people.

Hollow Earth

Hi all,
I've decided to take a bit of a breather, what with that last story being finished and all. I wrote a second version which changes how the ending is portrayed, but keeps the same basic concept.

Below is an analysis I did last year for a lady who found what she thought was a diary kept by Richard E. Byrd, Rear Admiral and the first person to fly over the North Pole, among other things.

This journal supposedly was written as he flew over the North Pole for the second time. The man was a navigator rather than a pilot, so he had someone flying the plane for him while he took notes presumably.

My job was to compare it to the official diary of Richard E. Byrd and decide whether or not it was genuine. The work, which you'll find in the title of this post's link, was supposed to give some credence to the Hollow Earth Theory. Personally I don't believe in the theory, but I wasn't even aware of it until after I finished reading the journal and started looking for inconsistencies.

In any case, read and enjoy:

Richard E. Byrd was a child born to a prestigious Virginia family in 1888. He was raised in the utmost privileged company of the genteel south, attending Shenandoah Valley Academy as a young boy, eventually moving on to join the navy and training in Annapolis.

He spent several years prior to World War 1 as a navigator for the navy’s newly acquired seaplanes, pioneering the many uses of aircraft in a military support capacity. Unfortunately a serious injury received during his time in college made him unable to stand the long watches required of all naval personnel, severely hampering his chances of promotion. As a result he requested early retirement and was discharged with honors in 1916. Unfortunately as the United States was gearing up for war, he was not allowed to rest long. As a retired naval officer he was charged with the administration and overseeing the training of the Rhode Island militia.

He did so well that he was commissioned to do the same with several other New England states.
After the war he was free to engage in his real passion, exploration. A trip to the Philippines at the age of 12 had sparked a burning wanderlust in the young man, which drove him to seek out others with similar inclinations. This led to several expeditions, for which he was most famous. He was the first successful man to head an expedition and navigate a plane over the North Pole. He attempted to cross the Atlantic in a similar model plane and was beaten by Charles Lindbergh in this triumph by a matter of days.

He continued these expeditions, both public and government funded, for the remainder of his life. At the time of his death he left numerous notebooks and diaries, and a paper trail of his exploits numbering over 1.5 million documents. However there is one discrepancy that has historians stumped. He left no information regarding the government funded Operation Highjump in 1947, a year long mission of exploration into Antarctica which brought over 4,700 men occupying 13 well supplied vessels. Curiously this expedition was ended six months early with no official explanation of why or what their findings were. Conspiracy theorists propose that it was an attempt by the US government to hunt down a secret Nazi stronghold located beneath the ice of Antarctica.

A diary has recently been published which is supposedly that of Richard Byrd, who by then had been given the navy title of Rear Admiral. It’s been published under the simple name of The Missing Diary of Admiral Byrd. It is the goal of this document to assess the possible validity of this diary based on differential analysis with the proven diaries of Admiral Byrd from previous expeditions. These methods include comparisons in writing style, prose, grammar, as well as psychological inferences based on what is actually known about the man.

The most immediate discrepancy that jumps out from the first page of the unofficial diary is the introduction. There should not be one. This is supposed to be a personal diary and has no need of an introduction to the reader. This is not in keeping with Byrd’s solemn and businesslike demeanor, which is so well portrayed in his verified diaries from previous expeditions, all of which lack introductions.

The overall feeling in this diary is inconsistent with the mindset of his previous journals. He was known to be an intelligent, detail oriented, man of action. Though not particularly religious, he was somewhat superstitious, looking for patterns in the world around him. Above all, he had faith in the basic good of the human race. The introduction was written from the point of view of someone who does not have this faith. It also charged certain words for dramatic effect by capitalizing them, such as Faith, Greed, Exploitation, and Truth. This is obviously not in keeping with him, as he lacked a sense of dramatic altogether.

Certain details which Byrd would, as a habit, include are missing. The rest of the diary is apparently written during Byrd’s flight over the South Pole, a flight which officially does not exist according to any of the personal journals or diaries of those who were a part of the expedition. Byrd’s previous flight logs always included the date, time, place, weather conditions, names of other passengers in the plane, as well as the type of plane that was being flown. No such information is given in this log.

A serious discrepancy involves Byrd’s place in the plane. The log later suggests that Byrd was flying the plane, despite the fact that he was navigating, as well as writing in his log at the same time. Historically he was a navigator who had not flown a plane since his first attempts as a junior naval officer. In truth, would not have been flying the plane, which would’ve accommodated a separate pilot. Even if he had, he would not have been able to fly while performing the necessary navigational calculations. Also he mentioned a radioman with him, whom he once referred to as Howie. The duty roster of Operation Highjump, which has since been made public, does not include a radio operator by the name Howie or Howard.

Aside from all this, both the content and the structure of the individual log entries arouse the most suspicion in regards to their validity. Byrd was in the habit of shortening his sentences by cutting out such words as “I, We, They, It, etc”. Even then, he was very sparing with what he wrote, using one or two sentences in an entry to convey the facts and let one draw their own conclusions. The sentence structure of the unofficial log is both whole and far too excessive, using whole paragraphs to convey meaning and including emotional content. The presence of emotion was not something seen in any of his previous diaries. Being raised in rural Virginia around the turn of the century, it was likely he was well trained in equipoise, a sublime mixture or balance as well as an iron grip over one’s emotions that allow one to hold fast against all disasters. It may be a bit dated, but the best example of a master of equipoise is Confederate General Robert E. Lee. As such emotion would have no place in this log.

Furthermore, Byrd was very sparing in his use of punctuation, particularly exclamation points. In all of his official diaries combined, he used only three exclamation points. Again this is indicative of his businesslike demeanor. Often a life threatening situation or even the triumph of having reached the North Pole was not sufficient for him to use an exclamation point. While the contents of the unofficial diary are fantastical and far fetched in the extreme, it’s likely he would’ve faced them with the same stalwart demeanor. In this log there are upwards of fifty exclamation points, not at all in keeping with his personality.

Based on this evidence it’s only logical to conclude that this unofficial diary is just that. Unofficial. The use of prose, sentence structure, punctuation, and mindset is far too different from works which are known to have been written by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd to validate the claim that he wrote this diary. In fact, the inconsistencies with his modus operendi as well as the facts known about him compared to the erroneous details in the diary suggest he most definitely did not write it.

Situation Report

Howdy yall. It’s been a while. I’m trying to post at least once a week to my other site, as well as 5 times a week on this site. The last time I posted anything about myself was some months ago, and a lot has happened since then.

First, I successfully completed all four cycles of my chemotherapy. I had a CT Scan done a few weeks ago and my oncologist says the cancer is gone.

Before all you start cheering, both of you, I should say that the doctor expects the cancer will come back before the year is out. Apparently this type of carcinoma has a 70% relapse rate within the first few years. To that end I’m getting scans and blood work done every 10 weeks.

I had a bit of a scare a few weeks ago, just as I was recovering from my last cycle of chemo. I was very tired and couldn’t stand for more than a few seconds. Any more than that and I felt a strange heaviness in my chest. Not good. Like an idiot I tried to wait it out. I mentioned it to my folks and they shanghaied me into going to the emergency room.

Turns out it was a pulmonary embolism. You see, I developed blood clots in my arm from the induction port they stuck in me several weeks prior. My arm swelled up to twice its normal size and it felt like someone was ripping the veins out of my arm with red hot fishhooks; not pleasant. My oncologist gave me a few shots of a blood thinner, removed the port, and sent on my way. My arm shrank down to normal and stopped hurting. The down side to this was that without the induction port, I had to receive my last week of chemo intravenously. I have extremely deep veins which are so thick-walled that they tend to roll out of the way whenever a needle pokes them, consequently I get stuck 3 or 4 times before they successfully get an IV going. This wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have to do it everyday for a week. That’s a lot of needle marks people.

In any case, I thought the clots had been broken up. I was wrong. One of the blood clots migrated to my right lung, where it took up residence and threatened to break free, travel to my brain, and either kill me or leave me a drooling vegetable. Fun stuff.

I spent a week in the hospital, where they monitored me and put me on blood thinners. Again I had to have an IV going 24/7, though my veins were already trashed from the chemo the week before. Let’s not forget the blood they drew every 4 hours to make sure it was thin enough. I’ve got an idea for them, how about we check to see if the poor bastard’s bleeding like a faucet from his open wounds? (I was, lost half a pint on my first day before the nurse could waddle in with a compress. 20 Fricken minutes after I screamed for help, even though my room right against the hallway nurse’s station. I just ended up using my pillowcase) What a freaking concept, might even have saved them the time it took to do the blood tests.

What really gets me is that, on my second to last day in the hospital, they told me my blood levels were low. Of course they f---ing were! They were taking it all! Some blank eyed cow-like wage slave with a 12 gauge needle speared me in the arm every couple hours for a week and my bone marrow was shot from the chemo. What the hell did they expect! So I ended up staying an extra night while they gave me blood.

I don’t know which I liked more, the hallucinations from sleep deprivation, or the guy next door hacking up his lungs. Normally I’ve got a bit more compassion for the ill, though if you’ve been following these rants, you’ll know not by much. But this guy was unbelievable; it was the most fake cough I ever heard, a wall-piercing shout. After about the second day of this non-stop phlegm fest, I started paying attention to the pattern. This moldering old bastard only every made a peep when someone walked by his door! Damned faker was looking for attention.
When I was finally discharged I took the time to poke my head in his room and tell him to get better, die, or shut the f--- up, but quit making everyone else miserable. The look on his face made me feel better than anything I’ve known in years!

You may be wondering about the sleep deprivation thing. First off, I’ve never been able to sleep on my back… ever. With an IV in my arm constantly, I couldn’t really roll on my side. Also, remember I’m getting people coming in to take blood every 4 hours. On top of that, I’ve got a pressure cuff on my other arm taking my blood pressure every 15 minutes, and an LPN coming in every 15 minutes to chart it down. What’s more, and possibly most annoying, is that the night nurses gossiped like hens. They wouldn’t shut up for their entire 12 hour shifts. Keep in mind that the nurse station where they hang out is right next to my door, to the degree that, whenever they rolled their chairs back to stand up, the chairs would hit the wall, creating a noise identical to a gunshot. Every…Damn…Time.

I’m still keyed up from having lived in Orlando, meaning I still reached for weapons every time I heard these noises. It was probably best my folks dis-armed me before having me admitted; else I might’ve taken a slice at a couple of the less pleasant people I was subjected to.

I think things came to a head when the night LPN, a pale little blond girl that looked younger than me, came into my room around 7 AM to ask me how I’d slept, as she was about to go off shift and had to hand the charts over to the day nurse.

Hollow eyed, tired, and infinitely frustrated, I smiled, showing teeth grinding against one another so hard they squeaked. “I would’ve slept better if I didn’t have to listen to your conversations all night.”

She smiled and laughed, waving her hand in airy dismissal, as if I were joking. “You couldn’t have heard us. The wall’s too thick.”

“Oh, no?” I said. “Well then, I suppose I’d sound crazy if I said that I hope that infection clears up for you.”

The look on her face was magic. Her jaw dropped, mouth forming a dumbfounded “O”. A moment later she colored a bright shade of red and covered her mouth with her hands as the horror of her embarrassment sank in. She turned and ran out of the room, and I never saw her again.

Had I not been so tired I would’ve laughed. It was her fault for talking so loudly about such private things in a public place. Did she honestly think no one would overhear?

Why didn’t I just sleep during the day, you ask? Because I received roughly 5 visits an hour from: candy stripers, nurses, LPNs, medical technicians, doctors, phlebotomists, bureaucrats, well-wishers, cleaning staff, cooking staff, people wanting to change my linens and ordering me out of bed, the senile, the mentally ill, patient’s so zonked on pain meds they had no idea where they were, and random passersby looking for other patient’s rooms who somehow thought I was some sort of freaking directory. I was a bald, half-naked, pale, bloodless, and supremely pissed of twenty-something with more drugs pumped into him than Keith Richards; how the hell should I know where their great aunt Flo was?

With that being said, this happened almost a month ago, and my arms are still nothing but black and purple blotches from all the blown veins. Apparently I’ve developed so much scar tissue that some of them can never be used again, I don’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved by that.
I’m still on blood thinners, which is incredibly frustrating as there are certain things I can’t do, drinking being the foremost among them. Normally I try not to drink frequently or heavily, because it can become too much of a habit very easily, but I felt that I was allowed a small reward given that I’d gotten through this medical hell. A glass of bourbon or two didn’t seem like such a terrible thing. Unfortunately I’m still waiting for that glass, and I’ll have to wait another few months.

On a side-note, while my eyes are by no means cured, my new ophthalmologist has given me a prescription for a new type of eye drop which seems to be helping the pain and dryness. Too bad they cost more than the national deficit. Oh, did I mention that they’ve also been linked with glaucoma? Yeah. But that’ll come in a couple decades. Surely by then I won’t have need of my eyes, right? Cure is worse than the damned cure, every time.

But hey, at least I’m cancer free for the moment. Well, not quite. Turns out that my CT Scan which my oncologist said was clean wasn’t clean. That really increases my confidence in her, I can tell you. The bargain basement physician at the free clinic who is my referring doctor noticed it. Apparently I’ve got a mass in my gall bladder, the technical term for which is a “Soft Tissue Opacity”. The report said that it did not match the profile of gallstones. So I’m scheduled for an ultrasound this upcoming Thursday to see if this is what I think it is.

I researched what can cause this “Soft Tissue Opacity”, and have found little in the way of conclusive information. Apparently most hystemic cancers are characterized by hard tissue opacities, the soft tissue opacity being a minor secondary characteristic for such cancers in their latest stages. But the CT Scan didn’t show any hard tissue opacities, which would’ve showed up much more clearly than anything else. So the question remains, what the hell is it? I’ll find out Thursday.

Your normal story posts will resume Monday.

Update Update

Well folks, it's been a while. Don't know if anyone's still hanging around to read this after being gone so long, but I'll write even if no one else ever reads it, I'm either that stubborn or stupid; you decide.

First, the good news. I am currently cancer free, which is a huge weight off my mind. The bad news is that my oncologist says that the cancer's likely to come back within the first year. Visions of IV fluids and bags of chemo drugs are still keeping me awake at night. I tell you, if it weren't for the dying part, I'd say the cure is worse than the disease. On top of that my last round of treatment resulted in a couple blood clots in my arms which migrated to my right lung. Can you say Pulmonary Embolism?

So now I'm on blood thinners for the next three months with strict instructions not to smoke or drink. That kinda kills my cancer-free celebration plans, but I suppose it could be worse.

Anyway I spent my down-time coming up with more story ideas, actually managing to write a few, and increasing the size of my rejection letter collection. I'm at about 60 now, which is pretty decent when you consider I haven't been trying to write professionally for all that long.

Most of my stories, the good ones at least, tend to be around 10,000 words long. The real kick in the teeth is that most magazines won't consider any story over 5,000 words. I tried trimming one of my stories down today. It didn't work out so well. The story is still readable, but frankly it lost all of the qualities that made it interesting, at least in my opinion. It's tough to present a meaningful story in such a short space. Practically no room to develop characters so you care about what happens to them.

The thing that gets me is that most of the short stories that I read are much longer. The shortest HP Lovecraft wrote was almost 15,000 words long. So why is there such a discrepency between what they'll print nowadays and what they printed back in the heyday of speculative and science fiction?

Anyway, moving on. I've come up with a number of other ghost stories featuring Miyamoto Musashi, the storylines atleast. Ideally I'll compile them in a book in which each story occurs at a different time in his life, showcasing how the man changed and grew. I've already researched the man's life and mentality in some detail, but I'll need to find reference material for life in Japan during the early 1600s as well as the story locations. I've got a really good one in mind which takes place in Himeji castle, where he designed its world-famous gardens. The castle is so old that I figure a few buried seals keeping long-dormant demons would be plausible, thanks to Joilene, a good friend, for the demon ideas.

I've also done a story featuring Heaven's bounty hunter. I like it, but since it pulls from Judaism rather than Christianity, most people who read it think that the portrayal of angels doesn't fit. Think "The Prophecy" set in the Old West and you won't be too far off. I've got to let it sit for a week or two before I go back and start chopping. Frankly that part is tougher than writing it. It always irks me, having to wait, leaving the story to sit. I've got about a half dozen stories sitting, and I'm champing at the bit to get at them, but for one reason or other I can't. Sons of Odin is a great example of this. People read it, they like, but something's always missing. I've decided to try to turn it into a full length novel as it shoves so much information at the reader that most of it is missed. I haven't even begun to collect research material for it yet, so I don't imagine it will be done for years to come, if ever.

I was working on scripting out a full-length novel, kind of a Dean Koontzish style supernatural murder mystery. Includes some of the local Native-American beliefs in the Orlando that only people who've lived there know. Unfortunately I've had to put that on hold for the forseeable future until I can get back to work and start making some money. I should be working on getting the bills paid right now, but the wrtiting bug has got me firmly by the lugs. It's all I can think about, all that I do, all that I am. I've got to wait on the local library to get my research material for most of my promising stories; I don't have the money to go out and buy them, and the waiting is driving me crazy...Well, crazier.

In the meantime I guess I'll just make the rest of my household nuts as I talk incessantly about my work, bouncing ideas back and forth until they want to scream.

I don't know how often I'll be updating. I've got a goodly amount of time on my hands while I recuperate, but not much more to talk about. When I'm working I may have something to talk about, but probably not the time to do so. Oh well, we'll see how things go.

Bouncer's War Story

I’ll tell you all my best war story… and my only one come to think of it. It’s about my first, last, and only night working as a bouncer. It’s a good story, though it’s not conventional, and doesn’t have a happy ending. Some people find it too hard to believe, so I don’t blame you if you think I’m making this up. I wish I had made it up.

It happened in ’04 when I was attending college in Orlando. I had previously lived the majority of my life in a small town about 100 miles away and was still coping with moving to a big city. I come from a pretty poor family and was living almost entirely on several scholarships I’d wrangled in high school. They all had very high academic requirements, typically negating any possibility of working part time if I wanted to keep my grades up.

One semester my class load was lighter than usual so I thought I could manage taking on a job. The only problem was that Orlando is a very seasonal city, most business dries up during the hot-as-blazes months, which, if you’ve ever been to Florida, you would know last between March and October. I couldn’t find a job anywhere; even Macdonald’s. I guess being a straight A student double majoring in Psychology and English Literature wasn’t enough to qualify me over the gang-banger wannabe who misspelled his name on the application. Oh well.

A roommate of mine who turned out to be my best friend over the years between then and now, happened to “know someone”. You know the type. I personally am a huge hermit who can go for weeks without speaking to anyone with no trouble. He, on the other hand, knows everyone living on this planet and is on a first name basis with all of them. No matter what your problem is, he always “Knows Someone”.

He told me that a friend of his was a bouncer in an adult dance club and could probably get me hired as the club was short on staff. Pay was 10 bucks an hour, almost twice the minimum wage in this miserable state. Four hours a night from 10 PM to 2 AM; perfect for an insomniac like me who had all morning classes.

What I haven’t told you so far is that I’m six and a half feet tall, three and a half feet wide at the shoulders, and weigh close to 300 pounds, at least back then I did. Admittedly I am no longer in the best of shape, I’ve got a bit of a gut and moobs, no stamina whatsoever, but I’m strong enough to rip most small trees out of the earth by the roots and lift the front end of my car (no joke). This combined with an expression grimmer than your average undertaker means most people leave me be. Because of that I’m a pretty gentle guy. I could count the number of fights I’ve been in on one hand and still have fingers left because most people get the impression that starting something with me would be a bad idea. In actual fact, violence is usually the very last thing on my mind.

I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’ve developed a decent martial background, albeit inadvertently. My grandfather started training me in boxing from the age of 9. I’ve got no stamina but most things don’t stand up to any punch I land. Also he showed me a few things to use in a pinch that he’d learned from 22 years of experience as a combat Marine.

Since then I’ve augmented my martial experience by acquainting myself with various forms of martial arts. Living in a small town for most of my life, I never benefitted from real training with a master instructor. Most of what I know I learned from books and training manuals. As a result I developed a good working knowledge of body kinetics and can usually come up with something on the fly.

When most people think of Orlando things like Disney and Universal Studios come to mind. It’s a tourists’ haven for good, wholesome, profitable, family-oriented fun. What most people who haven’t lived there don’t know is that it hosts a ridiculously large number of erotic dance bars and strip clubs that cater to just about every fetish you could name.

So I head out to Orange Blossom Trail for my first night of work, which is a road lined with neon bar and club signs. Thankfully when I got to the address I found it was a normal and pretty nice looking strip club, nothing too weird to me. Though I personally don’t enjoy going to clubs of any sort, working in one was no bother. No smoking inside, a three stage arena with full kitchen and bar, good looking dancers with no obvious track marks. All in all it was above par for my expectations.

I met the head bouncer, a grizzled man in his forties with arms made from corded steel by the name of Joe. He made sure I was wearing plain jeans and combat boots like I’d been instructed. He gave me my SECURITY shirt and the three cent training. Basically it boiled down to issuing two verbal warnings before acting, only touch someone if he looks like he’s going for one of the dancers or has already started a fight, only punch if you’re attacked or if one of the more experienced bouncers attacks first. Seemed straight forward to me.

I was put out on one of the minor stages near the far wall from the bar, where Joe habitually propped himself to watch the crowd. Around one o’clock a group of day laborers started to get a bit rowdy. They’d been steadily drinking most of the night but had stayed quiet until then. They were sitting at the edge of the dance floor I was supposed to cover. There’s a law that requires the dancers to be a full five feet from paying customers, so between the seated patrons and the stage there’s a half step the dancers can use to get down from the front of the stage instead of going around the back if they need to.

One of the men got up on the half step in order to reach for the dancer doing her pole routine. I looked over to Joe and got the nod to step in.

I got to the side to be within his peripheral vision, though he didn’t seem to notice me as he was staring at the girl. I asked him to come down in a clear voice. When he didn’t respond I commanded him to come down. Realizing his friends were speaking to him in Spanish I repeated my request and then gave the command version in Spanish. Linguistics is not my forte but I took four years of it in high school and was taking a refresher course at the time, so I was at my peak and could usually be understood. He still ignored me.

He was swaying only slightly, though his eyes were clear. I was guessing that if he was beyond the legal limit, it was only just. His friends were calling to him and telling him to come down, but he wasn’t listening. His friends weren’t touching him though, which I should’ve noticed. Too bad my attention was on him. By then he was pawing at the girl’s ankle. The dancers usually know what they’re doing though. They don’t pull back as that might anger the man, and they don’t lean in as that would encourage him. They just stay calm and neutral.

I got another nod from Joe to put hands on the man. So I reached up, grabbed his left arm, and pulled him down and back from the step. As he spun around to face me I heard a click and saw a flash. That was my only warning.

A switchblade was in his right hand and he drove it straight for my heart without hesitation. Upon later thought I realized that in order for him to have been that fast he would’ve had to have the knife in his hands before I touched him, meaning he might’ve used it on the dancer.

I got lucky and reacted correctly. I brought my left arm up in an inward curving half circle. I was a bit too quick though. Instead of forearm blocking the man’s wrist out to the side, I caught the blade directly against the back of my lower arm. It cut a gash six inches wide and a half inch deep before I was able to push the blade out of the way of my chest.

It’s at that point that there’s a gap in my memory. The last thing I remember is registering that I’d been stabbed. Then there’s a big blank spot. I came back to the moment when one of the other bouncers tackled me to the floor.

After I’d gotten up off the floor the bouncer apologized to me and gestured to the wreck on the floor that had once been human by way of explanation. Police arrived in about five minutes with an ambulance in tow. The man was placed on a gurney and handcuffed to it. He was unconscious but the police intended to stick him with assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder when he was well enough to be tried. I’ve got to admit at the time I was still a bit mystified with what happened; apparently someone had beaten him up pretty badly. An EMT patched me up and I was taken into the back room by the head bouncer once the cops had left, the club had to be closed early after the hubbub died down.

I asked Joe what happened. He gave me an odd look and asked me what the last thing I remembered was. When I told him, he went over to the camera surveillance system, popped out a tape, and placed it in a VCR in the corner, directing me to a TV set.

I saw myself just before the fight. I saw myself getting stabbed. Then I saw myself grab the man’s wrist and twist it. I flattened his nose with an open palmed thrust. Then I grabbed his pinky finger and bent it backward until it snapped. He dropped the knife at that point, but I wasn’t done. I bent his wrist inward until it snapped in half. I stepped past him, carrying his arm backward as I did so, until his arm was almost horizontal with the ground, pointing backward. I fit my right shoulder underneath his inverted bicep. He was much shorter than I and I had to bend at the knees and waist to do so. I then stood up, driving hard down with my legs to force my body upward, while jerking his arm up and back. It popped his arm clean from the socket at the shoulder and hung at a sickening angle.

By then I was staring at the TV with eyes wide as saucers, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I thought it was over, but it wasn’t. I reached back behind myself to the right to fit his throat in the crook of my elbow. I stuck one foot against the back of his heels and swung my arm forward, brutally flooring him. I then proceeded to jump up and down on his chest. I didn’t stop until one of the bouncers tackled me, the rest of which you know.

I just stared at Joe, open mouthed, dumbfounded. Joe was very kind to me, apparently realizing I’d had a bit of a shock. He said he’d seen it before. Apparently some people have something he called “red outs”. Other people call it going berserk, red rage, blackouts, it’s all the same thing.

Sometimes when someone is hurt in some way their conscious mind goes away for a time while their fight or flight instincts are firmly set on “fight”. I’ve gotten my degree in psychology since then and have found a number of case studies which proposed it is the base reptilian mind which takes over in times of extremis where maximum aggression is the best course of action. The best example of this is the Viking Berserker of legend.

Joe gave me a hundred bucks for my trouble and sent me on my way. He’d seen a couple people like me in the past and knew they wouldn’t make good bouncers. He said he couldn’t hire me. “Son, you’d do a helluva lot more damage than you’d prevent,” were his exact words.

After reading some serious horror stories written by people defending themselves in much less brutal and gruesome manners I’m glad for once that I live in the South. Invariably the defender in an assault case is favored and is typically not even cuffed or arrested by the police at the scene of the fight. The police didn’t even give me a second look and I’ve not heard from them since. After five years, I don’t think I’m about to.

Despite my apparent enthusiasm I was soon left feeling shaky and sick after the adrenaline rush wore off. When my roommate noticed the bandage on my arm the next day, he asked about it. I was dumb enough to tell him the whole story. He relayed it to his friends and always mentioned it at parties as if it were something to be proud of. The funny thing is that he’s more dangerous than I am. He’s a crack shot, survivalist, Eagle Scout, with a black belt in Kung Fu and seven years experience as captain of his wrestling team in both middle school and high school. Oh, he also grew up in the inner city area of Philadelphia. He’s significantly stronger than I’ll ever be to boot. Soon everyone I knew in Orlando knew the story and treated me a little differently because of it.

In any case it’s been five years and the whole experience haunts me still. It’s ok to be confident in one’s ability to defend oneself or those one loves as the situation may dictate. To do that requires control. I had no control whatsoever. I’m a danger to everyone I know, simply by being near them I might go off again and hurt someone. God forbid I should turn on my own mother or brother.

As a result I have: a nasty scar on my left arm, a lingering fear of being in public places or around loved ones in case I should go nuts and hurt someone without realizing it, as well as recurring nightmares where that fear comes true.

In the time between then and now I’ve worked as a sales rep in several department stores and a customer service rep for the local electrical company. I’ve run into some pretty nasty people, but after getting stabbed, all their anger and insults doesn’t phase me in the least anymore. That guy, whose name I never did learn, was the worst customer in existence.

The End

PS. I told you this wasn’t a conventional story with a happy ending. See? I was hoping that it might impart some sense of a moral lesson, perhaps regarding the importance of self control over power. I leave its interpretation up to you.

PPS. A good trick I’ve learned to get most people who are becoming hostile to back down when you are on the clock is to stare intently at their jugular vein on the side of the neck when you speak to them. It makes them think of all their vulnerable points should they be attacked and results in them involuntarily backing down for reasons they can’t exactly explain. My degree in Psychology finally saw some use.

Personal Update

Well folks, that’s going to be the last story I’ll be posting for quite some time. I’ve got the beginnings of an idea for another, but my funds are drying up fast so I’ll be focusing on copywriting for a bit. It’s not much fun, but at least it pays.

In the meantime I’ve submitted all my work to a number of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror publications. I get rejection letters daily. Once I’ve collected enough I’ll make a collage out of them. If I ever get a full length book published I fully intend to write back to all of them and rub their faces in it. It’s the little things that keep me going…tequila too.

Another reason for my impending hiatus, aside from the fact that this page won’t load and you’ll probably never even see this post, is that I had a talk with my oncologist. Based on the protein markers in my most recent blood tests the type of cancer I’ve got is categorized as a seminoma. These little buggers are very aggressive and only respond to chemo therapy. For that reason I’ll be hooked up to a bottle of pesticide 5 days a week, every three weeks, for the next couple of months. I’ve always wondered what I’d look like bald. They tell me the fatigue will be pretty extreme. Given the fact that I can barely keep my eyes open after being awake for 8 hours as it is, I imagine I’ll be hibernating for most of the Spring. I can only hope the fatigue is a result of the cancer. If I’m still this sleepy after it’s all taken care of, it means I’m just really lazy.

Regarding my last post about my eyes. The damn things still hurt morning, noon, and night. The bad news is that my ophthalmologist can’t prescribe any sort of anesthetic seeing as they tend to melt the corneas. I like my corneas. I want to keep them. The worse news is that the expensive eye drops I had to buy aren’t doing anything. He wants to switch to some sort of steroid and cortisone treatment. Typically it’s pretty cheap, but its use has been known to cause glaucoma. I’m caught between a rock and a hard place at this point. I can’t go ahead with the treatment anyway because the chemo includes steroids already, meaning I’ll be completely hairless, nauseas, fatigued, and unable to use my eyes for the next few months. I sound like a frigging mole rat.

I’ve got some minor news with the scam front. I managed to contact the UK version of the Better Business Bureau and told them my story about being ripped off by my employer of the past few months. They’re taking it very seriously, looking through their records, and sending investigators out to all the addresses they have for these folks on file. Hopefully they will have left a paper trail by which the people running Cooper Murphy Webb can be found.

I’ll be posting again in a few months hopefully. If not… well it was fun having people read my work. Thanks to all of you who took the time.

Personal Update

Hey all. I just wanted to present a quick update of what's going on. You may find it turns into a rant, but I at least intended to keep it brief.

First off, I've just about completely healed from my surgery. This is good news because I may end up going under the knife again sometime in the near future. The results of my CT scan show several large masses in my pelvis surrounding my lower aorta. This is the primary vein that runs down from the heart, behind the stomach, and then splits off at the pelvis to provide blood to the legs. There aren't any major organs being affected by the masses, but the proximity to this vein is alarming for obvious reasons

The size of these masses suggests they are Choriocarcinoma in the 2nd stage. It's probably the first site the cancer had taken root, the testicular tumor being a secondary growth. They're still treatable at this point and typically respond well to radiation therapy, though I understand there's a high chance of being rendered sterile seeing as the radiation would be aimed directly at my groin. I never really wanted to have children anyway, but it's painful to be taken apart slowly... one piece after another.

I've lost so much of who I used to be to chronic illness over the years that I sometimes feel hollow, as if there's nothing left.

Anyway, I'm waiting for a phone call from a medical oncologist that I'm being referred to. I've been waiting since monday and think I'll be beating down his door sometime tomorrow. With the sheer number of other things I'm having to deal with at the moment I think I may be speaking literally.

Speaking of tomorrow, I have to go see my opthalmologist again in the morning. This is to check the progress of my treatment for my Superior Limbal Keratoconjunctivitis. For those who are not familiar with the term, it is an autoimmune disease in which my body is attempting to heal tissue on the surface of the eye, despite the fact that there's no actual damage. This buildup of aberrant scar tissue causes extreme pain and burning, making it incredibly difficult to even look at this screen for the few moments in which I am typing.

The treatment for this condition is going well, as far as I can tell, though the pain is not lessening in any way. The inflamation and redness has increased considerably over the past week. If the doctor sees no improvement I'll be heading to another specialist. If he does see improvement then I'll be asking for some kind of topical anesthetic so I can get on with my day with some degree of normalcy until the treatment is complete. It often takes up to a year to be fixed entirely.

As far as my work goes, the top secret job I was taking fell through. The company has pulled up stakes overnight and completely abandonned me, taking a full month's worth of my work and stiffing me for the $2,000 dollar bill. This organization is set up in the UK and it took me several days of checking before I was even able to come up with contact information, though no one will answer my letters of phone messages. At this point there's little I can do aside from flying to the UK and beating these dead beats to death with a cricket bat, though the thought had crossed my mind. It would be more tempting if I actually had the money to afford the trip.

What's even enraging is that their last message, which was sent around Christmas, contained a virulent Trojan virus which is called Vunbo11. This virus embeds itself in the windows system files of my computer and then replicates itself. Such system files cannot be manipulated or quarantined in any way, meaning I can't get to it, despite having one of the best virus protection software packages on the market. At the price I paid, their technical support line had better do their job.

This virus also prevents me from using my computer as anything other than a glorified typewriter. It cannot surf the web or be used for research, and the virus replicates itself all the while that the computer is running. To that effect I'm writing this from a different computer and can make no gaurantees regarding whether or not I'll be able to post tomorrow or the day after.

Having posted several stories in the past, I finally decided that some of my work is good enough for print. To that effect I have been submitting several short stories for publication to as many magazines I can find who are willing to pay for the rights to print them. It's taking some time and my chances seem slim to none given how badly the market is affecting small publications like this, but it helps me put out of my mind the fact that I spent the last month working 12 hour days for free.

If I ever find the man or woman who cheated me I will skin him alive, braid a whip from his own hide, tip it with his own shattered teeth, and beat him to death with it. I don't typically make casual threats and apologize if it comes as a shock, but by tricking me and using up my time they refuse me the right to make a living; to keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach. If I didn't live with my family I would be homeless by now. Writing is the one way that I can think of to try to earn a living, and the people who would cheat me might as well be making an attempt on my life. It amounts to the same. To that effect I don't see why action against them wouldn't be justified.

So, unable to work, to edit my rough draft of Sons of Odin, to work on a new Japanese ghost story I'm putting together, or submit my finished work in hopes of making a few extra bucks and bulking up my CV, I decided to take the day off until I could get some help from tech support. I sat down in front of the tv and fired up the old video game system, an XBOX 360 I got for Christmas several years ago. It quite literally fired up. Sparks flew and the smell of burning plastic filled the air.

After hurriedly pulling the plug to prevent fire I called customer service, finally managing to talk to a real flesh and blood human being after about a million automated messages and menus. Apparently this problem is common with XBOX 360s produced in the same batch as mine was, meaning Microsoft strikes again. Thankfully this problem is so common that they don't charge anything for it to be fixed, they even eat the cost of shipping. I used my folks' computer to fill out the forms online and printed up the shipping label to put on my package and took it to the UPS store. I figured I would get it back in two or three weeks, as the customer service rep said.

That would be too easy for someone as terminally cursed as I am. About an hour later a second email arrives. This one contains a full set of instructions on how to place the shipping label, specifying that it shouldn't be put on the inside of the box... Yes folks, it was that kind of customer service message.

It also included a small section explaining what other information should be included on the outside of the box aside from the shipping label. Nowhere on the customer service site or on any of the instructions was this message to be found, meaning I hadn't included said information when I had it shipped, seeing as the message wasn't sent until after I posted the box.

Now I've got to call up UPS in the morning when their service center is open in hopes that my package isn't lost for all freaking eternity.

Ladies and gentleman, it is at this point where I think awards, accolades, and above all, pity, is due. This has got to be the worst day of my life thus far. A term which I learned in my drama class in high school keeps coming back to haunt me: Theater of the Absurd. It's a story which is essentially so tragic that it can't possibly be real, making it funny by sheer exageration. To that effect I keep waiting for some alien intergalactic version of Ashton Kutcher to pop out of the ceiling in his faux trucker hat and vacant expression saying "Dude. Like, dude! You've been punked!"

Maybe then the last 15 years of my life will have made sense. Being on some sick version of camera candid may be psychologically crushing, but at least it will have entertained someone.

I'm not the type to think of harming myself, so please don't think I'm in any danger when I say this, but when I go to sleep tonight I'm really not looking forward to waking up.