No longer. My main fear was my health: while it’s currently under control, I don’t know if or when out could get worse. But I’m done hiding. There are programs, services, things I can sign up to for free, that will help me not be much of a burden while I hunt down a job, and I’m tired of being too proud to beg. So this weekend I’m stepping out. Going to talk to my boss, explain that I’m leaving, and work something out with him. And hopefully by the end of next month, this little adventure will have begun in earnest.

Personal Effects: Dark Art Signed Copy Unboxing

Originally uploaded by Katsushiro

My signed copy of Personal Effects: Dark Art, the new supernatural thriller from one of my favorite authors, J.C. Hutchins. I won the signed edition during a contest to help promote the book, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Now, my copy of the book has finally arrived, and I couldn’t help myself. Go see the full Photoset over on Flickr.

“Hey, baby, what’s yo name?”, the greasy little snot says.

I sneer at him. “None of your business.”, I reply, turning my body a bit so he’s talking to my shoulder now.

“Ow! Hey, baby, you don’t gotta be so cold! Hey, hey, what’s yo sign? I bet you’re like a Libra or somethin’, right? Am I right?”", the kid says, eyeing me up and down hungrily.

“My sign? Read it loud and clear, jerk, it’s STOP.”, I say, and turn my back completely to him.

“Oooh! You fiesty! Baby, you an’ me, we gonna hav ourselves a good time. You stay right there, lemme get us some wine, and I’ll be right back, a’ight?”, he says, and somehow interprets my cold silence as a yes. They always do.

I’m sitting there, wondering if I should just try and get the hell out of the club, when I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. You know those moments when you suddenly just know someone’s standing right behind you, watching you? I shivered a bit, and then slowly, began to turn to see who was there.

“WHAT YO INTERESTS ARE?!”, the great beast behind me bellows, nearly knocking me off my barstool. I gape at it.. no, him. For now I can see it’s not some nightmare monster, but a man, though, certainly, a truly massive hulk of a man. Dressed in black, such is his mass that all the light in the room seems to bend in towards him, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I opened my mouth to reply.. I don’t know what I would have said, I barely understood his question. Maybe I was going to ask him to repeat it? Either way, I didn’t get the chance to say anything more, as the great beast opened its mouth again to speak.

“WHO YOU BE WITH?”, comes the question, and I can’t help but squirm a little in my seat, wondering how such a massive man managed to creep up behind me.

“N-no one..”, I stammer, feeling the need to at least try and answer one of his questions, thinking perhaps if I satisfy his child-like curiousity, he will leave me alone. Unfortunately, my answer only served to encourage him.

“THINGS THAT MAKE YOU SMILE!”, he bellows, an idiot grin splitting his huge head nearly in two, and I can see the hunger in his beady little eyes. I instinctively move away, but there’s nowhere for me to run, nowhere to turn, his girth such that all by himself, he’s covering every possible escape route I might have had.

“WHAT NUMBERS TO DIAL?”, the hulk before me shouts, a quizzical lilt added to the deep bass tones that emanate from his gaping maw. At least, for this, I was ready. I tried to smile, and began to scribble a number onto a napkin. Fake, of course. I handed him the napkin, and the creature’s joy was obvious and immediate. He suddenly burst forth in a torrent of shouted, sing-song words.

“YOU GON’ BE HERE FOR A WHILE? YOU GO CALL YO’ CREW, I GO CALL MY CREW, WE CAN RENDEZVOUS AT THE BAR AROUND TWO.”, he says, and I just nod and smile. Nod and smile. Must not let him see the fear in my eyes.

Apparently satisfied by this, the man slowly turns his massive bulk, that sing-song voice continuing to utter nonsense words, as I just sat there, shivering, trying to comprehend what had just happened. As he made his way out the doors, I caught his voice rising above the din of the music, still speaking to no one in particular “… T-BONE STEAK, CHEESE, EGGS, AND WELCH’S GRAPE…”

“Hey baby! I brought the wine, let’s get this party started!”, comes an all too familiar nasal voice to my left suddenly. I don’t know why I even come to this club anymore.

I’m having no second thoughts: I’ve wanted to leave the island for a long, long time, and this really does seem to be the time to finally set out and do it. But there’s no shame in admitting that there’s a few little things I’ll miss, and foremost among those are my friends, and the nights spent in warm camraderie around a few pitchers of amazing sangria, sharing food and laughs. And I sit, and I wonder if I’ll find a place like that over there, a place where the owner greets you by name when you walk in the door, where they have your table waiting, and there’s your friends, and your first glass of sangria is on the house. I hope I do.. and I hope I can invite my friends, both the ones I have now, and the ones I’m yet to make, over for a few drinks, and a few laughs.

“May not look- may not look?”, I sputtered, indignation making my face flush red and my cheeks puff into a parody of my normal staid expression. “You don’t look a thing like Jesus!”

He winced at my words, blue eyes dropping down to the floor in shame. It filled me with a certain dark glee to know he was ashamed. He deserved it. But then something seemed to come over him, his face becoming very still, his hands balling into tight little fists.

“But you have to give me one thing.”, he muttered, voice so low it was barely above a whisper.

“Oh? And what in the world could that be?”, I scoffed, my lips twisting into a harsh sneer.

“You have to admit…”, he began, and raised his gaze to meet my own. When our eyes met, I was transfixed: I no longer saw the cut-rate Jesus-imitator who had dared charge me a hundred dollars to come entertain at my great-aunt’s birthday party. What stood before me was something far more than that, something older, and deeper. Something that tugged at memories from my long-forgotten youth.

“… admit… what?”, I stammered, taking a step back, suddenly nervous before this man, trying to find a place to hide from that piercing gaze. But there was nowhere to hide. Not for me.

“I talk like a gentleman!”, he shouted, and the force of his words nearly brought me to my knees. I tried to summon up my strenght, to somehow stand up to him, but in the face of his pure truth, I was as naked and weak as a newborn babe. It was true. I could not deny it. He talked like a gentleman.

Like I imagined.

When I was… young.

Next Tuesday, I’ll be driving my girlfriend off to the airport so she can kick off our upcoming new life together over there, but I’ll be staying behind, for a month, maybe two, maybe longer.. as long as it takes for her to find a job over there, so I can keep helping to pay the bills with my salary. So I suppose I have a little more time to prepare myself mentally for the change, and one way is to start remembering what it’s like to have all those buildings around. There’s few places here on the island where you can get the feeling of what it’s like to walk down the street in Manhattan, but La Milla de Oro comes close. Had some time there today to just look up at the buildings, and think.