keithbootboyschapter3

BOOT BOYS
Copyright 2004
By Keith Scott
http://www.myspace.com/finalassassin
finalassassin73@hotmail.com

MACK and SKINNY

Mack grew up in Georgia and moved to New Jersey with his mother when he was 14.
His father was a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and his mother had piled him and his
sister in the car late one evening and moved north. She had become completely
intolerable of the racist, angry, ignorant environment her kids were being brought up in.
During his formative years, Mack had grown into a confused and really angry
teenager. Throughout Mack’s childhood, his father was constantly going on about the
typical ignorant white racist redneck things, who to blame his own shortcomings on:
Niggers, Spics, Chinks, Kikes, or Faggots. When Mack became old enough to think for
himself, he questioned everything his father said. He would tell him about the black kid,
Damon, he hangs out with at school and that none of the things he had been taught to
believe about black people was the truth as far as he could tell. He saw a black kid
whose father is a doctor that came from a family factory workers, which was the same
thing Mack’s dad did. Of course his father couldn’t really come up with a rationale when
he was trying to teach his son about the “filth” and “leeches of society”, so he just beat
the shit out of him instead.

The more Mack contradicted his father the more Mack would get hit, and the more he
got smacked around the more Mack took it until it started not to hurt. After a while
Mack began to develop a serious tolerance for pain, which only served to make his
father come up with new ways to be more brutal with his beatings. One time he beat
Mack so severely that with the final blow he knocked out all of Mack’s top front teeth,
four in all. Mack didn’t go down though he just stood there in front of his father and spit
the broken teeth, blood and some meat from his gums, looked at him dead in the eyes
and said he would have to do better than that. All the abuse and hate, Mack took it and
created strength within himself. He would need it where he was going.

That incident was the final straw for Mack’s mom so she took off in the car late one
night when her ex husband was passed out after a bottle of Jim Beam. She just picked
up the kids, packed some things and drove with no destination in mind. After fifteen
hours of driving north they ended up in New Jersey, about 15 minutes from New York
City. Since they had very little money and no plan they planted themselves in
Paterson, where Mack would have to endure beginning a new life and a strange and
dangerous school.

In the early 80’s when all this took place, Paterson, New Jersey was a crime-ridden
cesspool of drugs and violence, so much so that there was a movie made about the
principal and the kids who went to high school there. Mack went to that high school,
East Side High, briefly during the early 80’s, when the school was over run by crack
dealers and crack users. It was way worse than anything you could see in a movie.
There were people smoking crack in classrooms and daily robberies of kids and also
teachers. The walls both inside and outside the classrooms were covered in graffiti.
The place smelled like a mixture of shit, piss, smoke, burning plastic and dead animals
that emanated from the rat-infested basement.

It didn’t take long for Mack to get into trouble in an environment like that and within a
month Mack was expelled. Only, he didn’t get thrown out for dealing crack or smoking it,
he got kicked out because he nearly killed a teacher who was trying to break up a fight
he was involved in with four East Side kids. This kind of thing was a daily occurrence
for him, he was constantly being fucked with, not only because he was white but also
because of the way he looked. The first day of school he came in with a one foot high
green Mohawk and a safety pin through his nose. He was sure to make a good
impression on his new classmates. They weren’t used to people who looked like this
and having a southern accent didn’t help either. Before long Mack’s smart mouth got
him into serious trouble with everyone in the school. The thing that did it was the thing
that he was escaping from, his father.

He was eating lunch on a very dreary winter day and some kids came up to him and
were making fun of his accent and one kid asked him if his daddy was in the KKK. So
Mack, being the honest person that he is, said yes. That was how he said it, plain and
simple, yes, no anger, no opinion about it just a simple answer to a simple question.
Immediately these kids knew he wasn’t lying, maybe it was because of the frank nature
of his response, but the result was instant, and harsh.

Once the word got out about Mack being son to a Klansman a group of kids
approached him in the cafeteria, surrounded him and tried to beat him with a bicycle
lock and chain, only they couldn’t ever hit him hard enough, Mack was a big kid and
really fast. After 10 minutes of dodging and fighting he still wasn’t hurt, but he was
growing tired from kicking everyone’s ass. Without a word of warning a teacher
grabbed him from behind his back, but Mack thought it was another adversary and he
turned around and kicked the guy so hard in the nuts that he ended up losing a testicle
and going deaf in one ear. Mack seemed to unlock a hidden strength within him, speed
and accuracy in one, the art of not thinking about what is happening but reacting to
each move individually, the demon at work. His punishment for this incident was 21
months in a juvenile detention center, Mack’s first experience with incarceration.
Needless to say he was permanently expelled from East Side High. It’s kind of ironic
how he was banned from the school for defending himself while the crack dealers and
gangsters ran wild through the school with no chance of expulsion.

There weren’t only angry beatings that Mack was enduring throughout his childhood. At
an early age Mack was taught how to defend himself very scientifically. Aside from
being a Grand Wizard, Mack’s dad was an accomplished boxer. He taught Mack all
kinds of ways of hurting people, specifically by showing Mack how much certain things
hurt. Mack’s father specialized in quick slaps and blows when it was least expected.
Instead of taking it out on the rest of the world however, Mack consciously decided to
turn the negative into positive and grew strength from the physical pain he was
receiving. Miraculously, Mack developed his own sense of discipline and did not attack
anyone unless they put their hands on him, teachers and police included. He had an
untapped source of great strength at his disposal. It was the thing that shaped him, the
thing that makes him who he is today.

At this point in time, Mack had grown in his 33 years to be quite an overwhelming sight,
standing at like 6 foot 4 inches tall, weighing in at about 230 pounds. Mack is like a
fucking truck, hence the name. He’s a big crazy biker looking motherfucker, with a
leather jacket that is accessorized with nuts and bolts and nails instead of little spikes
and studs, which was standard for most people that would call themselves “punks”,
although that was never a name he would call himself. After you’ve been to jail, the
word punk has an entirely different meaning from the antisocial subculture people
sometimes use that word for. Mack also has several tattoos that expressed his general
hatred for most of society. Tattooed across his knuckles is “FUCK YOU”, in big black
ink that he did himself, while tripping on acid, in jail. “UNDESIRABLE” scrawled down
the left side of his face, crown of thorns around his head with a drip of blood down the
other side of his face, and the list goes on. He spent over half his adult life locked up
and all of his offenses were of some kind of violent nature. If it wasn’t a simple assault,
it was inciting a riot, which incidentally is how I met Mack.

One day I went to Tompkins Square Park to hang out for the day with a girl I knew from
high school. She knew Mack and introduced us. Neither of us was really interested in
meeting anyone new, but somehow there was an instant bond between us, something
unspoken, like we were on the same team or something, a general distrust and disgust
for people.

We were hanging out for a bit when I became aware that I had to take a leak really bad.
My eyeballs were floating, as my mom always says. I went out to look for a spot to piss
in and ran into a friend of mine, her name was Mia. She had been house sitting for
someone right up in a building across the street. I asked if she was going back there
anytime soon. Yes, she said. Whew, now I won’t have to go to the hospital with a
ruptured bladder, I thought. I told her about my urinal tract saturation situation and
asked if I could go up to where she was staying and use the bathroom.

“Of course!!” she said while laughing. As if to say it was the least she could do. It
made me happy that she acknowledged the many nights I let her crash at my
apartment. She asked me if I wanted a beer, but I expressed that I had no more
money. Her reply was most amusing.

“Money, hah, watch this.”

After about 30 seconds of “ hey, can you spare some change.” She came up with about
10 bucks. I never saw anything like it. Yuppies were just emptying their pockets to her.

Mia was really a cute and infectious looking girl. I don’t mean “infectious” as in disease
carrying, but infectious like consuming your entire mind and body. She was really
young, but she really had a rough time, which made her grow up quick, like the rest of
us.

According to Mia, her parents died in some kind of accident and she was left with a
huge estate that she would control when she was 18, and it was like millions. Her aunt
was the trustee of the money and spent nearly all of it on herself and her creepy,
perverted boyfriend instead of maintaining Mia’s inheritance. Mia was living with the
aunt, who was always traveling and not giving a fuck if Mia had food or clothes or
whatever, she just left the 16-year-old girl alone to do whatever she wanted. When her
aunt and boyfriend were around Mia would constantly have to evade the advances from
the boyfriend. Once the money had gone her aunt disappeared and Mia had to take to
stripping illegally because that was the only thing she could do to earn an income with
no skills and not much of an education. All she really had to work with was a beautiful
face and the body of a fully developed and shapely woman.

Eventually, Mia said, “Fuck it” and went to the city and decided to live according to the
means of her environment. She lived in a city and her only outlet for living off the land
was to occupy territories which most of the people thought was inhabitable as a
domicile. Like under the Williamsburg Bridge, or in abandoned buildings, and of course
the most frequent graciousness of others who had been in her situation or just liked to
be around her, me, for instance.

Most people in those days, well, and still today really, who were squatting, put on a
façade and acted as if they had no choice; Mia on the other hand was for real. She was
truly homeless, and abandoned but she was strikingly beautiful so you can’t help but
want to give in to her and this gave her a definite advantage. She always had a smile
on her face, even though she’d been enduring some horrendous circumstances. Her
eyes could put you in a trance for days if were adventurous enough to stare into them
long enough. I don’t know what ever became of Mia after that day near the park. Mia-
hah-! An acronym for- Missing In Action!!!

The money she got that day, from panhandling, she spent on buying us 40 bottles of
Colt 45 Ice, that we took up to the apartment where she was staying. My mind was only
on a spot to piss in, when we got up to the apartment where her boyfriend and her were
staying. I grunted a hello upon entering the apartment, trying not to let my eyeballs
actually pop out of my head, and headed straight for the bathroom.

After I pissed, we started talking and got on the subject of a friend of theirs that had
OD'd a few days before. Mia proceeded to spill a little beer out the window to
commemorate their fallen comrade.

“Oh, shit I think I hit someone, …Wow he looks mad, ….Hah I got him pretty good,
hahahaha.” She said.

Not realizing the extent of the damage she had caused we all kept drinking forties and
relating stories.

After about 10 minutes, I remembered that I had left this girl in the park and had to go
back to get her. I walked back onto the street and entered the park when I was met with
a most wet and angry man.

“I just saw you come out of that building you freak motherfucker, I know your kind, you
just spilled beer on me and my baby, I know it was you, you fucking motherfucker I’m
gonna kill you!!!” the man said as the anger consumed him.

I could tell he was kind of upset so I decided to play it cool and told him that I didn’t
know what he was talking about and that he should shut up before I have to cause him
some severe bodily damage. At which time I quickly ran to a nearby trash receptacle
and retrieved a bottle, which I broke the bottom off of, making it jagged, while taunting
him to take a shot. He calmed down a bit, immediately realizing I was someone who
might cause him more harm than he wished to endure at that moment and carried his
campaign back out onto the street, seemingly looking for a policeman.

When I sat back on the bench next to Mack, I could tell he was witnessing the past
minutes events, and that he was not happy about it. I was kind of flattered that he would
take my back, not having known me very long, but like I said there was that unspoken
bond and at this point I knew he was aware of it too.

“What the fuck was that all about?” he said.

“Nothing man, forget it, it was nothing.” I replied.

“No!! I saw that guy fucking with you, let’s go get him.”

“No it’s cool Mack, I really just want to have a good time today, I’m not in the mood for a
fight. Need a beer?” I replied as I extended a brew to him.

“Look, no one comes around here and fucks with my friends. Those fucking yuppies
are always looking down their nose at us and pointing fingers when something
happens. This park is our territory, and he violated sacred ground when he walked in
through those gates.”

I was grateful that he called me a friend after only spending half a day, so I decided to
give in and point out my assailant who was ranting somewhere on Avenue A, just
outside the gate of the park. Mack acted, wielding nothing but a plastic six-pack holder
that was still inhabited by two 16-ounce tall boys of Budweiser.

He called out to the target, who was still enraged and now turning his energy back in
our direction.

“Hey, what are ya bothering this kid for huh, you wanna fuck with someone how about
taking a shot at me motherfucker.” “I’ll fucking take you and bend your ass over and
make you my bitch just like that!! You got a nice tight ass; I’ll open that gap right up!! ”
Like I said before, Mack spent way too much time in places like Rikers Island, or
Marlboro Mental Institution, or Rahway State Pen. I really don’t know if he took part in
anally raping anyone while in jail, but I heard stories of many a man who got all their
teeth kicked out so they couldn’t bite down while some lifer forced his herpes infested
cock into his mouth. Mack had all his front teeth, and came out of jail looking pretty
fucking buff which meant he wasn’t giving up his lunch to anyone either. He told me
that in jail you were either predator, or prey, no one was in between.

When the man approached, Mack catapulted the two tall boys, and hit the man right on
the ridge above his eyebrow, causing a slight rupture in the skin that erupted into a tiny
stream of blood that ran down his cheek. I swear Mack should have tried out for the
New York Yankees starting pitching staff, Mariano Rivera beware. The surprising part
was that the guy was not really stunned by the impact, lunged at Mack and got him into
a headlock. There was like a struggle for a few seconds where this guy was getting torn
up on Mack’s jacket. Eventually, Mack held his hands out in surrender because there
was nothing he could do any longer, surprisingly the guy had actually succeeded in
restraining him. I guess there is a first for everything.

I ran over and tried to separate them by beating the man about the head with a 40
bottle in an old pillowcase I found conveniently next to a garbage can, that wouldn’t
break no matter how hard I tried. This guy was like superman or something, or he had a
plate in his head or more likely it’s that maybe I’m just a fucking weakling.

Someone grabbed me from behind and started to choke me, which made me almost
pass out.

Suddenly, he let me go, I turned to see who it was and saw a mass of people gathered
on the street and the sidewalk in front of the park.

The police had arrived and were trying to diffuse the situation, one that was quickly
getting way out of hand. The man who had originally came after me and was grappling
Mack, was now ranting out of control to the police about how I spilled beer on him,
which we all know I didn’t do, but knew who did.

Mack was behind me trying to find out if there was any beer left in the cans he threw at
the guy, and I was calmly explaining to some other police about how this guy had
mistaken me for someone else and approached me.

I think my advantage here was that I knew all the details of the situation, and I had
manipulated them the entire time to make sure I would not be forced to confess the
information I possessed about Mia and her fallen comrade. I knew who spilled beer on
this guy and his baby. I knew I didn’t do it. I also knew that he was acting on a hunch,
which was wrong, but oh so close. I had to do what was best for me.

Deny everything!

The police didn’t know what to think, at this point there were so many people on the
street, we were the least of their problems. We were ordered to go back into the park,
while the riot started to build on the street. There were people with picket signs yelling,
“fuck the police.” Bottles began to be thrown, and man it all went down that day
because of Mack and I.

We just sat in the park and watched the aftermath of what we created in awe, still
sipping our beers.

A good ten minutes later the police secured the situation, only because all the people
who were involved got bored and decided to go back into the park. They only arrested
one person for drinking a beer without a paper bag, and another man for public
drunkenness, at the sight of his swaying mobility.

We were just sitting there in the park, waiting for everyone to come back, laughing and
drinking. Ironically, a few seconds later a patrol car showed up and kicked us out of the
park for drinking beer, ahh New York city justice. And that is how I met Mack.

After Mack got expelled from school, his mother kicked him out of her home; she just
couldn’t deal with him at all anymore and figured that if she could bring up one good
child than she had done enough given the circumstances she was involved in. I think
she was afraid Mack would be like his father, and she did not want to live with any
human who resembled that man.

Just like Mia, Mack decided the best place for him would be in the city. At fourteen he
was a homeless kid who hung on the streets of the Lower East Side and Alphabet city.
He quickly fell in with some older kids who took him in and taught him how to survive on
the streets of New York. Mack learned a lot from these kids, how to steal without
getting caught, how to get eatable food out of a dumpster, and he learned how to shoot
heroin.

Fortunately, Mack hated the feeling he got from heroin so he only used it a few times.
Mack loved to drink booze and take LSD and anything else that made him either more
aware of his mental capabilities or gave him some kind of inner peace that he was
lacking in the sober world. He never felt that way after shooting heroin, it just made him
physically ill, and then really sleepy. It was at this time that Mack discovered the
wonders of Robitussin, his drug of choice today, after some modifications based on a
recipe that Skinny came up with; which we have already discussed.

Mack spent a few years on the streets until one day when something completely
unexpected happened. He was stealing a six-pack of Shaffers from a bodega and
when he had swiped the beer he tore out of the store at top speed. When he hit the
sidewalk he cut a hard right turn and made it a few blocks until he collided with an old
woman who was carrying home her groceries. He quickly got up and was about to run
but his conscience got the best of him and he decided to help the old woman up before
he ran on. As soon as the woman locked eyes with him she said.

“Lawrence???” That was Mack’s real name.

“Granny??”

They immediately embraced, and Mack was so happy. This was the only member of his
entire family that he ever cared to see again. It was his paternal grandmother, but he
had not seen her since he was about 10. She had disowned her son because of the
racist gang he was heading and rarely came to see them for fear of her own son. Their
reunion was tearful and Mack’s grandmother was concerned about the state of her
grandson. He stunk really badly because he hadn’t had a shower in months, in addition
he had a really bad case of scabies and eczema that took residence in his skin
underneath a thick layer of dirt. They walked on, and she began to question him as to
how he came to living on the streets and he went through the last few years in great
detail over lunch.

They talked and ate at a little outdoor café near the park and nobody looked at them
funny. The sight of a teenage boy who looked like he was a refugee from war-torn
Bosnia and a very refined but tough looking old woman eating, talking, and laughing
was not enough to sway New Yorkers from not noticing the oddity of the situation. It
was like all of this somehow made sense, which was something Mack had never been
able to do out of anything.

Afterward, Mack’s grandmother decided that a sixteen-year-old boy needed a better
way of life than that of a street kid. She decided that it would be best if he came to live
with her in Brooklyn until he was eighteen. He would be able to go to school and she
would keep him out of harms way. It was a good neighborhood near Prospect Park,
and there were lots of different ethnicities which Mack’s grandmother thought would be
good for him, coming from a background that embraced such a warped perception of
minorities.

Mack couldn’t have been happier. He liked the idea of there being people who spoke
other languages and came from different countries, especially Spanish speaking areas.
Mostly, he was excited because he was extremely fond of his grandmother; they had a
unique relationship, kind of like kindred spirit. She had taken care of Mack often when
he was a child, and he always loved the way she would sing old soul and R&B songs.
His father hated it of course. He used to refer to those songs as “Nigger mating calls”.
Mack also loved Granny’s cooking and when they began to live together he instantly
began to put on weight. His spirits immediately started to rise along with the increased
level of vitamins and nutrients that he had lacked from living so crudely in the year’s
prior. Within no time at all Mack was a happy young man, but he never really could get
into school, he had been out of the game for far too long and it was nearly impossible
for him to relate to the other kids, who had not even seen a fraction of the things Mack
had. Living on the streets made him grow up very swiftly and he had no patience for
that kind of structured environment. He knew he needed to learn discipline if he was
going to wart off the demon when it began to rear it’s ugly head again. His grandmother
didn’t really mind so much as long as he would work somewhere or find some use for
himself, which he did in the form of honing his fighting instincts and the discipline he so
desperately desired by learning the art of Tai Kickboxing.

It was a perfect match. Within a few months Mack had become the top student in the
class. His instructor was constantly encouraging him to enter competition; he wanted to
see what Mack was really capable of. This was all too good for Mack; he would be able
to legally beat the living shit out of people. That feeling didn’t last though because in
reality the kickboxing helped curb his anger and instilled a strict sense of discipline in
him that was never there before. At this point the only thing he wanted to do was to
become a champion kick boxer, setting new world records for speed and technique. He
was well on his way until the day everything was snatched away from him once again.
It was the day of the U.S. kickboxing competition and Mack was surely a favorite. It didn’
t matter that he was trained in Tai style kickboxing, and his age didn’t even matter, they
made a special exception to let him compete in the adult circuit. Mack had no doubt he
would win in his weight class; his real challenge was to break the world record for the
fastest knockout. At this point the record for the fastest knockout was 14.4 seconds,
achieved by a Tai middleweight champion who was about 23 years old, now retired from
competition and running his own dojo in San Francisco.

When Mack went into the ring that day his only thought was to break that record, which
was impossible according to all the people there. He was only 17 years old and had
very little experience in the ring, but he had such a knack for the sport and
determination that could not be swayed by anyone. His trick was a technique many
people probably use when fighting, he just imagined that each opponent was his
father.

As soon as the referee put his hand between Mack and his challenger and took it away
he lunged with the ferocity of a caged bull being released into the ring at Pamplona. He
gave a couple of lightning fast starter kicks to the ribs of his opponent and then came
up with a round house to the face that knocked this guy completely out of the ring,
shattering his jaw into pieces. This man was so messed up it looked like he was a
stroke victim with no use of one side of their face so it just hangs there, the patient not
able to speak properly. He had swallowed two teeth and the rest came out with the
puddle of blood when he was turned onto his side by the medic to avoid the guy
choking on his own blood.

The time it took him to do this was 11.2 seconds, a new world record. The crowd was in
awe and roared creating a deafening cheer for Mack; nobody ever expected this in a
thousand years. Not only had he entered a competition of adults and experienced
fighters, his opponent being a former title holder himself, he had broken the record of
the most renowned kick boxer of the time. When the announcer said that the world
record had been broken, Mack was happier than he had ever been in his entire life.
Things started to make sense because up until that point his only purpose was to stay
alive, now he had something to do that he could excel at. It was the thing he was bred
to do, fight and win, with no regard for the opponent except to defeat him.

That evening Mack went back to Brooklyn with his belt and an order for a plaque that
stated he was the holder of the record for the fastest knockout. He ran up the five
flights, grinning, to the apartment as fast as he could to give the news to his
grandmother. He was not only proud of himself for having achieved such a great feat,
he was also happy because he knew how happy he could make his grandmother with
the news. Mack had been waiting for a chance to repay her for all her kindness and he
was sure that his success was more than enough to settle the debt.

When he got to the door of the apartment he knew something was wrong. Upon
approaching he could see that the door had been kicked open. Cautiously he entered,
his heart racing and the cold shiver of fear consuming him. The first thing he saw when
he entered was both of his grandmother’s legs sticking out of the entrance to the
kitchen. He immediately ran to her only to find the most terrifying scene he had ever
witnessed. His grandmother lay face down with a lake of blood around her head. He
couldn’t even see her face because of all the damage that had been done. He could
see parts of her skull and what ever was left under her skin but the shotgun blast blew
most of it off. Her nose was no longer there just a hole and some of her teeth were up
around where her eyes were. When he looked at the top of her head he could see a
huge hole and what was left of her brain, which wasn’t much. Most of that had been
sprayed on the wall across from her. It was evident that who ever did this had held her
head up by the hair, put the shotgun into her mouth and blew her whole face and head
to bits, leaving a clump of gray hair beside her.

Mack went completely numb and stood looking at her unable to move for a long time.
The image before him appeared as though he was looking down a long blank tunnel
and at the end his grandmother lay dead on the floor in a huge pool of blood, mixed
with bone crumbs and brains. He had no thoughts; all that he was seeing could not be
processed right away. No tears were shed, and one could say that this was the
moment Mack lost any chance he may have had at becoming a “normal” young man, or
having any kind of unforgiving love. But it was the events that followed which really
made Mack the pariah that we see today.

After he got his bearings together Mack called the police and told them what
happened. When they arrived the police started asking Mack questions, but he wasn’t
very cooperative because he felt a patronizing attitude from the police, almost
indifference, and it really made him angry. He felt as though what had happened meant
nothing to these people, they were going through the motions of life without any
emotion in response to the atrocity before them. They even went so far as to indirectly
accuse him of doing this to his grandmother. Mack was a strong kid however and he
answered their questions and confirmed his alibis knowing full well that when it was
over, he was through trying to walk the path of the common man. He was truly ousted
from society by the events that shaped his young life, and he had given up trying to do
anything that ensured his place amongst the herd. Mack was never given any chance
to achieve all the things he is entitled to by just being human. Things like, being loved
unconditionally, or feeling a sense of worth because he was doing something that he
was good at. Every time he got to the point where he could change and have hope, it
got snatched away and now he was condemned to his own prison, the one in his mind.
Once the funeral was over, and he managed to avoid the coaxing of his father to come
back to Georgia and join the Klan, Mack went back to the only life he knew, the streets.
This time however, he didn’t want to have to pal around with anyone, he just wanted to
be alone, but that is very difficult when you live the street life. Generally if you want to
be alone you got to live in a box somewhere, which Mack was not about to do, he
needed a place of his own despite the severe improbability of that ever happening.
One night however, there was a huge snowstorm and Mack had to find shelter. He was
lurking near a bunch of old warehouses and small factories, trying to find a way into
one. As he was creeping around looking in some of the windows that were not boarded
up, he discovered one place that had a small bit of light at the far end. When Mack
peered into the window he could see the place had been deserted but there the
electricity had been left on. He went around back and climbed a fence and got up onto
a part of the roof that had been above the offices. He could see at the other end that
there was another window that he could reach and possibly enter. He took of his
leather jacket and put part of it around his hand and broke the window. Once he
climbed in he could see how vast the place was, but it was a real disaster area. It would
do for the night at least, or maybe a few, depending on how long he could last without
being discovered. It turned out that he would never be discovered and this was the
place that Mack and later Skinny had turned into their home. The one thing that
proved to save his life was a thing that some people chose to forget about, an
abandoned building. Which was only fitting for a person who was abandoned by the
good spirit and unconditional divine love that we are all supposed to have access to.

Now, Skinny on the other hand was really quiet, which made him really dangerous. You
couldn’t tell if he was angry, because he’d always be sitting with a half smile on his
face. He was about 6 feet tall, and a bit overweight, hence the name Skinny, clever
huh. He wore thick horned rimmed glasses that made him even more difficult to read.
Skinny was one of the most volatile people because you never knew when he would
snap and start fucking shit up. What was even more frightening was that he had a
fucking dense collection of guns the likeness of which I could only compare to that of a
Muslim terror cell. He and Mack would always be talking about guns.

I met Skinny at Tommy’s house not long after I met Mack, and there was a small party
going on. Skinny said very little upon introduction, and I could tell he was not much of a
talker. That was fine with me; I figured if he was Mack’s friend and was close enough to
share a domicile, he was cool with me.

Mack was there, talking to like four 19-year old little punk rock girls that were kissing his
ass. And in my true form, I was talking to this really gorgeous girl I met at the bar a few
weeks earlier explaining about how I was in no position to get involved with just one girl.

“You understand right, I am really only protecting you, we can have fun, just don’t get
attached to me. I will only hurt you.”

“No, it’s fine, you won’t hurt me, and it’s fine, really, I just want you any way I can get
you.”

“Good, now, take your pants off."

I could hear Tommy on the phone telling a story to Tammy about some ancient king
who had resurrected his wife after she killed herself.

“This story is just like us. I would die if you asked me to Tammy. I have nothing to live
for accept for you. You are the last thing I think about before I go to sleep and the first
thing I think about when I wake up.   You are the sun and the moon and the stars, and I
am just an earthworm, an insignificant one celled organism in the ocean that’s vastness
is only rivaled by that of your beauty.” Some bullshit like that.

Tommy was a real charmer sometimes; he could be very poetic just when you least
expect it. It was just hard to tell what his reason for putting this girl on such a pedestal
like he was doing. I always thought that if you loved someone you should treat him or
her as an equal, not as superior or inferior to yourself. Again I thought that this must
be a really special person, if Tommy was willing to expose all his weaknesses. Although
looking back I don’t know how much will he had, it seemed as though he was becoming
possessed in a way by this girl.

All this time while Tommy was on the phone with Tammy, Skinny was sitting quietly in
the corner mumbling some inaudible comments on the things he was hearing from a
group of people who were sitting close by. Somebody had convinced him to take acid,
which is like giving Saddam Hussein a Nuclear bomb, and buying him a ticket to D.C.
under an untraceable assumed name, and giving him directions to the White House,
saying, “They’re right there, go get em!!!”

He was rocking back and forth, rubbing his hands on his knees, really growing agitated
by what these people were saying. He was waiting for his mark, the one thing that would
turn the internal switch that controlled the gate that housed the demon within him.
Then it happened.

The one thing in the entire world that should not be uttered in Skinny’s presence had
been spit out for all to hear.

“I fucking hate cartoons, Bugs Bunny was just a repressed homeless drag queen that
caused havoc wherever he went”. “I mean is this the message we want to send to our
children about sexuality?” One of the group had said, in a completely joking manner, he
really meant none of it but was just an idiot that was trying to be funny, and wasn’t.
If there is one thing to know about Skinny is that the only thing in this world that he
cares about besides beer and guns, is cartoons, especially Bugs Bunny. He had the
most extensive collection of cartoon paraphernalia and videos of cartoons, he was like
a person addicted to porn. Sometimes I wondered if he’d go home and jerk off to the
episode where Bugs tries to seduce Elmer Fudd by dressing in drag, which was
Skinny's favorite Bugs Bunny episode.

It’s funny to me how people think some conversations are completely meaningless until
someone puts meaning to them. Skinny really put meaning to this one. The real
problem was that Skinny was not a man of words. He didn’t like many people at all, and
he hated crowds. He rarely spoke to anyone besides Mack. Now he was around a
bunch of people he didn’t really know, one of them speaking blasphemously about his
personal deity, and to top it all off this was going on inside with a head full of acid.
So suddenly without warning Skinny lunged at this man and picked him up by his throat
ranting about how Bugs Bunny was not a topic to be discussed in such a negative
manner.

His opponent tried to speak but was constricted by Skinny’s grip. Skinny threw the guy
into the banister next to where they were standing and turned around to find a lone fire
extinguisher just sitting there waiting to be put to use. He grabbed the fire extinguisher
with one hand on the trigger part and the other hand was cupped under the bottom. He
raised the red tank high above his head and brought it swiftly down on this guy’s
cheekbone, causing it to fracture instantly. Blood began pouring out of the man’s
mouth-like wound with enormous speed, and he began to scream, loudly. Skinny
approached the man and began using the blood to paint a picture on the wall. It was a
really crude drawing of Bugs Bunny with a gun in his hand. The very same drawing that
he had tattooed on his right arm.

It might seem odd that someone should get so worked up over Bugs Bunny, but Skinny
had a rough childhood, much like the rest of the boys. He was orphaned when he was
an infant and left in a garbage can in front of a convent. The nuns took him in for a few
days and then got him into an adoption home. Every time the people came to see what
potential son or daughter was there, Skinny got passed up.

He didn’t have anybody at the home, except Thelma, one of the people in charge of the
home. She took a keen interest in him and after years of work succeeded in getting
him to talk. For the first six years of his life, he hadn’t uttered a sound in anyone’s
presence. Everyone thought he was retarded, deaf, mute, anything else but what he
really was, silent.

Skinny knew how to talk, really early. He could understand everything that was being
said, and would repeat the sounds when no one was around. He had learned to talk
much earlier than any of the kids his age, but no one noticed because he only spoke to
himself, or to the TV, Bugs Bunny in particular.

Skinny was no dummy; he could have been considered gifted. He did lack some mental
capacities, which we all take for granted. His perception of reality was totally warped,
probably from having so little physical contact with people. He had never received the
physical touch all babies need to connect them with their loved ones beyond the visual
sense. Skinny was only perceiving things based on what he saw in front of him
therefore he was never able to tell the difference between what is real and what is not
in the visual sense. He thought Bugs Bunny was a real creature, his only friend. He
would sit for hours in front of the TV, which was fine with most of the people that worked
in the home because then no one would have to care for him.

One day when he was six, he was sitting in the TV room watching cartoons, when
Thelma came in and sat down next to him. She was the only one who knew Skinny was
not mentally challenged. She made up her mind to get him to talk.

Thelma sat down next to him and began to watch with him, not paying him any visible
attention but enjoying the scenes with Skinny. After about ten minutes she had
forgotten all about Skinny and was having fun watching the show. The piece had
ended and quickly another one came on, it was the Bugs Bunny episode that took
place in the snow and Elmer Fudd was a mounted policeman chasing Bugs through the
mountain range. The very same one the where Bugs dresses up like a female to try
and distract Elmer Fudd. As the two of them were watching and the episode came on,
Skinny broke and whispered to Thelma.

“This one is my favorite.”

Thelma was stunned but didn’t make a big deal out of it, she didn’t want to startle him,
but inside she was excited beyond belief. She just leaned back to him, smiled and said.
“Me too.”

Skinny smiled, which was another thing she had never seen him do, and just kept
watching with a grin that looked like it might tear the muscles in his face. Thelma was
beaming, she knew right then and there that Skinny had sent her a message, he began
to trust, something he never showed signs of ever doing.

Skinny was the oldest kid in the home, at 11 and no one ever looked like they would
adopt him. Knowing this Thelma decided to take it upon herself to adopt Skinny, and
bring him up as her own. `She was really the only one who could say she was doing
that already, and her home would be a much better environment for Skinny to discover
who he really is, because he had no idea, living in a place of utter anonymity.
Thelma went through all the channels and got Skinny to be her son, legally. Skinny
was thrilled at the idea, Thelma was the only one in the entire world who made him feel
comfortable; around everyone else he was silent while being completely self conscious
inside his own mind.

Once Skinny got settled he began to go to school, and really enjoyed it. He did really
well and the teachers all liked him. Skinny was becoming a human boy and it really
suited him. He was slowly interacting with other kids in his class and with the teachers.
It wasn’t long before everyone realized how intelligent the awkward orphan was.
This adjustment he had to make to interact with people and himself, lasted a few years,
and in that time Skinny really came into his own. He was getting straight A’s and was
particularly successful in mathematics, chemistry, and physics; he was real prodigy. He
began high school at the age of 13, and was up for numerous fellowships, grants and
scholarships to go to college in only two years.

Thelma was so pleased that she was able to save him from what evils could have easily
consumed him had he spent the rest of his childhood in an orphanage. The bond that
they shared was so strong that one would have thought Thelma bore Skinny from her
womb. In fact when people saw them together people rarely questioned whether he
was her natural son.   She was really good to him, never scolding him, not that he
needed it. She was always there to talk to him when he was confused about social
situations. Indeed with all the strengths he had academically Skinny lacked social skills,
presumably from not having much contact with any children early in his life. He got
along with some kids but most just thought he was a geek, and that was mainly due to
the fact that they couldn’t understand him half the time because he was always talking
about philosophy he’d read, or logic equations, or chemical structures of everyday
items. It is easy to say that Skinny was way ahead of all the kids his age. Of course
some kids become threatened by that and took out their frustrations the only way they
knew how, by trying to bully Skinny. Skinny just ignored their comments and went about
his business never giving any thought to the ignorance he was forced to encounter.
Skinny had never had a physical confrontation with anyone in his life until one day
when he was walking home from high school and a few kids his age snuck up on him
and tried to knock his books out of his hands. Skinny was very big for his age and wore
thick glasses even then. To look at him you would think he was mentally challenged
instead of the exact opposite. When one smaller kid got in front of him, and started to
taunt him, the situation became more than the stupid names he was used being called.
This kid wanted to hurt Skinny; he was threatening to hit him in the stomach, which
Skinny had covered with his books. Skinny just stood there, puzzled. He had never
experienced adversity of this kind. The kid kept on trying to get a reaction but Skinny
just stood and stared, until one of the other kids pushed the armful of books out of his
hands causing all his papers to go everywhere. Most of it had been a research project
he had been working on for six months with one of the other students in his chemistry
class. As all the papers flew about and landed in puddles that had formed from the
early afternoon rain, Skinny began to feel an emotion he was not at all familiar with,
rage.

Skinny reacted by kind of slapping the culprit in the ear while pushing him; it looked like
a move Andre the Giant would have used. The kid went flying into a tree and fell down
crying. He was hurt pretty bad but more startled by Skinny’s sudden violent reaction.
The other kids ran off and by the time he realized what he had done his victim
developed a nice sized black and blue mark on the side of his face where he hit the
tree. Skinny just stood there motionless, he had just discovered that he had another
power besides that of his brain, his enormous physical strength. He was also beginning
to understand another emotion he had not experienced until that moment, anger. Not
just normal teen anger, this was deep seeded anger, from being abandoned, from
being passed up for other kids all the time. He too had discovered the demon that
controls that floodgate of rage that Skinny has within him.

However, Skinny had very little to be angry about with his situation at the time, he was
genuinely happy, and only acted out of pure reaction to an adversary who happened to
provoke the destruction of months of research. He had a good home and someone to
show him how to love. He went to a good school and was involved with a program
where he was part of team of real innovative young scientists. The incident opened a
door to something that he would have to deal with for the rest of his life.

By the time Skinny reached the age of 18 he became increasingly consumed with the
desire to be a part of a team. He wanted the acceptance from people other than the
scientific community and his very few peers. He had begun to dislike being cooped up
all day in a lab doing experiments that would produce results the impact of which he
would never be able so see. He definitely knew he was done with going to school and
was not long after that Skinny decided his life would begin in the Marine recruiters office
signing an 8 year contract in an special forces unit…

Skinny managed to finish his basic training with a tremendous amount of difficulty. He
was drastically out of shape when he joined the Marines, but his determination would
prove to be a source of strength and a way for him to earn respect.
Upon his arrival he did get special attention from his drill instructor in the form of
massive insults and ridicule. His unit members also took to being abusive as well
because they would usually be punished for Skinny’s shortcomings. Nothing ever
became physical, but it was in the cards. Skinny knew that it was only a matter of time
before he would snap. Deep inside the demon was starting to show itself, and a
sickening anger was quickly consuming Skinny’s power of restraint.

One day the unit was on a routine five-mile run and of course Skinny was having
trouble keeping up. The drill Sergeant was right in Skinny’s face yelling at the top of his
lungs how Skinny would never amount to anything and was weak. He also made a
comment about how Skinny’s mom should have left him on a doorstep so she wouldn’t
have to bring up such a useless pile of shit.

Within an instant Skinny halted and with the swiftness of a cheetah and the force of a
tank he close-lined the drill instructor on the nose causing it to shatter. Blood sprayed
about the man’s face and began to pour like a faucet from his nostrils as he fell to his
knees.

The entire unit stopped and stared at the scene in shock. Skinny was staring down at
the Sergeant who was writing in pain. No one knew what to do; they had not expected
things to get to this. But the outcome of this situation was most unexpected to all of
them.

After Skinny gave the instructor a towel to hold on his nose, he rose and looked Skinny
directly in the eyes and said.

“I’m proud of you boy, you finally stuck up for yourself, you got some pride, and that is
what a Marine needs to be a part of this unit.”

When they got back from their run, they made up a story about what happened to the
instructor and no one ever gave Skinny shit again.

It’s not surprising that after that incident, Skinny gained enormous confidence and
eventually became a model soldier. He was meticulous about his belongings and
became an expert at dismantling and cleaning his weapon with the speed and efficiency
of a precision machine.

Once Skinny completed his basic training, it was time for him to decide what area the
rest of his military training would be concentrated in. After some research he decided
that he wanted to be involved in something that he could put his scientific mind to use.
He took several aptitude and personality tests and his superiors realized, upon seeing
the results, how smart this kid was. It was then that they began to encourage him to
move into special operations training. At first they put him in a program designed to
train soldiers in infiltrating and dismantling terrorist cells in the Middle East. However, it
wasn’t long before they put him into a training program for Skinny to begin designing
chemical and biological weapons.

It was during this training that he would become AWOL from the marines when he
learned that his brain was going to be used to design and set up explosive devices for
underground operations in Africa and Eastern Europe. He could understand going
after terrorists, but they began to use force in places like Somalia and Bosnia, where
the people were fighting for freedom. He couldn’t understand the politics behind the
situation and he didn’t understand why it was necessary to use such destructive
weapons on a nation of people who didn’t even have the resources to feed the majority
of their own people.

Skinny liked the attention he got from all his instructors but he didn’t feel right about
using his mind to destroy people he had no personal beef with. His conscience was
getting the best of him so in his fourth year in the Marines he snuck out one night and
escaped the base never to return. The US armed forces authorities are still seeking
him and if he was caught would most likely spend a good chunk of his life in
Leavenworth.

When he escaped he decided to go to New York City, a huge city where someone like
him can go a long time without being noticed. Once he arrived and realized he had no
real skills to get a normal job and no people skills to even ask for one, he took to
walking the streets at night. On one of those nights he passed by a small bar where he
heard reggae music and it made him think of Thelma, so he went in. The only two
people there were Mack and Rodney.

For some reason Skinny became extremely elated when he walked in, like he was
walking into his own home. He sat down at the bar and ordered a warm Guinness to
calm his nerves. It wasn’t long before Mack spotted him was busting his balls to see
what this big dopey quiet marine was all about. Once the conversation began however,
Mack quickly realized he was talking to a counter-part and at the end of the night their
relationship had begun, and would never cease even after death. The next day Skinny
had a new home, with Mack at the warehouse he had acquired only week’s prior.