Fiction: Me N' Straw
2001-04-04 - 8:36 a.m.

before/after
strangely non-functional guestbook

Short Fiction:

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Note: This is compiled from notes took during a meeting this week with Dr. Samuel R. Kelly, ethno-botanist, while getting the "spa treatment" at an Aspen resort.

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It was a long day. Long and hot. Miserable. The kind where sweat would drip off of your body when you're not even doing anything.

I was perusing my day from my chaise lounge, with a syringe of the finest where I liked to watch the time pass. And who should show through the bushes with out so much as a call, but my esteemed old friend Darryl Strawberry, huffing and sweating, his eyes were in a frenzy.

"Goddammit, cut out that racket!" I said,"All that heaving is sucking up the oxygen."

And he paused, trying to quiet.

Now Strawberry is an unusual man. He slips into whatever role the world can give him to make a break. He's often the victim, though he's a world class athlete, capable of making millions of dollars a year, to all our despicable shame for being ordinary.

"C'mon, Sam. Help me out."

Now I had no idea what this fugitive would ask, but being seeped in the ways of the world from my various experiences, I knew exactly what he wanted. So without any hassle or furthur ado, I passed him a tray of Columbian cocaine, already chalked into lines, oh the humanity.

Like a hoover vaccuum he was, snorted an eight-ball in under five minutes, clamoring for a lightbulb.

I directed him to the guest house, and told him to help himself, so as not to disturb my contemplation by the pond.

When he didn't return after awhile I became curious, as all natural animals are, and made my way after him, only to find him locked in the bathroom with a telephone cord sticking out. All kinds of weeping and crying, the noise was incredible.

"Straw, now take it easy. Put the phone down."

He cackled like an old woman, and emerged with a lightbulb converted into cocaine smoking use, babbling about a plan.

"Doc Sam, Here's what it is."

I turned and walked out, heading for a loaded hypo and my chaise lounge. He followed, explaining himself in the most pedestrian of terms. Oh yes, something about a ransom call, and a kidnapping.

"Your plan won't work. Its no good. Got no sense to it." I said, reclining into my chaise lounge feeling satisfied only the way a junkie can.

When I awoke the next day, I was greeted by a mess. A monumental mess. Garbage everywhere. Furniture in the pond. Something had gone wrong and I can only guess as to who was responsible. A quick look around the premises revealed Strawberry, passed out in front of a flickering T.V. screen with horrible kids shows playing, don't you hate the noise, I know I do.

In front of him lay a plate scraped clean, and the remnants of what used to be a fine medical grade store of cocaine. Gone. Long gone. And this worthless bum has to make himself accountable.

"Get up!" I shouted, "Get up! Go out and find me a score. Get next to a hooker, do what you need to do, but don't come back empty handed!"

And he stumbled, bleary eyed into the daylight.

I haven't seen him since.

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