Halleluiah Part 1 : Palm Sunday (487 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.62 on 5 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Grownasskid (View user info) at 2006-04-10 20:46:03 EDT
(Inspired by "Seperation Sunday" by The Hold Steady)
I remember the first thing she said to me. She said to never trust her. She said there was going to come a time when she was going to have to go with whoever was going to get her the highest. I didn't think much of it at the time.
I came into town on Palm Sunday. I only knew that because the sign on the church lawn said it was. I got off the bus at city center. I probably could have asked someone there what town this was, but the truth of the matter is I was still a little strung out from last night and I was just happy to be off of the fucking thing. I was in Dallas the night before; some junkie offered me his bus ticket for anything I had left. I had a little bit, and I was sick of the Dallas scene anyway, so I made the deal. There was only one bus when I got to the station, so I gave them my ticket and got on. I think we drove north, but how the fuck should I know?
Anyway, I wandered around city center for a little while, just trying to clear my head and look for someone who could point me in the right direction. City center was a labyrinth of one way streets, narrow allies, dead ends, and burnt out shops. The metal trashcans and the cardboard boxes I saw scattered around the shadowy parts of this place told me all I needed to know; the faded graffiti and condom wrappers were a better tour guide than I would have been able to find. This place was probably the center of the scene at one point; probably got too popular and they had to move on. As if to confirm my suspicions, a cop car rolled past, slowing down to look me over before driving off.
I found some kids in one of the alleys. They were the kind of strung out desperate that made them dangerous to normal people. But I wasn't a normal person, and they knew it by looking at me. We talked, but neither of us said much. They told me to go to the camps on the bank of the river; I took off my sock and gave them its contents. It wasn't much, but they were so hard up for junk it wouldn't matter if I took a shit and gave it to them as long as it did the job. I walked out of city center and found my way to the banks of the river. Then I met her, and she told me never to trust her.
First thing I noticed was the cross. It was a little gold one on a little gold chain, the kind of thing little golden girls got when they got their first communion. She said she wore it to ward off the great white sharks. I knew she meant the kind who drove big, black, noisy cars; the ones who wore their sunglasses at night and used women like we used junk. She said she liked the way it looked; I liked the way it looked with three buttons of her blouse undone. She was dressed in a plaid skirt and white blouse. She wore a bright red bra, the color of sex and hatred at the same time. Her hair was black and put up into pigtails and she had black heels on her feet. She had the kind of body that would stay 17 forever; the kind of body that would get screwed by soccer players in high school parking lots. Her body was too young to be in the scene but her face told a story in pot marks and scars. She said her name was Holly.
She got me high right there on the banks of the river. She told me this place was the center of their scene now; this is where the kids came to get high. There were about 20 kids there, all of them my kind of people. The huddled around campfires, holding the belt for each other; one group of kids were huddled around some blackened foil. I saw the tents and asked Holly which one was hers. She smiled at me and told me to follow her, she said she was going to take me to church. I saw a tattoo on the back of her neck. It said "Jesus lived and died for all our sins." I asked her about it. She turned to face me and smiled. She rolled her skirt down enough for me to see the tattoo scratched into her hips. It read "Damn right you'll rise again." She winked at me and told me to follow her.
She took me to a broken down neighborhood, the kind you'd see in any city in the world. The kind of neighborhood that looks like a war zone, even though no one would fight to win it; the kind of place with plywood instead of windows. Holly told me she was staying with some skaters and her friend. I said nothing. After a minute, she turned to me and said she liked those awkward silences. I said nothing again. We came to a run down row house with crosses spray painted on the sides. Holly went to the door and knocked. The door opened a crack, and Holly told the person behind the door that Sean McKenzie didn't live there anymore. A fat girl opened the door and Holly took me inside. There were three guys and the fat girl, all sitting on under-stuffed couches and watching TV. Holly introduced me to them, but I didn't bother to remember their names. The fat one kept looking at me and smiling, her double chins shaking as she talked to me. The whole thing made me sick. Someone passed me a belt. I tied it around my arm and let Holly puncture me. It felt like it always felt, like a hornet's sting. The room shrunk and expanded, then started to spin. The fat girl kept talking to me, but her gibberish turn from words into howls. I passed out; the last thing I saw was a glittering piece of gold around a girl's neck.
User Reviews
Submitted by Coleslaw_Murphy (user info) at 2006-04-18 18:26:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I just read these 3 parts. Well done. <- same review on each
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-04-11 06:32:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Better than a slap in the face with a haddock.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-04-11 00:47:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was actually very well written. I enjoyed it a lot.
Too bad The Hold Steady suck ass...
Submitted by ConorJS (user info) at 2006-04-10 21:20:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
i feel this deserves a 1.5
I will now go give another of your posts a single +2. You're welcome.
Submitted by ConorJS (user info) at 2006-04-10 21:19:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
auto noob -2