Terminus: Down the Alleyway

[jack_babalon]

The running of the cacti

Ready?

I lock my Baby up. Check for the law: Clear. Check for Masquerade staff: Clear. Check for street freaks on an early morning prowl: Clear.

And i'm off.

I bolt down the alleyway. Black Chuck Taylors splash down on the dirt. I'm coming to the bum barricade. A cushionless red love seat that blocks the narrow passage. I take it with a hurdle. Stepping up on the back and coming back down at a run. I hit a veil of thorns and dodge low. I don't dodge low enough. I still have scratches on the back to prove it. I catch it in my untangling. The sign of Chief White Eyes!


Beware! Beware! Chief White Legs Sees All!

I catch the shadow again. I don't look. I use the digital screen on the camera and angle it. I catch nothing but the red loveseat behind the veil of thorns. Too much imagination. Nothing more. I make my way down the alleyway deeper. The earth is layered in broken glass, aerosol cans, crushed beer cans, condom packets and fast food burger wrappers. I find some graffiti rough drafts. A sketch book wall. Maybe this is where they practice? Maybe it's a training ground for future taggers? Maybe the wino-ghouls swarmed down the alleywalls from both sides, trapping the artist mid painting, where they dragged him/her off into the dark. The snap of bones, the chewing of muscle, the tear of flesh, the music of their still screaming dinner drowned out by music coming out of the club...

"Relax, Francis" I say to myself outloud (big 'Stripes' fan by the way).

I snap the shot close up, having no room for anything else.


Scarlet Sketches
January 14th, 2007
~Rob M.

I shoot another for back up and the camera dies. Fuck me running (if you can keep up that is), that was a fresh pack of batteries. I have two more in the saddle bag on my Baby but that does me no good. I'm at the edge of the corner of the building. There is a space of debris and bramble that leads to a mammoth dirt wall that the derelict train tracks ride on. There is a doorway in the wall. A perfectly cut doorway in the mud. It's a black shaft from where i'm standing.

I brace myself to go in and then it hits me. This is exactly the scene in a horror movie where i'd shout to the character on the screen: "Whaddya fucking doing man? Can't you tell that's the Wino-Ghouls nest!!!". Then i'd turn to whoever I was watching the movie with and proudly declare: "You wouldn't catch me doin' no stupid shit like that, that's for sure!".

Then another fact hits me. Doesn't every episode of Supernatural that involves a ghost, a demon or a haunted locale usually start with the flashlight batteries going dead on some poor schmuck? Why yes, yes it does. Shit and I don't have a car trunk packed full of state of the art anti-spook firepower. I have a bike chain, a pack of camels, a lighter, an inoperational camera and two feet ready to run! Then I hear some rustling around the corner.

It's probably just the wind. Probably my imagination running crazy again. At worst some piss bum waking up to another day of destitution.

But I can't really say for sure because i'm bolting back down the alleyway with the quickness! I Plow through the thorn veil of thorns Kool-Aid man style, clear hurdle over the loveseat and I skip the Orpheus mistake of catching a glimpse over my shoulder to see what, if anything, is behind me. I don't know much, but damnation usually seems to rest in the act of looking back. I'm on my baby and cruising up North, despite the steep climb at a speed that should be technically impossible with my smokers lungs.

Next stop Cabbagetown by way of Boulevard.

Comments

[esmio06.livejournal.com]

"You wouldn't catch me doin' no stupid shit like that, that's for sure!".

Hate that moment of realization when it suddenly becomes apparent that we could be a cameo

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

"Hate that moment of realization when it suddenly becomes apparent that we could be a cameo"

Which is odd, because that same line was going to be the opening of my sex memoirs. *Sigh* Oh well back to the drawing board.

[esmio06.livejournal.com]

you know rarely, when typing LOL, do I actually laugh out loud. It is usually more of a GOMA (grunt of mild amusement). This time I actually spit water, that i was drinking, on my monitor.
Sad thing is if I think about my sex memoirs, I really am a cameo.

wow, now I need more therapy that I will never bother going to get.

It took me years to refine the neuroses to the artform you now see before you, no way im gonna let somebody get rid of them and make me start over on new ones.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Who needs therapy when you can post blogs! There's confession, confabulation, catharsis, verbal copulation and more neurosis driven drama than the entire history of the British Royal Family put together(with better teeth I might add)!

[rubberella.livejournal.com]

when you go back over to bum island lemme know!!! I'll join in the adventure!

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Cool, because if movies & TV have taught me anything there's no better response to ghosts, ghouls or homocidal winos than having a beautiful women (or in LJ speak - "A hawt babe") armed with an assault rifle with you.

Plus you can catch me when I faint at the first sign of the living dead;)

[vomikronnoxis.livejournal.com]

Wino-ghouls are the worst -- never chance a glance inside their horrid brown bags.

~rl

[xtopher-robin.livejournal.com]

Holy shit dude! It's a Catuar tag! SCORE!

God I love your shots. You never fail to amaze me, not only in the composition or subject of your photos, but the simplicity of it all at the same time. Good stuff indeed.

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Why thank you Chris, it's the little things like this that make my day.

[kortny86.livejournal.com]

there is another running cactus on wylie on the wall to your left heading away from cabbage town just after the bridge. He's in full color (= and you need to put up something of mr.wiggly arms who is on edgewood on the brick builing at the corner of krog and edgewood. He is my favorite and I think he feels left out. (=

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Check my latest post!