I:III

Jesica and her Honda Civic had seen some adventures. As the oddly colored heap pulled up to Castlevek, I noticed all of the scratched and scrapes along the side of her car. I know a lot of them were from me when I had a Civic also. I used to side swipe her car all of the time. In retrospect, that was a really dumb idea, and it fucked up my car too.

Jesica, Malissa, and Alexandra had been friends since sometime around the womb. One could only separate the three with a scalpel. Jesica was tan and it complemented her sandy blonde hair, but it never stayed blonde long. She was beautiful in the face with a short nose and large eyes. She was thin but there is no getting around this… her body was amazing because of her most predominant feature… her butt. It was huge. Not wide and flat or misshapen though, it was like a regular white-girl butt under a magnifying glass. It was good. When one stopped paying attention to Jesica’s glorious butt they would have no choice but to enjoy the warmth of Jesica’s kind and relaxed personality. The only behavior that slightly be smudged this was her uncontrollable need to cuss. Not so much as Tourette syndrome, she just cussed a lot. She was the reason of the trio.

Alexandra’s body was like that of a jock. Not a beefy jock, but a feminine one. Her curves were easily traceable, and it was no burden to do so. She was also beautiful in the face. Her eyes were large and innocent, she had thick pouty lips and her nose was upturned. Although she wasn’t much of a joy to try and hold a conversation with, she made up for it with her outgoing spirit. She was the… comic relief of the trio.

The best way to describe Malissa: she is my other half. The most obscene, vulgar gory thoughts, summations, and references found their way to Malissa’s mouth. She was clever, sharp as a tack, and funnier than a barrel filled with people. Her face was sharp. Her eyebrows were arched just enough to keep her pleasantly angry looking. She had big eyes that she painted around with the thickest blackest eyeliner, and her high cheek bones and thin lips, which looked good on her, made her entire face so desirable. The feature that separated Malissa from the other two girls was that Malissa was very chesty, but she had no hips. She still looked good, but she had a small butt. If you could somehow put Malissa and Jesica together… well, you’d be married.

When she got out of the car she turned to Jesica. “Jesica, be sure to tell the valet to lock the doors,” She was talking about Erick, “I don’t trust the negro.” That one was about me.

“Malissa,” I said warmly, “When you want to speak, raise your hand and Erick will pull his dick out of your mouth.”

“Well thank goodness you brush your teeth or I’d never be able to catch you with my television.” We laughed.

“So what’s on the agenda?” Jesica came round in between the cars with the rest of us.

“Well I suppose we can start heading up the hill.” I pulled out a cigarette and handed one to Erick, “I think it’s going to be a minute before Vince and Rick Show up.”

“Do you know who all is supposed to be coming?” Jesica asked as we all began walking.

“Not a clue but I heard that Alex had something to share with us.”

Malissa interjected, “Jesus, I hope he didn’t try anymore acid,” Her eyes widened, “Last time he ran around town naked for two days.”

“I don’t know,” I told them, “But Erick and I saw something strange today. Very strange…”

I:II

We called our hang out spot Castlevek. “Castle” because one of us thought that would be a cool place to call a hang out spot and “vek” because there was a rumor that some Russian from the Red Terror escaped, was on his way to Mexico, got caught, and was killed somewhere in the nearby area. His name was Viktor Vek. The old man who told us the story seemed pretty convincing, but I can’t help but wonder what a Soviet was doing in the Central Valley.

Castlevek was located a few miles outside of town. We couldn’t hang out there on windy days because it’s located out in what could be called a desert. I wouldn’t call it a desert because I think there is too much vegetation, but there is a lot of sand. If you saw it you would probably call it a desert… I’m getting off topic. Anyway so after WWII the U.S. had a lot of money and all of these nowhere towns started sprouting up. Mortem was one of those towns, and so was whatever town used to be under Castlevek. Mortem is still alive, that’s where we live, but the remains of the town under Castlevek were nothing more that high organized stacks of metal and wood. It was basically a junkyard.

We parked our cars at the end of the road from Mortem and we would walk the rest of the way to Castlevek. We had set up a bunch of couches and stuff and moved some of the old 1950’s cars around a circle. In the middle was a deep black pit in which we held bon fires.

To me it was only fun to be in Castlevek if we were all there. That would explain why Erick and I were sitting in the car. Whoever showed up next would see my car and we would all wait for the next car. If someone came to Castlevek uninvited, we would usher them to the other side of the town which was a lot less safe than our side (and that is really saying something!), and the uninvited person would eventually leave. Police never had a problem with it. Only one group of guys was persistent about trying to get into our spot but I’ll get into them later because the next car is arriving…

I:I

I could never understand what Erick was trying to tell me. I’ve known the guy for almost five years and he still bewilders me. It’s hard to even describe how he talks. He doesn’t always use philosophy or metaphors, but sometimes I think he’s just saying whatever sounds good to him. I mean, I can understand a little bit of what he says, it’s not like he’s speaking Chinese, some things are easier to understand than others, like yes and no. Take for instance when we first met in the seventh grade:

Erick was that “weird kid” that no one really talked to other than to cheat from time to time. I saw him on most days just sitting on a bench behind the school reading, doing homework, drawing, etc., until one day when he was sitting there and I sat down next to him. I didn’t sit with him because I felt sorry for him or I saw his neat drawing, I was extremely mad at that particular time and I was trying to cool off. My group of friends hung out behind the school also and I had some beef with one of them. So, I sat down, Erick didn’t look at me and didn’t look at him but I did tell him my situation.

“Can you see that fucking asshole with the blue shirt and the blonde hair?” I asked him trough my teeth. I just saw Erick’s head rise. “Well, he talks a lot of shit about my friend, he stole my watch and now he is hitting on the girl I like. I tried to tell but he talked his way out of it. Should I kick his ass?” We were silent, Erick still looking at the blonde guy.

After a moment Erick said very sternly, “To the gallows.” It could be that I just wanted that to mean yes or that Erick had no idea what I was talking about, but I jumped up, ran over there, and punched that asshole in the eye, and when he fell, I got on top of him and beat him until someone pulled me off. Most of my friend just stood there assuming I had some just cause.

I can’t exactly remember the events that followed but I know Erick and me talked a lot after that. At first I thought he was trying to be weird with the way he spoke, but I later realized that it’s like being a mute for him. No one talked to him because they couldn’t understand him. No, I don’t mean like he is some tortured soul, I mean they literally could not understand what he was saying. If you asked him what he liked, he’d have to show you. It was almost like an involuntary disorder. Once, we were playing video games and he said to me, “It must run, plummeting like doves in a sea breeze, and cascade past long lived mountains of coal.”

I took it in for a minute and got a little angry, so I said, “What the fuck does that have to do with your favorite flavor of ice cream?” Erick thought I was the funniest kid on the planet so he started laughing… hard. His laughter always cheered me up so I got over it pretty fast.

Here we are now, sitting in my car, out in what could be called a desert, waiting for our friends. I suppose I liked hanging out with Erick because I was with someone I liked and we never had to speak unless it was important. If he spoke, I listened, if I spoke, he listened. Mostly it was quiet, which was fine. We had a lot of time to kill so we smoked a joint and put on a CD. We were waiting…