COME TOGETHER - Interlude A: Number 1
Jul. 3rd, 2007 06:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dethoratsOkay, so we've had a time skip, as should become readily apparent. This time my goal is to keep all the guys in more or less the same time period, i.e. midwinter 1995. Hopefully these interludes will capture personality as well as a picture of what has gone on during the time jump while also establishing a basis for Come Together Part 2. Murderface gets to go first.
Title: Love is Hate is Love?
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2152
The worst day of the year and he had to be out in the thick of things. Figured. He probably would have been a lot happier down in Hell, which is where he would have gone if he hadn’t been such a pussy that morning. Bloodshot yellow-green eyes, the color of horse piss according to the barely walking pile of putrid humanity that was his grandmother, had met and held his gaze in the mirror and he’d flinched and given way before his own reflection. He looked like shit and didn’t feel much better and the knife had been RIGHT THERE but he’d stopped before he could hit a vein. Such a goddamn wimp and he should’ve died. Should’ve been leaking blood and urine onto the mildewed green tiles on his bathroom floor, rotting slowly from the inside out until his flesh was half eaten off before some jackass, probably one of his band mates, stopped by to look for him. Should have been but he wasn’t. Instead, after cursing himself to Hell and out the other side, he’d wrapped his forearm in the gauze that he bought in bulk from the local medical supply store and headed off to work.
Murderface detested Valentine’s Day. He loathed it even more than he hated himself, which took some doing. All around him people were thinking about or talking about or singing about that most false of all emotions, love. Love was fake. It wasn’t real. Such a thing as unconditional love did not exist. Lust and greed and need, these were all true human emotions that people rolled up into a decorated package, slapped on a bow, and called love just so they could sleep a little easier at night. There were few things Murderface was absolutely certain of in his life but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that love was an illusion of the mind, a sick opiate of the masses just like religion. After all, he’d never known love. No one had loved him, not even as a tiny helpless infant, a form that was supposed to be irresistible thanks to biology’s careful programming. Certainly he’d reached adulthood without the benefit of love just fine. It was just a myth and people just relied on love like a crutch instead of being strong enough to stand on their own two feet and face the world as it really was. And it didn’t help that it was Monday to boot.
It had snowed all last week, rare but not unheard of for Richmond in February, and his red Mack truck was dingy from road salt and cinders. He’d been off for two days while the road crews worked and that had been fine with him. His job with Pack Mule grew more and more grating with every passing week. Most of his old coworkers, losers all of them but at least tolerable, had left in search of a better working environment and he was stuck coping with his asshole boss largely on his own. At least the new jerks that had signed on had learned quickly enough to stay out of his way. He’d only had to stab a single fool and threaten three more before word had gotten around. It was a bit disappointing actually. A challenge would have been entertaining. The wheels of Murderface’s rig slid a tad as he took the turn into the loading docks too fast for the ice and slush still decorating the ground. A manic gleam glowed faintly in his eyes as he spun his steering wheel to compensate, images of crashing his cab into his boss filling his head in a messy scarlet-on-grey-snow montage.
Unfortunately for Murderface, his driving skills were too sharp and he executed a perfect spin as he slid the truck into place in front of dock two. A trailer was already waiting and he backed in the few remaining feet while muttering about lost chances under his breath. Ten minutes later his cargo was attached and he had a clipboard with all of its tedious paperwork sitting next to him on top of several empty McDonald’s hash brown containers. He had to go north for the day, right up 95 into D.C. and traffic promised to be worse than usual the way it always was on a holiday. There wasn’t even the promise of a second job to spur him on or practice waiting later in the evening. It was Valentine’s Day and he would spend it the same way he always did, all alone.
Static crackled out of the speakers as he played with the radio dial. Heading up out of Richmond wasn’t too bad; most of the traffic was part of the usual morning rush into town but 95 was a bitch of a road and Murderface expected delays at some point. Every FM station he hit seemed to have an asinine dj going on and on about the holiday, offering this or that tip or running a contest for a ‘romantic candlelight dinner for two.’ His teeth ground harshly with each mention of the word love and he surfed through the channels faster than a sugar-high child flipping among Saturday morning cartoons. Ultimately he gave up on finding any sort of useful traffic information amidst all the softheaded babble about love and hearts and flowers and changed over to the AM band. But even there the typical gangs of talking heads couldn’t seem to stop mentioning Valentine’s Day. And when he finally hit upon a station running the news, all he got was more he didn’t want to hear.
By no means was William Murderface a liberal hippie. His family was from Virginia and proud of their Confederate past, fighting for states’ rights against the tyranny of an overreaching bureaucracy run by money men out of New York and Philadelphia. He embraced the NRA, didn’t like the idea of ever paying higher taxes – especially if his hard-earned money was going to go support some crack whore and her fifteen illegitimate babies – and protecting a bunch of trees and frogs and birds that weren’t evolving fast enough to survive in a changing world seemed pretty stupid. But he was also an ardent proponent of free speech. No one told Murderface what he could or could not do or say. And the newly Republican Congress that had taken office that January was going on and on about getting a constitutional amendment against flag burning among other stupid ideas. So far nothing the government had done in the opening two months of 1995 had sat well with him. Spinning the dial to another station just got him more inane coverage of the OJ Simpson trial and he finally turned off the radio with a loud curse. He’d just have to be prepared for anything on 95 it seemed.
His fingers blindly sought across the seat and through the usual detritus that littered his cab before they finally touched on the smooth plastic surfaces of two cd jewel cases. One was the latest SLAYER album, a Christmas present from his loony drummer and one of only four gifts he’d actually received, and the other was Antietam’s third demo, the one they’d cut back in a manic rush between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. For a moment he trailed the calloused pads of his fingers over the demo. They were calling it The Dunker Church Massacre and they had a black and white photo of the church – that had been an interesting road trip up to Maryland - on the cover with a red film tinting everything. It, and the band, had been doing fairly well.
Antietam still had all the same members it had had since that fateful night he’d beaten up their old drummer and recruited Pickles. The colonel was as weird as ever and their guitarist had been edgy lately but Shawn did go through odd periods from time to time and so Murderface was inclined to let his behavior go for the moment. And Pickles was great, probably the happiest of all of them but then again the redhead seemed to be perpetually stoned or drunk so perhaps that was why. They were tight now, playing perfectly nearly every show except for a few instances with too much alcohol beforehand, and they’d made the mid-East circuit throughout much of 1994. From March to October for the upcoming year, they had shows booked every weekend and a few club gigs in the middle of the week just for variety. But it was February and winter was always a slower time for bands that hadn’t quite made it yet.
They were on the cusp. Fame was close, almost in reach, and Dunker Church had the ability to take them over the edge if only the right ears could hear it. The colonel had been making some noise recently about a producer up in New York who wanted them to make a full studio album but that meant uprooting and taking a hell of a lot of risks. Pickles too had been hinting, wearing a sly grin that he tended to aim at Shawn, making the guitarist blush like a girl for some reason, and a choice would be coming up pretty soon. Murderface knew what he wanted to do but he also knew he was a worthless spawn of a whore and a lunatic and that he failed every morning to kill himself. Would he have the guts to go when the time came? And that question, the one that haunted him every time the buzz from the crowd and being on stage wore off while the beer in his mouth turned sour and he doubted, made up his mind. SLAYER it was.
“Divine Intervention” went into the CD player and the booming voice of Araya washed over him. Now there was a man who knew how to be brutal. A bassist and the lead singer, Araya was awesome and Murderface had practiced stuff off of “Hell Awaits” and “Reign in Blood” throughout high school. In many ways Araya was his idol, not just a bassist but also a vocalist and a lyricist on some of his favorite SLAYER tracks. Serial killers were interesting after all, and it was Murderface’s secret wish to write and sing on an album of his own some day. He had personal experience in certain unpleasant areas and he could make a brutal album to rival SLAYER if only he had the money and the time. And ‘Serenity in Murder’ was an amazing track and about the only thing that kept Murderface from mowing down the swarm of cars around him when he ran into roadwork in Springfield, just a few miles outside of D.C. and his destination.
That night, on the way home and feeling slightly better about his day even though the damn radio kept on talking about Valentine’s shit, an interesting tidbit of information crackled across his cb. A job, a cross-country haul with apparently some rather risky cargo, slow-rate shipping requirements, and a big payout, was being advertised by an outfit in Norfolk. It might’ve been military – hard to say – but the money sounded very nice. It was enough, barely, to justify everything he had been secretly afraid of. And he was damn tired of seeing not only a loser but also a fucking pussy in the mirror every morning. Here was a chance to do something about it. Murderface listened carefully for a moment as silence came from the cb before he got on and, with a note of defiance in his voice that would have been noticeable only to his thankfully absent grandmother, he professed his interest. His reputation was such that no one else bothered to lay claim to the job and he wrote down the number for the joint on top of his gauze-covered arm with a leaky ink pen.
The hurt from the cut beneath throbbed beautifully and he stopped off at the liquor store for a twelve pack and grabbed a bottle of cheap red just for the heck of it. The box of candy, balloon, and bunch of half-dead roses provoked raised eyebrows at the convenience store next door but a glare and a spittle-infused curse sent the nosy clerk running to the back ostensibly for change but more likely to cower. That night, after calling and getting the job, Murderface drank his beer and guzzled his wine. He went over exactly how he was going to quit his job at Pack Mule, trying to decide which method would be the most offensive. And he popped the balloon, stomped on the flowers until the petals were blackening smears in his filthy carpet, and ate all the candy while he sat on the couch and watched tape number three of Ken Burns’ documentary. It was the best Valentine’s Day he had ever had.
Title: Love is Hate is Love?
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2152
The worst day of the year and he had to be out in the thick of things. Figured. He probably would have been a lot happier down in Hell, which is where he would have gone if he hadn’t been such a pussy that morning. Bloodshot yellow-green eyes, the color of horse piss according to the barely walking pile of putrid humanity that was his grandmother, had met and held his gaze in the mirror and he’d flinched and given way before his own reflection. He looked like shit and didn’t feel much better and the knife had been RIGHT THERE but he’d stopped before he could hit a vein. Such a goddamn wimp and he should’ve died. Should’ve been leaking blood and urine onto the mildewed green tiles on his bathroom floor, rotting slowly from the inside out until his flesh was half eaten off before some jackass, probably one of his band mates, stopped by to look for him. Should have been but he wasn’t. Instead, after cursing himself to Hell and out the other side, he’d wrapped his forearm in the gauze that he bought in bulk from the local medical supply store and headed off to work.
Murderface detested Valentine’s Day. He loathed it even more than he hated himself, which took some doing. All around him people were thinking about or talking about or singing about that most false of all emotions, love. Love was fake. It wasn’t real. Such a thing as unconditional love did not exist. Lust and greed and need, these were all true human emotions that people rolled up into a decorated package, slapped on a bow, and called love just so they could sleep a little easier at night. There were few things Murderface was absolutely certain of in his life but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that love was an illusion of the mind, a sick opiate of the masses just like religion. After all, he’d never known love. No one had loved him, not even as a tiny helpless infant, a form that was supposed to be irresistible thanks to biology’s careful programming. Certainly he’d reached adulthood without the benefit of love just fine. It was just a myth and people just relied on love like a crutch instead of being strong enough to stand on their own two feet and face the world as it really was. And it didn’t help that it was Monday to boot.
It had snowed all last week, rare but not unheard of for Richmond in February, and his red Mack truck was dingy from road salt and cinders. He’d been off for two days while the road crews worked and that had been fine with him. His job with Pack Mule grew more and more grating with every passing week. Most of his old coworkers, losers all of them but at least tolerable, had left in search of a better working environment and he was stuck coping with his asshole boss largely on his own. At least the new jerks that had signed on had learned quickly enough to stay out of his way. He’d only had to stab a single fool and threaten three more before word had gotten around. It was a bit disappointing actually. A challenge would have been entertaining. The wheels of Murderface’s rig slid a tad as he took the turn into the loading docks too fast for the ice and slush still decorating the ground. A manic gleam glowed faintly in his eyes as he spun his steering wheel to compensate, images of crashing his cab into his boss filling his head in a messy scarlet-on-grey-snow montage.
Unfortunately for Murderface, his driving skills were too sharp and he executed a perfect spin as he slid the truck into place in front of dock two. A trailer was already waiting and he backed in the few remaining feet while muttering about lost chances under his breath. Ten minutes later his cargo was attached and he had a clipboard with all of its tedious paperwork sitting next to him on top of several empty McDonald’s hash brown containers. He had to go north for the day, right up 95 into D.C. and traffic promised to be worse than usual the way it always was on a holiday. There wasn’t even the promise of a second job to spur him on or practice waiting later in the evening. It was Valentine’s Day and he would spend it the same way he always did, all alone.
Static crackled out of the speakers as he played with the radio dial. Heading up out of Richmond wasn’t too bad; most of the traffic was part of the usual morning rush into town but 95 was a bitch of a road and Murderface expected delays at some point. Every FM station he hit seemed to have an asinine dj going on and on about the holiday, offering this or that tip or running a contest for a ‘romantic candlelight dinner for two.’ His teeth ground harshly with each mention of the word love and he surfed through the channels faster than a sugar-high child flipping among Saturday morning cartoons. Ultimately he gave up on finding any sort of useful traffic information amidst all the softheaded babble about love and hearts and flowers and changed over to the AM band. But even there the typical gangs of talking heads couldn’t seem to stop mentioning Valentine’s Day. And when he finally hit upon a station running the news, all he got was more he didn’t want to hear.
By no means was William Murderface a liberal hippie. His family was from Virginia and proud of their Confederate past, fighting for states’ rights against the tyranny of an overreaching bureaucracy run by money men out of New York and Philadelphia. He embraced the NRA, didn’t like the idea of ever paying higher taxes – especially if his hard-earned money was going to go support some crack whore and her fifteen illegitimate babies – and protecting a bunch of trees and frogs and birds that weren’t evolving fast enough to survive in a changing world seemed pretty stupid. But he was also an ardent proponent of free speech. No one told Murderface what he could or could not do or say. And the newly Republican Congress that had taken office that January was going on and on about getting a constitutional amendment against flag burning among other stupid ideas. So far nothing the government had done in the opening two months of 1995 had sat well with him. Spinning the dial to another station just got him more inane coverage of the OJ Simpson trial and he finally turned off the radio with a loud curse. He’d just have to be prepared for anything on 95 it seemed.
His fingers blindly sought across the seat and through the usual detritus that littered his cab before they finally touched on the smooth plastic surfaces of two cd jewel cases. One was the latest SLAYER album, a Christmas present from his loony drummer and one of only four gifts he’d actually received, and the other was Antietam’s third demo, the one they’d cut back in a manic rush between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. For a moment he trailed the calloused pads of his fingers over the demo. They were calling it The Dunker Church Massacre and they had a black and white photo of the church – that had been an interesting road trip up to Maryland - on the cover with a red film tinting everything. It, and the band, had been doing fairly well.
Antietam still had all the same members it had had since that fateful night he’d beaten up their old drummer and recruited Pickles. The colonel was as weird as ever and their guitarist had been edgy lately but Shawn did go through odd periods from time to time and so Murderface was inclined to let his behavior go for the moment. And Pickles was great, probably the happiest of all of them but then again the redhead seemed to be perpetually stoned or drunk so perhaps that was why. They were tight now, playing perfectly nearly every show except for a few instances with too much alcohol beforehand, and they’d made the mid-East circuit throughout much of 1994. From March to October for the upcoming year, they had shows booked every weekend and a few club gigs in the middle of the week just for variety. But it was February and winter was always a slower time for bands that hadn’t quite made it yet.
They were on the cusp. Fame was close, almost in reach, and Dunker Church had the ability to take them over the edge if only the right ears could hear it. The colonel had been making some noise recently about a producer up in New York who wanted them to make a full studio album but that meant uprooting and taking a hell of a lot of risks. Pickles too had been hinting, wearing a sly grin that he tended to aim at Shawn, making the guitarist blush like a girl for some reason, and a choice would be coming up pretty soon. Murderface knew what he wanted to do but he also knew he was a worthless spawn of a whore and a lunatic and that he failed every morning to kill himself. Would he have the guts to go when the time came? And that question, the one that haunted him every time the buzz from the crowd and being on stage wore off while the beer in his mouth turned sour and he doubted, made up his mind. SLAYER it was.
“Divine Intervention” went into the CD player and the booming voice of Araya washed over him. Now there was a man who knew how to be brutal. A bassist and the lead singer, Araya was awesome and Murderface had practiced stuff off of “Hell Awaits” and “Reign in Blood” throughout high school. In many ways Araya was his idol, not just a bassist but also a vocalist and a lyricist on some of his favorite SLAYER tracks. Serial killers were interesting after all, and it was Murderface’s secret wish to write and sing on an album of his own some day. He had personal experience in certain unpleasant areas and he could make a brutal album to rival SLAYER if only he had the money and the time. And ‘Serenity in Murder’ was an amazing track and about the only thing that kept Murderface from mowing down the swarm of cars around him when he ran into roadwork in Springfield, just a few miles outside of D.C. and his destination.
That night, on the way home and feeling slightly better about his day even though the damn radio kept on talking about Valentine’s shit, an interesting tidbit of information crackled across his cb. A job, a cross-country haul with apparently some rather risky cargo, slow-rate shipping requirements, and a big payout, was being advertised by an outfit in Norfolk. It might’ve been military – hard to say – but the money sounded very nice. It was enough, barely, to justify everything he had been secretly afraid of. And he was damn tired of seeing not only a loser but also a fucking pussy in the mirror every morning. Here was a chance to do something about it. Murderface listened carefully for a moment as silence came from the cb before he got on and, with a note of defiance in his voice that would have been noticeable only to his thankfully absent grandmother, he professed his interest. His reputation was such that no one else bothered to lay claim to the job and he wrote down the number for the joint on top of his gauze-covered arm with a leaky ink pen.
The hurt from the cut beneath throbbed beautifully and he stopped off at the liquor store for a twelve pack and grabbed a bottle of cheap red just for the heck of it. The box of candy, balloon, and bunch of half-dead roses provoked raised eyebrows at the convenience store next door but a glare and a spittle-infused curse sent the nosy clerk running to the back ostensibly for change but more likely to cower. That night, after calling and getting the job, Murderface drank his beer and guzzled his wine. He went over exactly how he was going to quit his job at Pack Mule, trying to decide which method would be the most offensive. And he popped the balloon, stomped on the flowers until the petals were blackening smears in his filthy carpet, and ate all the candy while he sat on the couch and watched tape number three of Ken Burns’ documentary. It was the best Valentine’s Day he had ever had.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 05:05 pm (UTC)Awesome.
So, when do we see more Toki?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-04 10:24 am (UTC)And I'm glad you found my Murderface characterization to work.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-03 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-04 10:25 am (UTC)