Johnny Wraith Stories

There was a time in my life, 10 years ago, maybe more, when I suddenly found myself unable to climb out of bed. It just seemed absurd to assert the energy. To what purpose? Attending school, doing homework or taking notes, going to the grocery store, washing dirty clothes, sitting in front of the television and drinking beer? Everything was so mundane and routine. Everything. So, what Time had started out with an electric alarm's beep at 6:00 in the morning quickly turned into mid day, with me still lying there, motionless, on top of a dirty futon without any sheets, sweating profusely, the Arizona heat turning it up outside and inside, though the whirling fan above me kept spinning without helping much. The old house's evaporative cooler just couldn't handle 1 degree over 90 Fahrenheit, and to my reckoning, or rather my memory, it reached at least 123 Fahrenheit that day. The airplanes at the Phoenix Airport were forbidden from taking off when it was so hot, though I'm not sure why, exactly. I've heard explanations that offer either low air density or fuel combustibility at such temperatures as explanations, but I don't know the real reason. Why?

Yes it was a hot day, and I was lying there in sweat's sogginess, the entire un-sheeted futon drenched and sticking to my back. The fan above me kept spinning. I was missing class, but I didn't care. The whirling blades above me, while uselessly sifting the heat, often threw off chips of peeling paint. Why someone had once painted the fan's blades was a mystery to me, but at least they matched the cracked, stucco walls of the room, all turning yellow with age, splitting, coming apart, a sideways raceway for many house spiders.

Perhaps masturbation could ease the pain, the weariness? I always kept a hefty roll of industrial brown paper towels and generic hand lotion at my bedside for such occasions. That way I never had to get up when I felt the urge in the middle of the night, or when getting out of the sack at midday was just too fucking much. Just reach over, snatch up the hefty roll of industrial brown paper towels, the kind found in cheap restaurant restrooms that smell of piss and stale urinal pucks, tear off a sheet and lay it across my stomach to catch the anticipated mess. Take a handful of lotion. Just press the plastic button down. Grab a fistful of cool, aloe scent, and apply the soothing ointment with a tightly clenched fist. Don't let up until to the little guy relents and spits it all out. When finished, wad it all up and pitch it in the corner.

I always hated it when, during a rather passionate fantasy, most likely one involving a good old female-dominant, girl-on-top fuck, with a girl having no face, but with big, fat ass cheeks and a deep, tight pussy, I'd overshoot the thin, brown paper towel laid across my stomach and splash-land the goo in my chest hairs. An awful, sticky mess. Even worse, I hated it most when, on a few unfortunate occasions, I really overshot the target and splattered the underside of my chin. But hell, that day, the one I'm talking about now, the day I couldn't pry myself off that sweat-drenched futon by mid day, I couldn't stroke my cock hard to save my life. I just made it even softer to the touch by rubbing lotion into it, by trying to stretch it out to gain the swell without success. The little bastard just didn't want to stand up, let alone puke out the juice. I couldn't blame him. I felt the same way. The fan kept spinning above me to no avail. Sweat kept streaking down my sides and into the futon, or beading in my cropped hair before dropping off the scalp into the old floral- pattern couch pillow I used to support my weary head.  

I'd left a good law firm job to go back to school and have all this. Going for an MBA at ASU for kicks while I still had a few years of being in my 20s left, and now there I was, living in the most delightful squalor and lacking any motivation. Sweating it out. I'd recently left my second wife, so that may have had something to do with my dismal mood and lack of energy, missing motivation, ennui. Yet, it was all worth it. I was a free man with no one to tell me what to do, judge me, or spend my money, determine whether I drank too much, or endlessly express disappointment with life, with me, by constantly sighing and rolling her eyes, whether I had something to say or stayed silent. The result of my newly reclaimed loneliness was prosperity compared to what I'd given up. Lacking any debt or mortgage, driving a paid-off car, living off $700 of borrowed government money a month, Stafford Loans I think they once called them, gave me all I needed and more. The time I needed away from work, the doldrums of ordinary, mundane life. Yes, held tightly in the easy bosom of grad school bliss and once again single, I had all the time and resources necessary for seeking out and finding my adequate suffering.

The phone rang.

"Ring, ring."

Just a few steps away. Out of arms' reach.

"Ring, ring," it announced from where it sat atop my little, compressed sawdust desk that was accompanied by a rusting, steel folding chair.

The phone was ringing, "Ring, Ring!"

Someone, finally, SOMEONE, was trying to reach me. All hope was not lost. I suppose I was desperately lonely?

"Ring, RING!"  Insisted the old plastic-cased, yellow phone again. Can you believe it wasn't cordless?  And it had the old spinning dial that clicked when you spun the numbers with your fingers. That's right. It dialed without buttons or tones.

I could not allow this chance for human contact to be surrendered. Not having an answering machine to offer the first "hello?" then to offer to record the caller's message or intent, it had to be me to act first, and with an ancient phone like this one, you never knew how many rings you'd get, so not only did you have to act alone, you also had to act fast. Otherwise, you might never know who was calling, who was reaching out to you at a distance. By the way, I remember that the TV in that house didn't have a remote control. You had to turn it on and work through the channels by pressing buttons on its face.

"RING, RING!"

I needed the gas to move my body, but it was lacking. Empty tank. Quickly I turned to desperate measures. Less than a second or two to act! Being a fan of ancient literature and warfare, in less than a second I conjured an inspiring vision to give me the strength to instantly leap out of bed, snatch the phone up, and say "hello" into it: yes, there I was, a wounded hoplite, no, not just a hoplite, a Spartan! Shot full of arrows and burdened with so many mortal spear and sword wounds, lying upon the field among dead and dying comrades, all of us in full battle dress, having fallen together after being severely outnumbered and having been locked in heavy combat with an endless enemy for many days straight. Fallen, taking in my last breaths but still clenching my shield and weapon, the taste of certain death in my mouth, surrounded by Persians with cocked arrows and raised swords, having lost too much blood to live on, too opened up in too many places with blood rushing out, but yet, I was not quite ready to let the flesh die... not yet.

Death is near, but there are a few seconds left. There is still some fight left, still more glory to seize. One last fucking rally, just one, that's all you need, kill at least one more motherfucker before the lights go out. Before the eyes go dim, before I fall face forward into the blackness, bite into the dust, and choke in my last breath of the earth mixed with blood, whose worms will ferry me away into hell!  Do it just one more time, and rest is yours forever!

Such visions have always seemed to help me find the inspiration to give one more go at it. It might be that I get a sudden surge of testosterone with such imaginings. And by imagining I am a dying soldier upon the field of battle, I am still being half honest with myself. My death is certain no matter what I do now, just as it is with the mortally wounded soldier, granted it will likely take me longer to die, years instead of minutes. The dishonest part is that it is much more romantic and glorious to be a soldier rallying and fighting to the death, just one more time, after having suffered mortal wounds, than it is to be me finding the strength in such daydreams for the minor purpose of getting out of bed to pick up the phone.

"ON YOUR FEET SOLDIER!" I screamed.

I'm uncertain if I really screamed aloud, or if it was all in my mind, but, the challenge of defying death to seize just a little more remaining life gave me the strength it took to rip free of the drenched futon, leap to my feet in a single, spastic movement, and seize the phone up off the receiver, before it could ring twice once again:

"RING...!...[and right here it is snatched up in my hands]"

"Hello?" I panted, just as I realized I'd stepped on my plastic bottle of jerk off lotion and caused it all to spill out into the ancient, shag, and matted carpet beneath my feet. The cold lotion squirmed between my toes with its coldness as I fought to maintain my balance and breath.

"Johnny?"

"Yep?"

"You in school today?"

"Supposed to be."

"Why aren't you?"

"I think I'm depressed."

"Are you okay? You sound like you're having trouble breathing."

 I'm so down I can't even jerk off, but I'll live."

"Good grief. You just need one of my girls to cheer you up."

"Naw."

"They all like you. How about I get you one of them for tonight?"

"Sure Marianne, what's the catch?" Marianne was the only client I'd kept when I'd left the firm and returned to school. Not only was she my good friend, like a sister, she was the Madame of a thriving Scottsdale, Arizona escort service.

"We are in a lot of trouble. Elona, my best girl, has to go to Court today."

"What kind of Court?"

"Oh, I don't know, Court."

"An initial appearance, a trial, or a pretrial conference to discuss a plea? Felony? Misdemeanor?"

"She did say something about meeting to discuss a plea bargain, that a trial date would be set if we couldn't agree with the D.A."

"Aw, that's nothing. You're just talking to the prosecutor today."

"We're really worried."

"She been charged before?"

"Don't think so. She's only 19."

"She looks 30."

"But she's slender. All the guys want her."

"This another Massage without a License charge? A Sec. 1892.03(a)1?"

"I think so."

"I'll work out a no jail probation deal for you, 6 months probation. And if I don't, it won't cost you a thing."

"How much will it cost if you get the deal?"

"No money."

"Then what? I could get you a date with Elona."

"Fuck without a rubber?"

"Um... o.k."

"Naw, why don't you just buy me dinner. We can meet at Mae West. I could use meatloaf, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, and a few, or several, glasses of wine to wash it all down." And I meant it. Marianne and I went way back. She was a real friend and she always had so many crazy stories to tell that made me laugh until I fell out of my chair. I didn't need to be fucking a hooker without a rubber anyway, though the thought of fucking any girl, with or without a rubber seemed a treat. I think that I'd been without any snatch for about a month at that time, or had it just been a blowjob from that last girl I'd dated? Anyhow, it felt like years had passed since anyone but me had relieved my hairy balls of tension.

"You're so sweet. You have a deal. I need a good old-fashioned supper too. And we haven't talked in a long time."

"I miss just hanging out and chatting."

"Me too."

"So, when is this meeting with the prosecutor?"

"3 hours."

"Thanks for the warning."

"Sorry."

"This is in Scottsdale? City Court?"

"Yes, that's what she says. A Scottsdale cop made the arrest."

"Didn't you see the complaint? The charges?"

"She lost the papers."

"Massage without a License? Right?"

"I think so."

"So, he wouldn't take off his pants before she did?"

"Nope. We still stick to what you told us when we rented that room at Denny's. You put on a presentation about the law for all the girls, remember?"

"Yep. Those were the fucking good old days. We really had a great party at your place that night. All those girls sticking their fake tits in my face, feeding me shots of tequila until I puked on your carpet. Those were the days."

"You were really crazy that night."

"So were you. And what ever happened to that Tom guy you were with?"

"He found another girlfriend. He didn't want a girl in the business."

"Shit, that's too bad."

"Yeah, but back to the subject, we all still talk about you - especially what you taught us at that meeting: no touching private parts or showing them ours until he shows and touches his first. And no talking about money until he shows and touches his first. That proves the customer isn't a cop, unless he's willing to break the rules and lie in court. So, when we go to work, we still do as you instructed.  Since then, we haven't been charged with anything but Massage without a License, and only a few times at that."

"Good, that keeps you all out of any real trouble. Massage without a License really isn't much more than a parking ticket."

"Too bad only a few of the girls have massage licenses. Most of them can't get a license because they aren't good at school, or because of their backgrounds."

"They still have to work anyway. It's the chance we have to take to keep the business going. Fines are just part of the cost, like paying taxes."

"I guess you're right. That's why we all listen to you."

I looked at the clock. "You said 4:00 p.m. at the Scottsdale City Court?"

"I think so. I'll page Elona and double check. Call you right back."

"Alright. I'll be here at the house another 90 minutes."

"Thanks so much Johnny. How about that dinner tomorrow night?"

"Deal."

I dropped the phone and fell back onto the sweat-soaked futon, as if collapsing after using all the strength I had just to talk to Marianne. It was wet and cool, and the fan kept swirling. 10 minutes passed, then 20. 30... I had to be there for Marianne, in Scottsdale City Court. Just one more task. Just one more, then I could let my eyes roll back, go black, my body fall forward with open mouth, bite into the dust and break its teeth, and rot away, slowly rot away and turn into dust, blow away, drift away like vapor, up and away, out of the torturous mundane.

"ON YOUR FEET SOLDIER!"

I shook out of it and leapt back to my feet. In no time, I was sporting a suit and fixing my tie in the cracked bathroom mirror. I still looked good in my best attire that I kept wrapped in plastic and hanging in the darkest corner of the closet, waiting for chances like this to emerge. A lawyer's armor, I suppose. Not quite as glorious to be in cloth rather than steel, but it was better than nothing. My weapons were my mouth and my balls.

And in no time, I was heading north on Rural in my beat up Nissan Sentra, but wearing a fine wool suit, silk tie, and a 100% cotton, pressed, white shirt. Silver cuff links bound the ends of the sleeves around my wrists, not plastic buttons. Though the car I drove was dented in a number of places, the paint peeling, a hubcap missing, the windshield cracked and covered with dust and bug guts. When I hit Goldwater Blvd., in Scottsdale, it was like I was a poor Mexican in a stolen, fancy suit, driving into the realm of wealth and haughtiness in an empty fruit truck. When Rural turns to Goldwater Blvd., not a car in sight is anything less than a BMW, Lexis, Mercedes, or something else with a sticker price of $35,000+. And even new, years before, the sticker price on my car had been $11,012, and that included air conditioning and automatic transmission, but no air bags.

Have you ever driven an old beat up car into a wealthy part of town while wearing a nice suit? It seems everyone is staring at you. The cars are fond of tailgating your bumper and honking their horns at you. So many face-lifted faces come sneering from the shadows behind tainted, I mean tinted, windows. Old, miserable faces with surgically stretched tight skin. So many people in Scottsdale look like fishes, after getting their facelifts, floating there in their Mercedes and Volvo, BMW aquariums, dumbly staring out from behind the tinted glass with bulging eyes and tight, thin lips. Amongst all that wealth of steel mixed with the hideousness of distorted flesh, it seemed odd I felt so much like a leper stumbling into town just to be jeered. And even the young girls that had good legs and hadn't yet had their faces stretched, they always looked at me with disdain, rolled their eyes at me from the sidewalks, as if the fake, balloon-filled tits they put on display and carried around somehow lifted them up into the clouds to sing with the angels, to sit upon the knees of gods. How little do they know that it's the shy, flat girls who keep their breasts hidden during sex that really know how to work a man's hardness over with their wanton pussies.

"ON YOUR FEET SOLDIER!"

I began to cry. The tears just streamed down my face, fell upon my wool suit, stained the white cotton shirt I wore, the silk tie.

"ON YOUR FEET SOLDIER!"

It was too much to bear. So I turned into the nearest parking lot and just sat there, engine running, crying like a baby. My head fell forward into the steering wheel and the horn went off, "BEEEEEEEEP!"

Shit, what was it? Two marriages gone bad? Going back to school? Living in squalor? Owning a beat up car? Having only one last wool suit and silk tie to wear? Being judged by the scoffing and jeering faces floating behind tinted windows, stretched faces and lips, and rubber balloon-filled titties? Who knows what the fuck the problem was. I didn't, and I still can't explain it today. It just fucking hurt. It was just one of those many times in life when moving on, fighting like hell every step of the way, was the right thing to do despite the hopelessness. Have you ever felt like just falling out of your chair and lying there, on the floor, and letting go of it all? Good, then I don't have to explain anything else. I just have to insist you believe with me that a few beautiful moments are all we have in life, though they are only individually profound and very rare, you will find no one to truly share these moments with, and they are seemingly connected to nothing else in our lives. Still, these precious moments are worth all the misery we'll ever taste in our convicted solitude, and there will be a lot of misery to taste, and to swallow, in our condemned loneliness.

"ON YOUR FEET SOLDIER!" Well fuck, just one more time. Just one more time. So I straightened up, fixed my tie in the rear view, pulled out of the lot, and back onto the road.

I found the City Court parking lot, in particular the lot reserved for lawyers and judges, and pulled in at the checkpoint. Before going in, I had to stop before a wooden arm covered with reflective, orange and white striped tape. The arm was connected to a mechanical device that raised it up and down at the press of a button, but the button wasn't pressed until the fat-bellied security guard in a white shirt was either shown the appropriate Court-issued badge or Arizona State Bar ID Card. I rolled down the window, dug into my pocket, pulled out my wallet and then my dog-eared Arizona State Bar ID Card. The guard just stood there, speechless, examining the ID from behind his mustache and sunglasses. His head swiveled back and forth, between my face, the ID, and my car. I could hear what he was thinking: "Is a guy with a car like this really an attorney?" Hell, I couldn't blame him. I remember at that time I hadn't yet knocked the big dent out of the driver's side door and the hood and grill of the white car were splattered with red paint from paintball guns. Some joy riders had shot the car up a few nights before, as it had been parked curbside, in a bad part of town, just outside the house where I was sleeping, renting a room, sweating into my futon as a useless fan spun above me, throwing off paint chips. Nevertheless, the arm went up just after the guard said, "Have a nice day."

Just before I crossed the street to ascend the Court Steps - I was waiting at a red light until the WALK light flashed, something happened that changed my life forever. A tow truck pulling a new, fancy Mercedes passed in front of me, driving slowly, as if I were standing there a spectator to a parade. The driver in a greasy ball cap and missing a front tooth smiled at me a waved. The dirty orange and red truck went by, and then I saw its cargo: a car loaded up on it's 20'+ skids. Big and boxy, with silver paint, one of those cars that looked like a limousine, leather seats, all the gadgets, the price of an ordinary man's house. The front of the car was so smashed in the steering wheel was shoved into the driver's seat and all the glass was missing so you could see right into it. Then I saw what appeared to be dried blood, maybe a gallon of it, streaked thickly down over the outside of the crumpled, driver's door. I imagined the driver had been smashed by the violent impact, that his head and torso had dangled out the window and painted the car's side as stretched faces with tight, thin lips and bulging eyes, and fake, bulging rubber tits gasped in horror at the loss (of life or of steel, leather, and glass?) until the police and paramedics arrived, until the corpse had been hauled off to the morgue, the destroyed vehicle carried away by the tow truck and toothless driver. It was quite a contrast of life and death with wealth and pride. With what money and greed can't buy. The electric charge of goose pimples sprang up all over my body. Instantly, an odd elation (an epiphany?) lifted me up and stole away, totally erased, all the hopelessness, the going without I'd been wrestling. As if an angel were whispering into my ears with sweet, girlish voice, I clearly heard her spoken words,

"You can't buy flesh."

Since that day, more than 10 years ago, few times have I had to command myself,

"ON YOUR FEET SOLDIER!"

I didn't need to. My body, my flesh, is more than willing (most days) to carry me forward into each new day. I still drive the same car, and take pride in it. Jeers and jests and sneers have become my favorite compliments as I sit behind the jalopy's wheel, at the helm a proud captain.

You can have your fancy cars, stretched faces, fake tits, and even now days you can have surgery to lengthen your cock, but are you an artist or lover with your flesh? Do you give something to the world with your body? Or is your flesh just something you slice up and alter, fit into a fancy car like fish in an aquarium, trapped and floating, looking out with bulging eyes as you drive about the lonely streets, stopping here and there, parking in parking lots, getting out and going into office buildings and stores, performing rote tasks, clicking your fancy high heels and wing tips around? You may have an incredible stereo system that sings popular hip hop songs to you as you burn up gasoline from behind a steering wheel, polished steel, and tinted windows, but do angels ever whisper into your ears?

"You can't buy flesh."

And by the way, Elona got her charges dropped. Even though she didn't show up to Court that day, I told the prosecutor I had evidence the cop that had charged her had dropped his pants and started touching himself before any sex for money was discussed. When she refused to engage in sexual activity with him, he got mad and wrote her a ticket for Massage without a License. Of course I was lying, but,

"You can't buy flesh." How dare the motherfuckers try to put a price on it!

With that said, "ON YOUR FEET SOLDIER!" Eventually our bodies will die. Don't waste any more time, even if it fucking hurts.

You can't buy flesh.