To the Artist's Page                    To our home page

To Nicholas Morgan's previous piece     To Nicholas Morgan's next piece

Exploration

I took a walk in the woods by myself at about midnight last night. I was bored. It was my birthday. I was 32 years old now. I always thought I wouldn’t make it to 30, and in a way was disappointed and filled with happiness at the same time now that I was 32. I was too drunk to even type a somewhat complete sentence before I left on my walk. My flashlight in my pocket. There’s something about unknown woods that has always intrigued me. I like the way my shoes sound crackling over all the dead branches and dry leaves, my footsteps, my heavy breathing from rotten lungs in the hot night air of another Texas romp alone. Full moon. Noises in the night. Mother fuckin’ nature is much funnier to explore when it’s dark out. I had eaten some cheetoes, a few wheat thins, one piece of bologna all day. For some reason I hadn’t had much of an appetite lately for food or sex.

I kept walking through these woods with my flashlight. I had a lot on my mind and absolutely nothing at all. I felt like getting completely lost again. Not just in my head. But outside in nature. Anywhere. I was angry and tired. With what I’m not sure. Maybe myself. I wanted to explore not just these woods, but whatever I might find along the way. I came to this point in the woods where I could see a gigantic spotlight in the distance shining through the trees. I turned my flashlight off and continued walking towards the light. As I got closer I could see it was a big farm, and a farmhouse, lots of private land, cows, bulls, pigs, chickens. I peered through the woods at this place and decided I was going to break into the house. I saw that there was at least a week’s worth of newspapers in the driveway. I remembered from my delinquent youth when friends and me use to case out houses that this was a good sign. It meant these people must be on vacation. Maybe.

I snuck past the cows, and they began to moan and moo. The chickens started squawking, pigs oinking. I crept around the back of the house and peered in the windows with drunken eyes, sweat dripping down my brow. It was dark in there. The only light was out front. That gigantic spotlight. I got my flashlight out again and shined it into the house through the window. I saw a fireplace, a nice wooden kitchen floor, family pictures in frames hung silently on the walls. I got my knife out and carefully, like an artist painting, I cut the screen off the window. I suppose I could have just popped the screen off. But I felt like cutting something. The window was unlocked. I slowly opened it and it made this squeaking rusty noise as coyotes howled in the distance of the woods I had just walked through.

I climbed in to the house, my feet covered in mud, my heart racing.

I was looking around the place with my flashlight. Tracking mud all over, staring at cupboards, sofas, bedrooms, TVs, a gun collection mounted on the wall, deer heads mounted on another wall, a laundry room… cheap imitation oriental rug covered in cat hairs... typical bullshit. The place had a certain smell to it that I couldn’t quite figure out. I have noticed that whenever you enter someone else’s place, it always has a certain smell to it unlike any other place- not bad or good, just different. I felt too paranoid to turn a light on. What if someone was home? Sleeping? For a second I sobered up and had some extremely paranoid thoughts about what I was doing. I decided to check all the bedrooms for humans. Luckily no one seemed to be home.

I found their liquor cabinet. It was stocked with every kind of hard liquor imaginable. I started taking slugs of tequila, whiskey, good scotch, brandy… expensive gin… I wanted to taste each one, or at least a few to get rid of the jitters about what I was doing. Free booze always tastes better.

I was done with that, I checked their bathroom mirror pull-out cupboard thing for any sort of narcotics. It was stocked with all sorts of different prescription meds. My greedy hands pulled each one out, reading what they were.

The first one said penicillin, I threw it in the bathtub, mumbling “horseshit” as I grabbed the next one…

‘Paxil’ it said. “Ugh.” I tossed that one in the bathtub as well, in fact I kept throwing all of them into the bathtub after I read the labels… it was all shit... like zoloft, ibuprofens, motrins, prozac…

But I grabbed one of the last ones and it said in big letters ‘Hydrocodone.’ “Vicodins!” I screamed out loud, while swallowing five with some sink water very quickly, almost gagging my self. I found one more prescription med that said ‘Percoset.’

“Yummy!” I screamed, swallowing 2 of those.

Next I went and opened their fridge. It was stuffed with all sorts of beef sausages, barbecued chicken and steaks, huge mushrooms, green peas, carrots, mashed potatoes, bread and sandwich meat, cheese cake, some sort of strange soup that smelled real spicy, chili, milk, chocolates, jelly rolls... Suddenly my appetite kicked in. I stared at this feast before my wobbly eyeballs and growling tum tum. I sat at their kitchen table, deciding to turn the light on-- the booze I had slugged from their liquor cabinet was kicking in big time now. Lots of courage. I started feeling like I owned the place. That this was my new home away from home. I ate about three platefuls of all the things I just mentioned and some other things I found in the cupboards.

I may have over done it with the food. I have never know the word moderation unfortunately. I sat there in the strange farm type log cabin house staring around at the family portraits, kinda happy and bewildered with these new surroundings… rubbing my belly... making grunting noises... “Eww, heww, man, eweehh, that was some good grub.”

All of the sudden my head started spinning just as all the pills started creeping through my blood cells.

“Fuck,” I muttered...

I stood up and started trying to tell my mind and body that they were just fine, that they could handle this… walking around in circles... scratching my scalp... I stumbled over to one of the family pictures hanging on the wall and pulled it off the wall. I stared at this family, being in this unknown family house I had broken into on my birthday. These people, the two older ones...I assumed were the mom and dad, with their two boys in the picture. The dad was real redneck-looking. He had on a huge cowboy hat, and he had this big ol’ belt buckle that said Texas on it, gold glitters all around it, his gut was massive, his eyes looked mean, real squinty like, his face looked wrinkled from years of farming and sun exposure, he looked proud though, he looked almost happy with a half-crooked smile and yellow teeth. I thought of my own father for a second sitting at home in his backyard patio pool with a cigar in mouth, smiling at the sun with country music on.

His wife had this gigantic flowered dress on. A huge twisted psychotic smile glimmering down at her two sons, who were both kneeling in the photo… her newly done crappy looking perm frizz hair... there was something I didn’t like about her face and smile. I didn’t care that she looked like she weighed 400 pounds, it was her eyes man, something about her eyes I just didn’t like.

Their sons looked like typical USA anywhere Texas-raised fast car-riding, stupid haircut-wearing, no taste in music, never read a novel in their lives type. One was younger than the other one, they had short Marine-type Aggie-land haircuts. I realized that I was judging them. Lately I have been trying not to categorize anybody into anything. Labels suck. I want to see people as they are, and realize that no one should judge one another. Although humans always will judge on appearances. the one kid though, the older looking one, I could see he had a small insane look in his blue eyes. I felt really sick all of the sudden, holding that family portrait in my hand. My flashlight dropped to the ground. And all the food, booze, pills, and dirt weed bong hits suddenly caught up to my throat. my body was frozen, and I started horking barf in powerful stomach releases all over this family picture I was looking at. I power sprayed about a few kegs of all sorts of food and booze and pills all over the picture. ‘Til it fell to the ground, and I puked all over the rest of the family portraits still hanging on the walls… I fell to the ground... I had done too much again... why won’t I ever learn? “Why!” I screamed, hitting myself in the head…

That’s when I heard a loud vehicle come pulling into the driveway, skidding its tires out.

“Fuck,” I mumbled, picking myself up from the now puke-filled family room.

A cat walked out of one of the bedrooms, saying “meow” as it snuggled up against my shoulder.

I ran for the nearest closet to hide. The front door swung open. The closet was made like window blinds, wooden, so I could still see a little bit. It was the older kid from the picture with a blonde girl who looked no more then 17 or so. Just young kids. The guy looked around at the mess I left and started cussing.

“What the heck happened in here?” the girl asked him.

“I bet you anything it was Fred, my fucking younger brother. I told him he better not get into the folks’ booze again. He always gets sick when he drinks. That little asshole. He was probably scared of what I would do to him if I saw him. I bet ya anything he took off to hide out at a friend’s house. That little shit!”

My heart was racing out of control. My brain was trying to think of some escape plan. I had truly fucked up once again.

“Man, that puke smells!” the blonde girl said.

The blue-eyed boy went and grabbed a mop and some paper towels, while cursing his younger brother more and mopping up my stink. The girl took a seat on the couch. I quietly pulled out my knife. The young kids turned on the TV and started drinking booze from the cabinet I had raided.

“that li’l shit’s in big trouble when he gets home,” the boy said.

“No shit,” the girl said.

About an hour went by. They were watching some lame movie that was supposed to be a comedy. They kept laughing at all these things in the movie that were not amusing. Of course I wouldn’t have found anything funny at that point. I noticed the blue-eyed boy could drink like a fish. The dude stopped the movie, or changed the channel.

I thought about running for the front door with my knife out. I had to piss so fucking bad.

“When do your folks come back from vacation?”

“’Bout a few more days I reckon.”

They started making out on the couch. Big sloppy wet kisses. The girl began moaning in pleasure, as the blue-eyed boy stuck his hand up her skirt. I felt awful stuck there in that little closet, just hoping they would pass out soon or leave. They continued to make out.

“I wanna fuck you tonight Eve, I cant wait any longer, it’s just torture.”

They stopped kissing for a minute, and she stared at the boy.

“No, Kevin! How many times do I have to tell you, I wont have sex ‘til I’m married, and you’re drunk, you have that crazy look in your eyes that you get after you drink too much.”

“Come ‘ere sexy,” Kevin said, pulling her towards him, and forcefully spreading her legs.

They went into more sloppy tongue kissing. I was about to piss my pants. President Bush was on the TV talking about what countries he considered evil. He was talking about going to war with that cocky look on his face. What an asshole, I thought to myself.

Suddenly the girl, Eve, yelled… “Stop it Kevin! You know the rules. No panties off!”

“Fuck that rule once and for all!” Kevin yelled. He did look insane, as he ripped her panties off. Eve was now very scared and struggling like crazy to get free.

“Stop, no!” she screamed.

“You li’l whore, you know you’re gonna love this,” Kevin told her, holding her neck down forcefully with his arm. The girl began crying as he ripped her top off.

Oh, great. I’m 32 years old and I’m stuck in this closet of a house I broke into. I just pissed my pants, and this poor girl is about to be raped by this backwoods hick. I had to think fast because any second now the guy was going to pop her cherry.

She managed to smack him a good one in the face, which just seemed to make him more violent and horny, like a wild beast.

She struggled with him. They fell on the floor.

“Stop,” she cried.

“No!” he said, punching her in the face, trying to open her legs again. I couldn’t take any more of this. I took a firm grip on my knife, and swung the closet door open.

Kevin now had his pants around his ankles. He looked up at me, stunned, with a big ugly boner halfway in her.

“Get off her now, or I will cut you,” I stammered.

“Who the fuck are you?” he said, trying to pull his pants up.

“Well I sure the fuck ain’t Superman.” I said, which was a pretty dorky thing to say, but it just came out. “Now leave the girl alone, fucker.”

The girl stood up, crying.

“Get out now,” I told her.

She ran out the front door weeping.

“Who are you? how the fuck did you get in here?” he screamed with those psycho blue eyes.

“That shit doesn’t matter, now you can let me leave in peace, or I can cut you. What’s it gonna be, you hillbilly rapist fuck?”

He tried to run at me in rage but stumbled because of his pants being wrapped around his ankles still. He was a lot stronger then I. He probably had about 50 more pounds on him then I had, all muscle.

I quickly jumped on top of him and pinned his shoulders to the carpet with my knees, holding the blade in his face.

“You gonna calm down boy?! Are you gonna calm down!” I yelled.

“Get the fuck off me, I’ll kill you mother fucker!”

“I’ll cut you, I swear!” I punched him in the face a few times, with my free hand, knocking him out.

I don’t think my heart had ever beaten so fast. I was glad he was knocked out and not struggling anymore. The cat from before came and snuggled up against me purring, as it sniffed Kevin’s bloody lip.

I found some duct tape and tied the dude’s ankles together and his wrists. I duct taped his mouth shut. I went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. I chugged it down sitting on the couch staring at the dude. Suddenly his eyes opened, and he began trying to yell. I couldn’t make out what he was trying to say, and I didn’t really care. I decided I would piss on him. I unzipped my fly and started pissing on his face.

“Yeah you sick bastard, how do you like that,” I told him.

He was squirming around on the carpet crying. I decided I better get the fuck out of there. For some reason a voice in my head told me to “Check the closet, check the closet, in the parents’ room, check the closet, on the floor.”

I ripped the duct tape off Kevin’s mouth.

“My eyes! My eyes! They are burning!” he screamed.

“Shut up,” I told him, dragging him by the hair into his parents’ room, and throwing him hard against their closet door.

“What’s in there?” I asked him, punching him in the face again.

“Money, money, take all the damn money, please just let me live,” he whimpered.

I opened the closet door, moved some shoes out of the way, and saw a built-in safe on the floor.

“Ask him the combination, ask him the combination,” the voice told me.

He gave me the combination and the first thing I saw was big 100-dollar bill signs all wrapped neatly with rubber bands. Stacks and stacks of them. I grabbed a pillowcase off the bed, and began stuffing the money in it. I duct taped his mouth shut again and kicked him in the head, knocking him out again. I couldn’t fucking believe it. There must have been at least 30 thousand dollars in that safe. Why the fuck he knew the combination I have no idea.

I ran out of the house and back into the woods. The cows moaned and the chickens squawked an evil-sounding song. I was running through the woods when I realized I had forgot my flashlight and wasn’t sure which direction to go. I now no longer wanted to be lost at that moment in time. I wished I wasn’t lost because of what I found. I decided the best thing to do was sleep it all off after walking for a few more hours. Wait till it was light out, and try and find my way home.

I curled up under this big ass tree and used the moneybag for a pillow.

The next day, when the sun came up, I walked and walked with all that money, as my shoes crackled over all the dead branches and leaves. The bright potent sun shined down on my grinning face. I stopped and looked up at the sun. I was 32 years old and from the looks of it, a rich man who smelled like piss.

“Nice job, asshole,” that voice in my head told me.

To the top of this page