Borderline Vagabond

By Zachary Kyle Elmblad

An intentionally arranged series of words constructing an allegorical narrative about the American Dream, and other such abstractions of modern civilization.

After walking out of his job, the Borderline Vagabond drains his bank accounts and travels to North Carolina seeking counsel from his friend, Hooper Felonious. At Hooper’s suggestion, the two drive to a strip club outside of Chapel Hill where the vagabond may have stumbled upon his own shattered vision of the American Dream.

After spending the evening with Jasmine, the girl he met at the club, the vagabond must decide what he is - a wolf ready to strike, or a lamb being led to slaughter.

What is the American Dream?
How do we seek it?

As Trucker Don would say, “you can’t find anything that you aren’t looking for,” so buy the ticket and take the ride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312884564

Book preview

Epilogue

Borderline Vagabond

An intentionally arranged series of words constructing an allegorical narrative about the American Dream, and other such abstractions of modern civilization.

By

Zachary Kyle Elmblad

©2010-2015 by the New Scum Productions

TheNewScum.ORG

ISBN: 978-1-312-88456-4

Most rights reserved

Cover Photo © 2007 by Kevin Charron and Zachary Elmblad

SCREW PLAGIARISM

and

FUCK CENSORSHIP

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;-

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems.

-Arthur O'Shaughnessy

This book is written for the dreamers.

For those who can't give up.

Those who keep fighting.

The movers and shakers.

Those road worn saints.

The rising Sun in the East,

the setting Sun in the West,

and for those in perpetual waiting,

longing for just one more ride.

Part One – The Hook

Chapter One – Consternation

Chapter Two – Dialectic

Chapter Three – Cigarettes

Chapter Four – Ubiquity

Part Two – The Line

Chapter Five – Dreams

Chapter Six – Deliverance

Chapter Seven – Salvation

Chapter Eight – Precursors

Part Three – The Sinker

Chapter Nine – Arrival

Chapter Ten – Morning

Chapter Eleven – Pancakes

Chapter Twelve – Lucidity

Chapter Thirteen – Ghosts

Chapter Fourteen – Goodbyes

Chapter Fifteen – Truckers

Chapter Sixteen - Mountains

Friends,

Our mid-twenties were wrought with emotional upheavals, grave senses of inadequacy, delusions of immortality, boundless hope for a better tomorrow, and an insatiable lust for adventure. For those few short years of our lives, we found ourselves running madly in search of something we couldn't ever have hoped to find. We wanted a personalized, single-serving portion of the world that was tailor-made just for us. We were children in the eyes of the universe. Unabashedly idealistic in our pursuits of happiness, and brazenly defiant of the people who expressed any doubt in us. Privileged halcyon days that we spent crisscrossing the continent in a vain quest for the physical embodiment of an ages-old metaphor. We may have never found the 'American Dream,' as anyone else would have seen it, but we did find a world around us that suited our tastes and purpose just fine. All in all, it's easy to say you know what the dream is. It's easy to say you've found it, and it's even easier to say you haven't. For us, the most fun had always been found in the pursuit of things anyhow.

It always made for a better story.

You'll never be loved!

Those were the first words I managed to hear out of what was becoming a long line of obscene and incessant curses that I could have sworn were being directed at me.

But from whom? For what reason?

Pig Fucker!

I couldn't quite tell if it was a dream, or if it was really happening.

Bastard! Prick! Cocksucker! Wake Up!

I heard it again, but where was I? Who was yelling? How did I get here? When? I got punched in the shoulder – not hard, but with enough force to wake me up for real this time. With certainty this was, indeed, the waking world. I shook my head and opened my eyes. The room was unfamiliar at first glance, but I was pretty sure that I recognized the voice.

It's Nine P.M.! We should have punched six whores in the mouth and drunk a gallon of gin by now! WHY ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING?!

I was hearing him shout now, jumping up and down on the floor next to the couch. He was red-faced and pointing at me with a violently extended index finger.

What d-d-day is it? I moaned.

I stuttered when I said 'day.' I do that sometimes. I was still waking up. How long had I slept? When did I get here? Where was here? Why was I here? For what purpose?

Tuesday! Friday! Easter! Who cares?! Let's get drunk and walk out on our tab! We've got shit to do and chicks to screw!

Fuck it, you're right. Let's do this thing. No time like the present.

I peeled myself up off the couch and palmed the coffee table for my glasses. I was too lazy to wear contacts, and too poor for LASIK. Complex and expensive organs, the eyes. I rubbed them because they felt like they needed to be rubbed. It didn't really help.

Get up and take a piss! It's time to fuck cocaine and snort hookers. Wait. Never mind, I fucked that up. Whatever. Let's just go down to the skank shack and throw dollar bills at titties!

What?

My face must have said to him, 'what the fuck is going on?,' as he leaned in close. I could smell his dogged breath, which pushed me fully in to consciousness.

"Just get off the couch, asshole! JESUS DOESN'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE!" he bellowed.

I shook my head and rubbed my eyes again, as I thought of a reply:

God, man, you're insane. A menace to society! An overall bad seed with no redeeming qualities whatsoever! Your mother should have dropped you in the rain barrel!

I'm good people. That's why you're sleeping on my couch. You are a lazy, pathetic, no good puddle of dog vomit! Rise and shine, shit-for-brains! You're the one that drove all this way to come party with das ubermensch!

Hooper Felonious. Simultaneously the craziest and most interesting person I have ever had the pleasure to meet. He was laying low in some strange neighborhood just outside Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It had been nearly a year since I'd seen him last, and times spent with this gnarled experiment of humanity had previously consisted of endless tirades of alcohol, strippers, and sleepless nights. What would have ever led me to believe that this exchange would be any different?

He'd buy you shots at the bar just to watch you get too drunk to keep up with him. He'd give you a brownie and never tell you it's dosed with pot butter and liquid acid. He would rather just wait for you to figure it out yourself when your brain started feeling melty.

Never accept food from a stranger, as a general rule, but especially not one with a smile like his. He has a knowing smile, an anticipatory smile, a downright wicked and treacherous smile. A smile you wouldn't forget for the rest of your life.

We had lived together for a stretch, sometime in the fog of the past, and had developed a strange method of communication that mostly involved the limitless use of profanity and offensively diminutive insults. It seemed to work well for us. It was good to see my friend again at such long last.

Fire up the bong, Hoop. I've got a tingle in my shaft. I wanna skull fuck a hooker.

You're a failure. Always were. You couldn't even fuck a girl in a brothel with a thousand dollars!

I'd bang a thousand hookers in an afternoon. Jesus taught me mind control when we vacationed in the Czech Republic. I'm secretly controlling you. You've got no free will, motherfucker!

Mind control, is it? Was it you that just told my mind to get out of the house and proceed directly to the nearest bar?

Hell yes I did. That was definitely me.

Well, damn, man. I guess I'll just have to trust your judgment! It's good to see you can maintain moral integrity when utilizing mind control.

Morality? Ethics? You're starting to think now! I wondered if it'd be possible with that tiny lizard brain of yours! You're finally beginning to understand the greater purpose, man!

My greater purpose is to get drunk and get that lizard wet. We're leaving. I hope you're ready for this.

He was a crude person, but not out of necessity or ignorance. He was a crude person because he found it utterly hysterical to offend people. He was sick with the power of words. He'd call a stranger a pussy to his face and then give the guy a high five and buy him a shot. He'd piss off his roommates by chopping up a pizza with his hatchet at four in the morning because that's what he does. He'd come to your house and eat all your food, then show up a week later with a car full of groceries and a backpack full of drugs and booze.

He'd buy you a pack of cigarettes to pay back the square he bummed off you a week ago, but then he'd just smoke half the pack anyway. He would read things out loud in other languages that he didn't actually speak. When this guy was around, everybody had a good time. He was one of those rare people, the ones that are so memorable they couldn't properly be explained in a hundred pages. The guy you're proud to call a friend, even if he disgusts everyone else around you. That's why I drove half way across the country to see him. He was that cool. Being in the presence of the guy made you certain that life wasn't a boring sequence of jobs you hated and friends you pretended to like. Hooper is one of those people that made life worth living.

I found this new tit bar a couple of miles away. Get in the truck. Let's go throw money at chicks.

Finally, a good idea! I was wondering when you'd be over with the formalities; fully prepared and ready to find the main nerve.

Oh, I'm ready.

We collected keys, wallets, phones, and sunglasses. We each had a glass of Dewar's and rolled up a fat joint to burn on the ride out. There really was no cocaine, that one was always just a little too much for us – both in expense and consequence. Better to play around the edge than to go over it. It was all jokes, really. There were no hooker skull fucks going down that night. We weren't as audacious as we made ourselves out to be. Monstrous bark; bite a mere nibble.

We played characters around each other, bold exaggerations of our true identities. The world can get boring sometimes, and it's good to know that you can count on some folks to make it a bit more appealing. Throwing some shit in the pot and stirring it up just to see what comes out at the end. Things are far more interesting that way. The real world needs a little fiction in it every once in a while.

Light this, fuck stain.

Give me a lighter, jizz rag.

He passed me a lighter and I checked the side streets for cop cruisers before I sparked up the joint. We passed it between ourselves and dropped pretense for a brief - but real - moment of actual conversation.

So how's everything been going, dude?

He didn't yell anymore, it was his normal speaking voice. He really did want to know.

Quit my stupid job.

They had it coming.

Maybe. Still a pretty stupid move on my part, though. Soon as I get home, I'll be out of cash with no prospects of employment. Gonna be a long few months.

Aw, come on, it can't be that bad. You'll get another job. At least you've got a house and a car and enough time and money to come drink with me in the dirty South!

You're right, man, it isn't all that bad, but I just wish I could get a better lay out of life every once in a while. All this day to day drudgery and the bills and these monotonous pseudo-relationships make me want to eat paint chips. I think I'm getting soft. Old, maybe.

Soft as a limp dick! What are you going to do? Cry?! We'll get ya all cheered up, man. Don't worry. I'm glad you made it out, and we're certainly gonna have a good time. No sense sitting around wishing you were dead. Get off of it.

You're right, man. I know. I'm just over-emphasizing the negative. There's hot chicks to look at, booze in the freezer, music on the iPod, and good times on the calendar. I just wish the fun never stopped.

Fun wouldn't be fun anymore if you didn't have some bad shit go down between the good times. You know this, idiot. Stop getting down on yourself. We're nearly there.

He pulled a half-full bottle of Jose Cuervo from underneath his truck seat. He twisted off the cap, put it to his lips, and suckled a mouthful before handing it over to me.

HA! He punched the roof of the truck.

Road Tequila?

I've been saving this for a special occasion. Today is that occasion. I don't usually share my road booze, but you're a special guest.

Thanks for the V.I.P. treatment. I said, as I took a good warm gulp for myself.

Tequila burns a little bit more when it's been in a hot car for who knows how long, but the effect is still the same. I reached into the cargo pocket of my shorts for my pack of smokes, flipped the flap open, and grabbed one with the corner of my mouth. I fished a lighter out of the other pocket and sparked up.

I thought you were quitting, man. Those little fucking bastards are gonna kill you some day.

Keeping that fifth of Cuervo under your seat isn't a very good idea, either, you know. And besides – quitting is for quitters, isn't that right?

"Every good thing comes to an end, man. Quitting isn't quitting, it's looking out for yourself. It takes a careful balance of poisoning yourself and then taking the