Hello My Dear

12:04 AM Tuesday Week 1

Jazzy-Ann’s bar was clearing up. No one seemed to be in the place, just me and my black ass, and a couple of white folk.  The waitress’s went their rounds and cleaned tables, the patrons stared at me intensely and sip their beers as I read the paper. It was pretty obvious what was going through their minds,  “what’s this color’d man doing here? In our bar?”  Maybe they wouldn’t had said it like that but I damn sure know they meant it like that, now I’m no nigga to play around with, I’ve been through things and trouble to know not to be fooled. Of course, they knew how to keep it to themselves and do the only closest thing to being rude. Stare.  That’s okay, as long as I have my drink and my paper. I’ll be just fine.

Now Jazzy-Ann’s was a bar out in Shreveport, Louisiana . I’ve always visit the place when I came down to Louisiana for business. The employee’s know me, and the owner knows me, personally.  Every time I walk in they always have my drink, my newspaper ready at my favorite seat.  Of course the patrons aren’t used to seeing a black guy come in here, but that’s their sad white racist ass fault. Perhaps if their mammy and pappy let them see what a black person look like, they wouldn’t be staring at me like I’m the loch ness monster. But then again, they could be staring because I am pretty unusual. I’m six foot six and I’m thin and muscular. I always come in wearing a olive colored suit, and I have long hair. But I mostly keep it in a braid. I wear shades inside and I stay wearing the baddest gator boots in the south. Of course, I’m the sexiest mother fucker you will ever see. I can toot my horn, I like being arrogant and cocky. It gives good self esteem. A lot of people seem to forget that, telling yourself you’re beautiful is the key to happiness. But happiness wasn’t about to happen now, especially in Jazzy-Ann’s.

Three young white males walked in, staggering. Already drunk. They reeked and I could taste it on my tongue. I could sense the trouble they were about to brew, the few people left in the bar stared at them silently except for me. I just took a sip of my drink and kept reading. As long as they don’t bother me, I’m fine and dandy as a bird. But I could see, once they saw me, the dandy bird charade wouldn’t last for long. The three men sat at the stool seats at the bar and they hooted and hollered loudly, a waitress came over to ask them their orders, “We’re about to close now ya’ll, but I will be happy to serve you three men a drink.” The shortest one out of them, snickered at her and grabbed her by the hand, “ What kind of drink are yer’ offering?” He looked at his friends then back to her, with a toothless grin. “ Well perhaps you three, w-w-would like a beer?” she tried pulling her hand away but he wasn’t letting go, one of the fat one’s with a trucker hat and cut off sleeves licked his lips and puckered at her, “I like wet, warm, drinks.” Said the short one. Her mouth parted and her eyes swelled with tears, “Just please, please let me go.” She whispered, it was so soft that they probably didn’t hear it. Everyone in the bar was looking right now, silent, then she looked at me, expecting for me to help. I kept down at my paper reading up on a section about a massacre in Brooklyn, New York in a local club scene and how all the bodies were dismembered and  blood everywhere, the distinction was that, some of them had been strangely deceased years before the massacre. The short one, who obviously seem to be the leader of the drunkards, looked at me. He let her hand go. Whispered to his friends and jumped up from his chair. Now I know these crackas ain’t stupid. Jumping out his chair like he a damn fool, about to come over here and say something to me. I know he ain’t stupid because if he is, he’ll sure get what’s coming to his jive white ass.

“WHATS A NIGGER DOING IN OUR BAR?” he yelled across the room at everyone, who cowardly looked away or looked down. He slowly staggered over, giggling. Staring at me, spitting onto the floor by my foot.  I looked down at my shoe. Making sure he didn’t get any of his nasty ass spit on my new gators. “What you doin’ here boy?” said the third one, who was tall, skinny, and fucking ugly as the hole he came from, missing teeth and shit. I didn’t respond. “Yer’ heard him nigger, don’t you know this ain’t a bar for color?” the midget said, and when I say midget I don’t mean literally I meant, compared to me he is. I decided to look at them, keeping my shades on and keeping it cool. “Take them damn shades off boy, you don’t own shit, fucking niggers think they got money.” He ripped my shades off, and just like that, they’re faces changed, everyone was about staring now. Now, I had unusual eyes. For a dark man like me, my eyes shouldn’t be bright yellow. But they were, and you’ll see why in a few minutes.

“Now, ya’ll think ya’ll can come up in here, and take advantage of the waitress and bar, and take my damn shades off, you must be crazy if you think that shits funny.”

“Who the fuck you think you talkin’ to nigger?” he pulled his fist back and snarled at me, each word in that sentence he said, spit flung out his nasty rotten mouth, hitting me. Now I don’t take kindly to rude remarks like that. I am an American citizen. I have rights, I can talk to any mother fucker I want to, how any goddamn way I want!

“Cracka, I’m talking to you, if you haven’t noticed.”

He went to go slug me, but my fast refluxes caught his brittle fist before he could blink.

“Now, I told ya not to be thinking you can take an advantage of people in here, now if you hit- -

The fat one flipped my table and my drink went everywhere, splattered on the wall and paper. All over my brand new suit.

“What the fuck was you drinkin’ boy?’ the fat one said. Because my drink hadn’t been transparent like the rest of patrons drinks.

“Now ya’ll just pissed me off, I haven’t had nothing to eat for four days and you wanna waste my drink, oh hell no mother fucker.” I stood up, standing about two feet taller over the shorter one and several inches over the other two. “One rule you don’t do, is spill a man’s drink and get it on his suit. Especially not me, and I’m not no ordinary human, in fact I’m not human at all.” Then I gave these boys a time of their ending lives. Right in that bar.

3:30 PM Thursday Week 1

I picked up the news paper, from outside. I looked at the main story, apparently there was a homicide case that happen in Shreveport, Tuesday. Three men were found, (hard to describe) rip to pieces or burst into gunk of internal organs and body tissue and blood. It said that the bar was closing down and patrons were about to leave until the three men came into the bar and started trouble, then a few seconds later they died mysteriously. When asked the patrons about the trouble at the bar that morning about 12:20AM, none of the waitresses or patrons could remember what happen to them, all they know was that one minute they were sexually harassing Jane Barnette, then the next the three men just laid across the floor splattered with blood and missing limbs and other body parts.

That’s weird, no one remembering how they died, were their memories erased? I read more of the paper,

…The three men were identified as, Samuel Thompson, 23. Jodran

Bennedict, 27, and Sean O’Harrison, 28. The three men were workers

Of a construction site and lived together as roommates. The men were

described as, rude, obnoxious, disrespectful. According to patrons of

the bar. “Then the men walked on the other side of the room and wham-

I blacked out I guess and next thing I know I’m splattered with blood

And I look up at the ceiling and there was Sam’s guts hanging from

                                 It.” Says bar patron Donald Newton, 43.

It was weird staring at this story. “Blacking out?” Of course if you drink too much you’d black out but still, no one seemed to remember what happen? Sounds like one of those government cases where they hide the truth and cover it up with something else. Then again it reminded me of my father.

It’s like when you hear all these stories about these strange beings and creatures that creep into your bed at night and slither across your floor and breath on the back of your neck, your instant reaction to this story is to shiver and shake. As the story continues to grow into this monstrous visual, you cringe at its climax, of the image of the creature raising its mouth open and two little sharp fangs form and they place their animalistic mouth onto your throat with your thick visible vein pumping furiously with blood and they draw, leaving you gasping and dying as blood spurts into the mouth of the savage creature. The story tellers main focus was to spook you, and does he? Yes, because telling is believing, then there’s seeing, you’re six and you walk around on Halloween, after hearing that chilling tale, and see a creature of the night similar to the creature in the tale, and your heart gives out a huge thump.  That’s where seeing is believing comes in.

Of course I was six years old when my father told me the story of Count Dracula, he read me the book. He also read me Frankenstein. He was a horror fanatic, and actually made it his profession, he was a movie director that only made horror films, sometimes producing other horror films, or writing screenplays for some famous ones. He told me he grew up on films, but he adored the horror and fear in them. From seeing the first Dracula to seeing Nightmare on Elm Street my father has always felt that Horror was his first love. He also believed there were such things as “Vampires” and “Zombies” and “Goblins”, maybe he was right or maybe he’s wrong but I’ve always thought that perhaps he was. They scared me a little bit much at six, and my mother thought my father was outrageous to be sharing his fantasies with his young child, including my one year old sister. She never really heard the stories, but she’d sneak in when mom wasn’t looking or when she was out grocery shopping. Dad was this powerful man who accomplished his dreams and passion. He wanted to share his thoughts on horror with others, by putting it into movies, making them even more gruesome and scarier than the rest. I’ve always admired my father, he was an amazing man. My sister and I would like to think so.

My mother divorced my father when I started high school. My father was too caught up into his world of fiction to even notice his wife had given up on him. He always told her he loved her and every aspect of her reflected in his films and in his work. She didn’t care, what she wanted was a “real relationship” and not a man who was addicted to the swamp monster. She called him childish and shot down his dreams, when to be honest she was just a sex addict who couldn’t get satisfied. My father was so busy into taking care of the family and directing his films that he just couldn’t perform actual real intimacy in the bedroom with my mom. So, three days before even mentioning divorce, during dinner she flat out told him she has been cheating on him with Uncle Harry, his brother, for the past five years which was kind of awkward because Uncle Harry was really, “Aunt Hilda” who recently transformed into the other gender. So basically my mom became a lesbian. No surprise to my father he just simply chuckled and looked at my sister and I and finished eating. My mother tried taking us to live with her and Uncle Harry but we put up a fight. My father was a better parent than my mother would ever be. We told her so, she hated us anyway she spat. But now every year we spend Christmas with her or Easter or birthdays. We truly never hated our mother we just hated the person she’d become. The sex addicted drunk who married my aunt- - I mean uncle.

My father didn’t take the divorce that great, but of course when we had family gatherings he’d always been polite to my mother and sometimes occasionally starring at her as if it was the first time he’s ever seen her, he’d look at her with this flawless expression of undying love and passion like he would with his movies. She’d noticed, blush and wave, she liked the attention. But never wanted him back. She’d give him hope, sometimes coming over from Arizona visiting and spending the weekend with us, sometimes waking up my father’s libido. But she’d always leave with broken promises of bringing the family back together. She was never really faithful to any Sheppard’s. My Uncle, my dad. My sister and I. None of us. But now that I’m older and I’m on my own I’ve come to realize that people make changes and mistakes and don’t take them as literal as others would. I’m twenty five now, my sister’s turning twenty soon. My father is sixty seven and hasn’t had a love life since my mother left when I was thirteen. New York has always been my home but I never stayed long. I’ve always traveled a lot. To LA and to Florida and now I’ve actually settled down in New Orleans. My sister lives with me. She goes to college in New Orleans University. Of course, I’m glad she’s not a drunken slut, although every sick nasty guy out here would love her to be. I don’t.

Of course, I write chilling tales now, if you ask, “what happen to the little boy who heard ghost stories from his father at six? What did he become?” Let’s say not what you’d hope I’d be. I’m actually an artist, not an extremely talented artist, like Leonardo or Picasso. I have a couple tattoos and the rough hair, but not black as you’d think. I’m blonde, my sister has the dark hair. I have mostly my father’s features. My sister sadly was stuck with my moms. Lately in New Orleans things have been getting a little weird, like, people have been turning up missing or dead? Mauled by random animals apparently. It’s kind of interesting to know that, strange creatures lurk the night, I mean it is ironic that I live in New Orleans home to Vampires and Zombies and creatures everywhere and now there’s been random mass murders. But, I’m not the one to care, or to find out. If trouble wants me, it’ll come to me. I’m not looking for it. I’m not looking to be that sleeping person, who becomes a vampire’s or ghouls pry. I’m just looking for peace, and hopefully in all the right places.

I sat the newspaper down. I looked around my apartment and back at my bedroom door. The girl I met last night was lying in my bed. My sheets incasing her body figure. I walked back into the room and decided to remind myself on why she was invited over last night. Then I realized, “I’m lonely.” I whispered as I looked at myself in the mirror. My sad lonely grayish blue eyes staring back at me.

I walked back to the girl who I loved physically, for 45 minutes last night.