Kidnapped, Part 1

After re-reading what I stuck up here yesterday, I decided to blow it up and reconstruct the whole concept. So I kept the first-person point of view, but decided to tell the story through diary entries. I have an idea that this could be kinda long, but we’ll see where it goes.

September 18, 2009

Although, to be honest, that’s a little bit of a guess. I don’t really know what day it is, jut like I’m not really sure it’s even day. All I know for sure is that I’m in trouble, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get out of it, and I’d like to leave some kind of record of what happened to me if somebody ever finds this notebook. Which I guess is doubtful, but it’s about the only thing I’ve got right now, so I’m gonna hang on to that if it’s okay with you.

I guess I should start at the beginning. Or at least close enough to give you an idea of who I am and what the hell I’m talking about, huh? My name is Jason Shorham, and I’ve been kidnapped. I don’t know by who and I don’t know where they’re keeping me, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get out of here. By the best guess I can come up with I’ve been here for three days, and I haven’t seen anyone in that time. I’m being held in a cabin with one big room, one smaller bedroom, a kitchen, kinda, and a bathroom. It’s pretty comfortable, actually. I guess as jail cells go it’s really nice, except for the fact that all the windows and doors are boarded up so that I can’t even see whether it’s day or night and I can’t get out. Even the fireplace is blocked up with metal sheeting so I can’t even look up the chimney or try to climb out up it. Which with the way my luck has gone this week would be something I’d try, then get stuck up there and die. There’s a bed in the bedroom, and one lamp. There’s a couch in the big room, which I guess would be a living room, and a desk, which is where I found this notebook and some pens. Other than that, there’s a whole lot of nothing. The bathroom has a shower and toilet, and some towels and toilet paper, but nothing to read, which sucks. So while I guess it’s okay for prisons, there’s not much to recommend this place as a vacation spot.

I don’t know why I’m joking. I’m fucked. I’m probably about as fucked as fucked can get. I’m kidnapped, in the middle of nowhere I assume, in a log cabin with boarded up windows and doors, and I haven’t seen any food in three days. Yeah, I’ve been here three days I guess. Or at least I’ve gone to sleep three times and woken up three times, so I’m guessing it’s been three days. I don’t have any way to tell time, the fuckers that took me took my cell phone (of course) and like everybody else nowadays I don’t wear a watch. Why would I? I never go anywhere without my cell phone and usually my laptop, too. But I didn’t dress for kidnapping when I left home this morning. Or Saturday morning, however long ago that was. Fuck this, this is stupid. Nobody’s ever gonna read this shit, and if they do it’ll be because I’m dead anyway, so what do I care?

September 21, 2009

Me again. But then again, who else would it be? It’s not like there’s anybody else here. I figured I might as well write this shit down. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do. My social calendar, as they say, is more than usually empty of late. Like I said before I’m not really sure of the day, or if it is day. I can’t manage to beat on the board on the windows enough to get any light through them, so I sleep when I’m tired and get up when I feel like it. Perfect life, right? Yeah, except for that whole locked in a cabin where you have no fucking idea what’s going on part. At least there’s food. I didn’t mention that my captors do feed me, so it looks like there’s a plan to keep me a live for a little while, anyway. I wake up, and there’s food in a bucket in the middle of the floor. Nothing specific, just some bread, some ham or deli meat, crap like that. Nothing to drink but water out of the bathroom sink, and I only have one cup to drink out of. It’s plastic. I guess they think if I had too much glass around I’d try to use it as a weapon, or maybe off myself. But they left me the lamp in the bedroom, with a regular lightbulb, so I don’t know what that’s about. So I started tracking my days by how many times I get fed. I figure when they send down cereal and those little paper cartons of milk, it’s breakfast. When they send down real food later, it’s lunch. There’s only been two meals a day so far, so I’m counting breakfasts to figure out what day it is. But who knows? They could be totally fucking with me and giving me a breakfast every three hours and maybe I’ve only been here for like two days. But that doesn’t make any sense. I know it’s been most of a week at least just by how much my beard’s grown. And how gross my clothes are starting to feel. If you’ve never worn the same underwear every day for a week, then just trust me, it’s not the best thing in the world. I rinsed out all my clothes in the bathroom sink, but then I was just naked and cold and when I put everything back on it didn’t really feel clean anyway, so I just decided fuck it. I’ll try and keep up this journal just to have something to do. I’m sure at some point whoever took me will figure out they aren’t getting any money and let me loose.

New Fiction – Darker this time

A blend of an odd dream I had, an audiobook I’m listening to and a movie that Suzy made me watch part of inspired the beginnings of this story. It’s pretty dark. Lemme know what you think.

I never saw the face of the man that destroyed my childhood and made my life into something entirely unexpected until he was lying dead at my feet in the middle of the South Carolina woods with a pool of blood spreading out from the back of his head. Up until I leaned over, and with fear-palsied fingers pulled the ski mask and sunglasses off his face, I had no idea what the man who had controlled my every moment for six months looked like. Aside from the unfamiliarity of the face, the sheer blandness of his features took me aback.

This man, who had taken me prisoner, made me into something I never imagined I could be, and had now ultimately died at my hands, looked like nothing. Not even the pudgy innocuousness of a Gacy or the rakish handsomeness of a Bundy. He looked like nothing. Completely normal. Medium blue-grey eyes, mousy brown hair, slightly out of date chin beard. Nothing to distinguish him from thousands of other suburban soccer dads out there in the wide world. Nothing to make anyone think that he might be evil personified.

I stood there with a tree branch in my numb fingers for a while, I don’t really know how long, until finally I threw the branch down next to his body, which was starting to ooze other fluids than blood as the bowels and bladder released with death, and I walked out of the woods and tried to find my way back to something like daylight.

Creative Juices

Sometimes things work out in odd ways. I did the Story Slam reading a couple weeks ago, and after the Friday night session, Gina Stewart and Brenda Gambill, better known around Charlotte as the ringleaders of Doubting Thomas, played a set. Gina told a great story about walking through New York City and seeing a guy sitting in the doorway of the Chelsea Hotel cutting himself, and the conflicted feelings she felt before she went over to him to see if he was okay. It shook loose a chunk of poem that I’ve had locked up for a while, and I pounded this out the next afternoon. I read it that night and it got a good reception. I haven’t named it yet, maybe I’ll just call it Chelsea. The filename I saved it under was Wet Concrete, but that doesn’t feel right.

I don’t see him dragging a stolen Food Lion grocery cart uphill
loaded down with a hot water heater and cans picked up
off the side of the road
heading for the recycling center hoping for just enough
to get another bottle of get me through the night.
I don’t see her pay for a corn dog and cup of complimentary ice
with pennies and haul the seven mismatched garbage bags
that make up her whole world out into the heat of the August afternoon.
I don’t see him sitting in the rain mumbling at nothing
and carving names into his wiry limbs with a rusty jacknife
while his own blood drips pink
and runs off down the sidewalk,
puddling for a second around my Ecco loafers.
But I see you
kneeling in front of a wild-eyed Walt Whitman madman
to say “hey man, you alright?”
I look at you
in your duct-taped Doc Martens
thrift-store Dickie’s work shirt
maybe a dollar and a half in your own pocket
while you kneel on the wet concrete
to touch the face of a stranger
and for a minute
before the world washes my vision away again
I see.

Biloxi and Upcoming Events

I’m trying to get back to blogging on a more or less regular basis, and for now I’m obviously leaning towards the “less regular” side of things. Back from Pensacola/Biloxi, and managed to recoup some of the losses I saw on my trip there earlier this year, picking up about a $400 profit on the trip. My bankroll is still pretty anemic, but that’s just the status quo for right now.

If you’re in Charlotte this weekend, and have any interest in seeing me read my poetry, come out to Festival in the Park. I’m reading Friday evening and Saturday morning on the Theatre Stage, and I’ll have copies of my book to sell as well. I’m reading at 6:30 Friday and at 11:15 Saturday, so I hope I’ll see you there. I also will be doing a special evening at Story Slam! later this fall when I read poetry with a couple of friends, so I hope you can make that as well.

As trip reports go, this one will be pretty boring, not many hands of interest, but a couple. I played the noon tournament at the IP in Biloxi (a significant upgrade over the property of the same name in Vegas) and busted shortly after the first break when it turned into a shove-fest. I moved over to 4/8 limit to get my feet wet for a little while and treaded water for a couple hours before I decided to go look for greener pastures. I think I cashed out up about $5 on the limit game, which means I was down about $100 for the day with tournament fees, some ill-advised time at a slot machine and a minor Pai Gow loss. But I did have a free buffet coupon, so at least I ate for free.

I headed over to the Isle of Capri, which again was a decent enough place, if small. Most of the casinos around Biloxi felt small, and the thing that continued to screw me up was the fact that they were multi-level casinos. Not huge hotels with casinos, but two and three stories of gaming. So you took escalators to different sections of the gaming floor. I think it hearkens back to when they had to be built on boats or at least piers, so they needed to have a smaller footprint. I think the Belterra in Indiana was also two stories. But it was odd to me to have the machines and tables split up by escalators.

So I played 1/2 at the Isle and ended up with a good session, although it didn’t start well.I picked up a few small pots here and there and finally called a raise in early position with QJo against a loose player who was catching everything he went after. I know, even for me that’s a loose call, but the two other callers helped. The flop helped more, coming down Q-J-x rainbow. Gin! Even better gin when the guy in front of me, who was steaming a little after stacking off to the laggy chaser open-shoved for 80+ into a $45 pot. I put my $88 into the pot, and the laggy chaser called both our all-ins. He was getting about 2.5-1 on his money, so I could see where chasing the gutshot with unimproved AK seemed like a good idea. The guy who open-shoved tabled Q-8 for just top pair, and I tabled my top two.

You know the story, right? Not just a 10 on the turn, but the river as well, in case I missed the straight the first time. So there went my first buy-in. On the one hand, I bought in short so it didn’t hurt as much. On the other hand, if I’d had $188 in my stack instead of $88, I probably could have pushed him off the draw. Meh. Poorly played on all streets. Again.

So I reloaded for another hundred and went back to work. Now I only had a day, so I only took $500 with me to Biloxi, and it had all the makings of an early night, but I started to run a little better, read little better, and generally play a little better. I had developed a tight table image (not sure how that happened), so when I raised UTG to $11 with pocket eights, I was surprised to see a guy two seats down (we’ll call him Steamy) re-raise me to $40. He gets one guy to flat-call, and I look at my stack of about $120. I can’t call here, because I’m out of moves at that point, and I think he might be looking to exploit my tight image by pushing me around with Ace-paint. So I shove. Steamy folds, the flat-caller flat calls, and the board runs out J-J-5-x-x. I show my eights, the caller mucks, and Steamy goes apeshit about how he gave me too much credit and it wouldn’t happen again. I couldn’t resist trying to stick the needle in a little further, so I looked down and said “Tens?” He replied with “I folded the winner, that’s all YOU need to know.” As I was stacking the pot, I gave in to temptation again and said “Obviously you didn’t, because I’m stacking chips.” Dickish, I know, but it felt good. I also knew that if I got the chance I could double through him because there was no way I’d ever push him off another hand.

And I didn’t. I picked up two kings in early position, made the same raise to $11, and he three-bet me to $40. I shoved for a little over $220, and he quickly called. No ace hit the board, and even though I was a bit concerned that he may have flopped a set of queens, he quickly mucked and left as I tabled my kings. That hand put me at the high-water mark for the table, and I began to seriously think about leaving. I’ve gotten a little gun-shy about being the prohibitive big stack at the table, because of horribly mis-playing a big stack in Charleston and not racking up when I realized I had the entire table covered. So I paid a little more attention to what was going on and took care not to loosen up too much before I made the decision to leave. Not long before I headed out, a guy sat down who was obviously a regular, and obviously a player. He looked around the table, checked out the stacks, and made sure he had enough to stack anyone sitting there. Apparently there’s no max buy-in to most of the no-limit tables in Biloxi, because that wasn’t the last time I saw somebody sit down and buy in huge to a 1/2 game. I played a few pots, picked up a few chips, and then racked up when the blinds came around again. He confirmed my suspicions when he said “You can’t take all that money, it’s the only reason I put this much on the table!” I left him disappointed and took my profits off into the night.

Crashed at the Grand because I could use Total Reward points toward my room, and if I didn’t use them before November they’d vanish. The Grand doesn’t have a poker room, but the room was only $99, and I had enough points to cut it to $50 by the time it was all said and done. I spent a little time at the tables playing a game called Flop Poker, which I’d never seen before.

It’s kinda like real poker, and kinda like Let it Ride. You put $5 into the pot, as do all the other players at the table. Then you put a $5-$25 ante down. You get 3 cards, which you look at and decide if you want to stay in the hand. If you do, you match your ante with a flop bet. I gave up on trying to evaluate starting hands and just played blind, which means you put your $5 ante and flop bets out before you ever get cards. The dealer then turns over a 3-card flop, and you must use two cards from the dealer’s hand to go with your three cards to make a poker hand. You have to make Jacks or better to win the ante and flop bets, but the best 5-card hand wins the pot regardless, because that’s where you compete against the other players.
So I played that for about an hour, and hit a couple of big hands. A straight at that game pays out 11-1, so that was worth $55 on one hand, and then I made a full house, worth 30-1 or $150. After that I decided to toss the dealer a redbird and go on to bed.

Random Update

Still alive, mostly. Work has kicked my ass over the past couple of weeks, and all the hard work I put in on Seussical made me remember why I quit doing theatre – it’s HARD. The show looks great, though, and with 500 light and spot cues in 95 minutes of show, it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever written. If you’re in Charlotte this weekend or next, I recommend it, especially if you have kids. Or act like one.

Right now I’m in a Springhill Suites in Pensacola Beach, Florida, after teaching a session at a Lighting for Worship workshop today. I’m teaching another session at the WFX (worship facilities expo) conference the end of next month, so if I’m not careful, I’m going to end up the expert on energy-efficient lighting for churches in the Southeast. There are worse outcomes, of course, but it’s not exactly where I’m shooting for my career to be heading. Not that I’m really sure where I want my career to be heading, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish, as they say. But work is going okay, even if I’m juggling managing two offices with directing a play. How did I ever think I was effective as a manager while I was running a theatre company? Talk about self-delusion! Yeah, now I manage more than twice as many people and do less than a quarter the theatre stuff I used to do, and it still takes all my time. Good thing I was kinda burned out on theater anyway.

I played a little poker last weekend at Bad Blood’s – finished down $40 for the night. Realistically should have finished up significantly, though. I got my stack in the middle three times, every time a big favorite, and got stacked once, quartered once and doubled up once. I got it in against Jim with nut flush against top set and he went runner-runner boat on me. Then I got it in against Lee Jones with top pair and a flush draw against overcards and a smaller flush draw. We ran it twice and he turned a bigger pair on the first board then got there on the low on the second board to quarter me. The last time I shipped it in I doubled through Otis with two pair and a flush draw in O8 against his overcards and a smaller flush draw. That one held up to double me up for only a small loss on the evening, but if my favorites had worked out I would have been a significant winner. Oh well, tomorrow I’m taking a vacation day and heading to Biloxi to see if I can recoup anything I lost there earlier this year.

Looking very, very forward to Vegas after a busy fall…