The Trap House - Part Two: It’s a Bad Way

Whether to my benefit or detriment, I have, on occasion, severed the thick cord linking my consciousness to reality. My world slumps and I give in. I’m always astonished to discover how nice the fall is - how easy the landing.

By day two in the bunker - the whipping machete helicopter of doom snapping around, the shotgun blasts in the distance, the clay targets turning to dust in the air in front of me - I can see the person that I think I am pulling away from me in a parallax lens.

I’m at the point that I don’t care about the little things that usually trouble me. My clothes are a damp, sticky blanket and I’m coated with a thin film of gunpowder, greasy clay pigeon dust and personal humidity. My odor mixes with the scent of decaying, mildewed concrete and…and more.

It’s on Day Two that I discover that our little gun club is precisely downwind from a pork processing plant. Riding the breeze, here and there, I’m graced with the lilting aroma of death and industry.

Pork processing doesn’t refer to doing pig taxes. And it doesn’t have nearly the aroma of bacon that I’d hoped. I’m overwhelmed.

Whitesnake is performing their fifteenth show in my little bunker. Even though they’re diligently trying to mask the sounds around me, slamming their hard screams and thump-thumping drumbeat against the concrete, I’m slipping. I’m falling away and I know it’s happening. It’s too much.

My parents and their friends always talk about just wanting some peace and quiet. Some time to just think. They want to be alone with their thoughts.

But they don’t understand.

I’ve been alone with my thoughts for the past two days. I’ve now reached the point where I have no more thoughts. My brain has given up on me to pursue other friends.

For the ten-millionth time in the last two days, I gingerly drop the disk on the machete. Pull back. Whip-CHUNK. Flip around. Drop the disk. Pull back. Whip-CHUNK. Flip around.

Drop. Pull. Whip. Flip.

I Keep On Dreaming Dreams of Tomorrow
Feel I’m Wasting My Time

Drop. Pull. Whip. Flip.

I reach over and rip the cassette out of the player and throw it against the concrete wall in front of me.

And it’s done.

Bye-bye to reality.

I start to laugh to myself and the sound reverberates back to me with a dullness.

I’m just gonna go ahead and take off my shirt.

Drop. Pull. Whip. Flip.

The machine is humming. Huh. I hadn’t noticed it did that.

Whoop. There’s a breeze.

Another laugh.

Drop. Pull. Whip. Flip.

Maybe there’s freedom in plunging from the edge of yourself.

And now I’m staring. My brain has flatlined. No more thoughts to have. No more dreams or imaginings that I want to relive or reinvent.

Drop. Pull. Whip. Flip.

Hum.

Then silence.

A face pops up in front of me from around the top of the trap house.

“You’re done for now. Get some food,” she is saying.

I just sit here.

“Okaythanks,” I reply with almost no voice.

I climb out of the ground and feel the sun and breeze. New smells. Better smells.

On my way to grab some food, Larry breaks into the void of my thoughts.

“Hey! CW! So, whaddaya think? I mean, I know it sucks down there, but we can listen to our music as loud as we want and it’s pretty easy, ya know,” he is saying with an optimism that escapes me.

“Yeah. It’s not so bad,” I lie. “I mean, I’m kinda getting sick of the music a little, to be honest. And my tape player ate your cassette. Sorry.”

“Shitty. Hey, you wanna borrow something else?”

“Nah. Thanks though. I just need some food and water,” I say, focusing on the smell of nearby hot dogs.

“By the way,” Larry says offhandedly, “we have to reload all the trap houses tonight. Each one needs about a hundred or so more boxes of targets. We start at midnight.”

“Yeah, okay…” I respond, distracted.

I’m only partially hearing him. The man in the loudspeaker overhead is announcing the results of the last shoot. Then the speaker fades to music. Not too loud. Barely audible, in fact.

But it tells me.

Tells me once, it won’t tell me again.

*****

It’s 11:47 and the weariness is on me like a leather overcoat. The night brings coolness, but not enough. All five of the other guys are here and we’re loading the carts to take to the thirty-some-odd trap houses.

Already shirtless, I think that I need to change. I pull off my shorts and walk to the corner. Everyone is staring at me. I grab the XXL denim coveralls off the hook and slide into them.

“What the fuck are you doing,” Larry is laughing.

“I’m a worker bee. Gotta dress the part,” I say.

“That’s like ten times too big for you. Plus, it’ll be hotter than hell,” he says.

“I’ll leave it unzipped to the waist. Sexy,” I observe.

“Whatever, you freak.”

We walk off into the moonless night.

*****

I slide into the trap house; someone is shining a spotlight down to help me see.

I grab box after box, each weighing at least twenty pounds, from the ground in front of the bunker where my friends have put them. My job is to stack the boxes inside so that we have access to them tomorrow, the biggest day of the shoot.

After the first house, I’m melting. The sweat is rolling down and matting the denim to my skin.

The supports that hold up my psyche crumbled hours ago.

Box after box. Literally a ton of targets per house.

“You doin’ okay?” Larry asks.

“All I can hear is this song over and over in my head. It’s echoing off my skull,” I shout up from the pit. “I can’t get rid of it.”

“What song,” he asks.

“Those days are over,” I sing. “You don’t have to sell your body to the night.”

“Ah,” he responds.

“Larry,” I say, looking up at the spotlight.

“What,” he asks, obviously concerned.

“We’re whores, you and I. All of us,” I tell him.

“Okay, man. Hey, you want me to jump down there for a while instead?”

“No. I’ve got it.”

After the fourteenth house, now nearly three in the morning, I can see the sizzling ends of my neurons popping in my head.

This seems like a good time to take off the coveralls and run down the mile long stretch of traps in my underwear.

And so I will.

*****

Today is the long day. Twelve hours in the pit. I try using a fan for an artificial breeze, but it stirs up grit and anger.

So, instead of the fan, music blares from the radio, but it’s white noise. I’m trying desperately not to look at my watch. Everything about my being is spent.

It’s all the same. Not only has my mind wandered, I’m pretty sure it’s gone for good.

I just want it to end. My back is a numb knot. Maybe the blade will fly off the machine and impale me with a glorious Katana sounding shiiing. Maybe the concrete will crumble around me. Maybe someone will blast through the back of this cavern with an extreme shotgun discharge.

Oh, sweet release.

Let it end.

Let it end.

Let it end.

“It’s time,” I hear. “You’re done.”

*****

I'm home for a few hours to wash some clothes before going back for the last day.

My mom sees the dark, sunken eyes, but she doesn’t understand.

“How do you get so dirty,” she asks, shaking her head at my wads of clothing.

“Mom, it’s hard work. And it’s dirty out there. The middle of nowhere. And it’s hot. And I’m in a cave,” I say, pissed at her for even speaking in my presence. I just want quiet.

“I can’t believe they kept you boys up til after 3:00 this morning. That’s not right. And then working all day…”she says, head still shaking.

Bitch, who are you telling? Just shut up. Just quiet. Is all I ask.

“So tell me about what you do out there. Is it fun?” she continues to probe.

Fun? What the jesusfuck?

“I dunno. No, it’s not fun. We load the things that throw the targets. People shoot ‘em. We lift heavy things. It’s very basic,” I sigh.

“And you’re nice to the people there,” she asks, halfway between a question and a statement.

“Yes. Who cares? Nobody cares about us. What does it matter? All we do is sweat and carry shit all day…” I state, top of mind.

“What did you just say,” she asks, staring through me.

“Yes, mom. We swear out there. God help us all, I swear. I’ve got a filthy mouth. It’s just how it is…” I sigh again.

“Well…” she begins. Then she stops. She sees me now. “Well, as long as it stays out there. Please get some sleep tonight sweetie,” she says.

“I will mom. See ya later.”

*****

This last day, the fourth day, is a relative breeze. But whatever reserves still exist within me are evaporating.

I’ve spent part of the morning in the cave, but now I’m an above-worlder, helping to clean up and begin to put things away.

As I walk into the clubhouse, I notice that Larry is working the counter, selling various gun-related paraphernalia. For the first time that I’ve seen, the clubhouse is empty, except for the two of us.

“How did you work your way into an air-conditioned gig,” I ask.

“I know the right people,” he said, nodding to the picture of his dad on the wall.

“Ah. Right,” I say, smiling.

My eyes are drifting around, not in any hurry to focus.

But then I see my way out.

“Larry, I think I’ve lost it a little this week, ya know,” I say.

“Yeah, dude. You need to get more sleep. You were like an animal loading those boxes the other night,” he laughs.

I walk a little closer to the counter.

“Seriously, I feel like something’s snapped. It’s overload. I mean, the goddamned trap machine…the radio blaring...the gunpowder everywhere…shotgun blasts on and on. And that fucking song in my head…” I state, at the counter now.

“What are you doing, man, you can’t be back here,” Larry says, watching me flip the top of the hinged counter.

“Larry. I need to do this. I’m sorry.”

“What…” he says, stepping back.

“Larry, we’re whores.”

Here in front of me is the answer.

I pick up the microphone to the club loudspeaker.

And I sing.

“RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHX-AAAAAAAAANNNNNNNE…”

I pause. The echo carries for miles.

It’s perfect.

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO PUT ON THE RED LIGHT…”

People outside stop and look back toward the clubhouse.

“THOSE DAYS ARE OVER…”

The club chairman runs around the corner outside toward the doorway.

I look him in the eyes as he yanks open the double doors.

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO SELL YOUR BODY TO THE NIGHT…”

I drop the mic and walk away, only screaming behind me.

And some applause in the distance.

That night, I sleep for fifteen hours.

Comments

[Sarah]

...beautiful ending...

[Shawn]

How many people do you think bellowed “RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHX-AAAAAAAAANNNNNNNE…” aloud while reading this? I know I did! It's strange, the connection between our visual receptors and our voice boxes, I couldn't help but sing out loud while reading... Good stuff!

[Jessica]

Damn you. You got that song in my head!

At any rate, great story, I love the ending. There's no way I could have put up with that. I probably would have just walked away after the first two days or so.

[bob]

leave 'em with style. always, leave 'em with style.

[Michael]

I laughed my arse off at that last bit. Beautiful.

[Jack]

Very beautifully captured. I hope you still got paid in the end.

[Almost Lucid (Brad)]

*grinning* Fucking A man. Fucking A.

[chris]

So, you're sitting in this underground sweat box covered in dust, gun powder, your own funk,.. the smells of fresh killed pork are wafting your way, and rednecks shoot guns in your general direction.. I just can't believe that in such a situation, you'd turn to Whitesnake!
Friends don't let friends listen to Whitesnake.. especially when hiring him to do work that is in and of itself, tourture
Great Story!

[Candigyurls]

I say "Damn the man!"...Lucas,"Empire Records"
What a great song, what a great line...perfect!

[k]

Geez... I used to think I had good stories from my days working at a video dating service, but your work horror stories blow mine away! I'm left wishing that I'd burst into song over the intercom there...