Generally Untitled (Part 1)

(This is kind of my return to writing. I was in a play, and my brain didn't really want to write. That might have been a good thing, because I didn't have too much time for it anyway.
In any case, I now have tons of ideas. I just started writing, and I'm going to see where this story takes me. I don't have any plan of attack.

Quick Edit: This particular piece is rather vulgar, so now you can't say I didn't warn you.)

There were two people in the small, green and white apartment. One was in pain. The other was inflicting the pain. The person in pain was a young white man with short dark hair, white collar work cloths on, and a large, throbbing spot of red on his forehead. His name was Joshua Dickenson. The person inflicting the pain was a big, heavyset Hispanic man in a basketball jersey. His name is unimportant.
“You think – that you – can – take – Big Louie’s – money an – get away – with it?!” the nameless Hispanic man asked courteously, punctuating his simple vocalizations by ramming Joshua’s head into the apartment’s wall.
All that Joshua could handle was a bewildered “What?”
This was obviously not the answer that the nameless Hispanic man was looking for, as, in response, he proceeded to plunge Joshua shoulder-deep into the whitewashed drywall.
“Think you’re funny now, fucktard?” the nameless Hispanic man asked Joshua’s headless body.
Joshua didn’t. In fact, he had never thought of himself as funny. He had been a rather bland child since the early years of elementary school. He had never viewed himself as a fucktard either.
Given Joshua’s lack of response, the nameless Hispanic man assumed that he had made his point.
“You have three days,” he kicked Joshua with each italicized word to add emphasis, “ to get Big Louie his money. If you don’t, we will, in all likelihood, kill and/or seriously maim you.” With that, he strutted out to do whatever it is that Hispanic criminals did in those times.

When Joshua extracted his head from his apartment’s wall, he had three burning questions on his mind. The first and most general was, “What?!?!” The second and most immediate was “Where the hell is the asprin?” And the third was: “Why exactly is the world so fuzzy?” He dearly hoped that the solving of the second could help shed some light on the third.
By what could only be pure chance, Joshua managed to stand up in his newfound fuzzy and unstable world and gradually made his way towards the bathroom. He assumed that any pain medication he might possess would be in the bathroom.
After several falls, he reached his destination and grabbed the first bottle behind the mirrored cabinet that he could find. He poured some into his hand and swallowed them. The pills were not Asprin. They were, in fact, Benadryl. Joshua had taken six. He fell asleep rather quickly.

---

Joshua Dickenson woke up exhausted. He was on his pill-strewn bathroom floor and his head seemed to weigh as much as a cannon ball. Cannon balls are not generally light objects.
Joshua was not exactly sure what to do, but he though that standing up would be a good start. After a few attempts, he discovered that this would be an unrealistic goal. His objective became to sit up. That sounded good to him. After several tries, he managed to sit on the closed toilet, his elbows resting on his knees.
What now?
His head seemed even heavier than before. He couldn’t really imagine doing much with that amount of drugs in him.
A high, loud set of tones pierced the stale bathroom air. After several seconds of complete disorientation, Joshua figured out that the phone was ringing. There was a handset resting on the edge of the bathtub. Joshua was not entirely sure how it had gotten there, but he had no qualms about using it.
A glance at the caller ID told him it was work.
“Hello?”
“Josh! Where the hell are you?”
“On my toilet…”
“It’s 10:00. Why aren’t you here yet?”
“Sorry, Nance…”
Joshua was not completely sure how to finish that thought.
“What… day is it?”
“Thursday, dumbass.”
“What… day was it when I was last at work?”
“Wednesday.”
“Shit! It’s been over a week already?!”
Joshua was not a person disposed to using profanity, but the thought that he had been absent from work for over a week was very concerning to him.
“No. It’s only been a day.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“It feels like more.”
“No, it was just a day.”
“What… time is it?”
“It’s ten o-fucking-clock! Now get in here before Jim decides to make a suit jacket out of your skin?”
“He can do that legally?”
Joshua was not normally this slow, but had suffered severe head trauma and had taken much more than the recommended dose of an over-the-counter sleeping pill.
“Just get in here.”
She hung the phone up. Joshua protested profusely to no one for quite some time before realizing what he was doing.
He made another attempt at standing. It ended with similar results to previous ones.
With nothing better to do, Joshua sat and thought.

Why am I in the bathroom? I needed to pee. Wait. No. That’s logical, but it doesn’t sound right. Hmm… There are pills on the floor. The bathroom is where I keep medication. I must have needed pills. What did I take. Ahh! Benadryl. That could explain why I was unconscious. But why would I need Benadryl? I haven’t sneezed in… like eight months. No sickness in a while… Maybe I wasn’t looking for Benadryl. I do a have a big welt on my head.
That final thought brought the events of the previous evening rushing back into his memory. The most important detail that he recalled was the need to get money for a certain “Big Louie.” He assumed it was large amount of money, because he had been beaten up by a… what was that guy anyways? A professional beater-upper? That didn’t sound like a real job title to Joshua. He gave up on the question.
Focus.
Someone able to have him beaten up and probably killed wanted money from Joshua or someone else who Joshua had been mistaken for. Joshua was not really sure which he hoped it was. Not that it mattered what he wanted. He had been taught from a young age that his opinions didn’t matter. No matter what, Joshua felt that he needed to do something other than sit on his toilet, so he began doing what he did best: Multitasking.
He stripped off his bloody shirt and tie, picked up the phone and called work.
“Pure Gold Marketing, how may I help you?”
“Hey Nance, it’s Josh. I’m just calling to tell you that I won’t be in for a few days. Wouldya relay that to Jim for me?”
“Dammit, Josh! You can’t just take time off like that.”
“I kind of have to.”
“Why are you talking like that?”
“Like wha… Oh, yeah. I’m flossing.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I can floss with one hand.”
“How does that work?”
“It’s hard to explain. Gotta go.”
Joshua hung up.

Within ten minutes, Joshua was completely cleaned and changed for the new day and walking out the door. He was holding a cell phone to his ear. After a few rings, the person on the other end picked up.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Danny, it’s Josh.”
A pause.
”Why the fuck are you calling me?”
“Nice to hear from you too. I need to talk to you.”
“You already are, asshole.”
Joshua didn’t like Danny’s propensity for swearing, but figured he was the only person that could help him.
“No, Dan. I want to talk face to face.”
“What the fuck could you possibly have to say to me that you can’t fucking say over the fucking phone?”
Joshua winced slightly at this profane verbal barrage.
“I-I just want to talk to you face to face.”
A sigh.
“Ok. The Starbucks on Church Street in ten minutes.”
Joshua intended to say something else, like a “Thank you,” or a “See you then” or even a simple “Ok,” but Danny hung up the phone before any of thos3e words could come out.
Joshua pocketed his phone with a sigh and shake of his head before quickly walking through the windswept streets towards Church Street.

---

A small bell tinkled as Joshua entered the Starbucks. He requested a vanilla mocha from the pretty girl behind the counter and scanned the brown room for Danny. He wasn’t there.
Joshua received his mocha as Danny entered. It was a very noticeable entrance. He burst through the door, strode up to the counter and help up his index finger for the girl to see.
“One.”
“One what, sir?” asked the girl, bewildered.
“One fucking something. I don’t give a running fuck exactly what overpriced shitwater you give me. Just give me one, and make it snappy.”
The girl stared. Danny glared down at her.
“I’m going to make this very simple for you.” He extracted a pencil and scrap of paper from his weathered leather jacket. On the paper he scribbled the words, Make a fucking coffee, now, bitch, and handed it to the girl. With a second of hesitation, the girl turned to make Danny a coffee.
“Wait a second,” he said. The girl turned around, exasperation painted on her face. “Can I have that piece of paper back for a second?”
The girl handed it to him. He wrote his phone number and the words “Call me” on the back before hastily handing it back to her.
Joshua watched this entire exchange in muted surprise. Danny was his friend from high school. They were almost complete opposites but had gotten along very well. Joshua had gotten almost straight A’s in every class. Danny failed many classes and barely passed the rest. The only class he had done well in was eleventh grade math, but he claimed that his success was governed by that fact that he was having regular sex with the teacher. He was, in fact, not making this up.
After high school, Joshua moved onto college. Danny became a drug dealer. They had rarely seen each other since.

Danny turned around to see that everyone in the Starbucks was staring at him in horrified astonishment. Danny responded by giving everyone a prime view of both of his middle fingers.
This particular display of vulgarity was not a surprise to Joshua, per se. It was more a harsh reminder of just how despicable a person Danny. Despite this, he had been a very cool person. Joshua, who was a very nice person, had never been cool. The fact that he was the friend of a cool kid had never seemed to effect that fact. This always bewildered Joshua. He never figured out that he was viewed as a follower and a bland individual by his peers. He did, however, learn that coolness and kindness had a generally inverse relationship.
Joshua began to make a feeble attempt at attracting his friend’s attention when the manager of the Starbucks burst through a door that led farther into the shop from behind the counter. The manager was a plump man with not enough hair on top of his head or chin, and a disgusting excess of dark hair on his upper lip. The manager was a person, like most of us, who smiled when he was happy, and frowned when he was displeased. Very little pleased the manager. Many things made him unhappy. As a result of all this, his mouth was set in a natural frown.
The manager had a quick conversation with the coffee girl, which ended with her pointing to Danny. Joshua could not hear the conversation, but could guess rather accurately at its contents. The manager lost no time in striding over to Danny and harshly, verbally accosting him. Danny returned with equal ferocity. The exchange as Joshua heard it was this (groups of periods denote inane jabbering that Joshua was unable to decipher):
“Hey!! You!.......... motherfucker……harassing my fucking employees…….. I oughta fucking………………… shitbag!”
“Oh?! So then this becomes my fault?! ………..fucking imcompetant……… ……minimum wage!”
“Oh really? Well you…’…… my ass…….’….rip your goddamn…off……”
“……………….fucking………………………………….shit…………..”
“……………………………….asshat…………….go die……………”
“……………………………………………………………….”
“……………………..”
“………………………………………….”
“……………………………………………………………………………………………”
After this, as far as Joshua could tell, that part of space became an entropic vortex of threatening, vulgar language and flailing arms. Joshua feared that he may never actually talk to Danny about his impending potential death.