Story, Updated

I looked over what I had done so far and changed some things around.

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The phone rang. It rang three times before it roused the man from his slumber. He sighed, and fumbled around in the darkness until he came up with an old flip phone. “Hello?” he mumbled sleepily.

“Morgan, you awake?” a deep voice said.

The man glanced at his alarm clock. The numbers “3:25” shone dully back. “Julius?” he muttered questioningly.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“What the hell are you calling me for?”

“I found him.”

Morgan sat up, groaning. “The bail jumper?”

“Corner of 35^th and Main in Westbrook, Lucky Star Motel.”

Morgan flipped the phone close. He looked at the clock again. 3:26. He could hear rain splattering against his bedroom window. With a great effort, he heaved himself out of bed and started to get dressed. He shucked off his nightshirt and put on a pair of jeans, a patterned dark blue t-shirt, and a black jacket. He stepped out into the living room and grabbed his keys and a messenger bag in the corner. After a moment of thought, he also took his umbrella before stepping into the hallway.

Every other light in the hallway as out. Morgan remembered his landlord telling him that he took out half the lights to save money. Apparently, he took the same attitude with the stained walls and ceiling. As Morgan moved down to the hallway to the elevator, he noticed a sign reading “Out of Order” taped to the metal door. Apparently, the landlord felt the same way about the elevator too.

Several flights of stairs later, Morgan stepped out the glass doors of his apartment building and headed across the street toward his car. The rain was coming down harder. What started as a light pitter-patter earlier that night had built into a full-on storm, thunder and lightning and all. Morgan cast a cursory left-right look as he crossed the street. This late at night the streets were mostly quiet, but all it took was a wayward drunkard behind the wheel of a car to turn a bad night into a worse one. Thankfully, tonight wasn’t one of those nights. Morgan squeezed past the security bar and made his way to his car, a secondhand gray VW Golf from sometime during the mid-90s. The car was cheap and beat-up. There were dents in the hood, scraps on the doors, a crooked side-mirror, and a myriad of other defects, large and small. Morgan unlocked the door and slid in. It was clean inside but for an old spiral-bound notebook and a stack of legal processes. The soothing sounds of late night talk radio came over the speakers as Morgan started up his car. As he passed through the security gate, his cell phone beeped and buzzed. He fished around in his pockets and flipped the phone open to read the words “Hurry up.” He sighed and dropped the phone into his lap.

Morgan took as direct a path he could toward Westbrook. Westbrook, along with the Bends and Wallingford, were located in Breaker. Breaker was considered the shitty part of town and Westbrook was considered a shitty part of Breaker. Port City was basically a giant donut with a chunk bitten out of the western side with a tiny donut hole of an island in the middle of the water. The city was split into four areas: The Hill, Staunton, Breaker, and Waterfront. The Hill was geographically the tallest part of the city and located the north. It was made only taller by its cityscape of skyscrapers. Staunton was the furthest inland and was mostly composed of residential neighborhoods. Waterfront and Breaker together made up the center of the city’s historic fishing and packing industries and were generally considered the shittiest parts of the city because of the smell. They were the oldest parts of Port City and had been there long before the rest of the city had been set up. Breaker was the central island connected to the rest of the city with bridges and was so known because of the turbulent waters that surrounded it, eroding the sides of the island.

No one really lived in Breaker. They all just sort of passed through. Breaker was the central connecting point of the city, sort of like a gigantic Grand Central Station without all of high ceilings and whatnot. The island was always fairly crowded and noisy, even at night. There weren’t any skyscrapers, expensive townhouses, or fancy restaurants here. Rather, one was more likely to find dimly-lit strip clubs, rundown motels, and masturbating hobos. It was a place favored by transients and people who wanted to stay close to a way out and didn’t really care where that way took them as long as it was away. Morgan liked to think of himself as a private investigator, but more often than not his jobs were to find and bring in bail jumpers or serving legal processes informing people of their court dates. This often took him crappy parts of town at odd hours of the day and night.

Even this late at night, there was still some traffic on the roads. Morgan didn’t exactly encounter traffic jams or anything. Most of the danger at this time of night came from drunk drivers and tired workers coming and going for late night shifts. Yellow and orange light shone down from lonely streetlamps as Morgan’s tiny car passed beneath them. A green overhead freeway sign reading “Breakers, right 1/4 mile” rapidly approached. Morgan eased his car into the correct lane and reached into his lap for his cell phone. He tapped out a quick message reading, “About to come off the bridge”. Several seconds later, a reply came back: “Meet me at Round Holes”. Morgan rolled his eyes. Even now, Julius needed food.

Round Holes was a 24-hour establishment known locally for its cheap coffee and good donuts that catered to the sort that would find a 24-hour location handy. It was plopped conveniently between a package store and an unmarked building Morgan suspected was a brothel. Morgan pushed past the glass and metal door, a tinkling bell preceded his entrance. He scanned the room before seeing an older black man sporting a red, black, and white plaid shirt and a visible paunch. The man looked up from his corner booth and waved him down. Morgan approached, saying, “I hope you called me out for something good.”

Julius Brown gestured at the empty chair. Laid out before him were a half-eaten burger, hash browns, some greasy sausages, and a large mug of coffee. Julius was a large, round black man with a shaved, waxed dome of a head and pearly white teeth that he somehow kept immaculate regardless of how much coffee he drank. He didn’t bother trying to hiding his overflowing midsection, instead choosing to wear dress comfortably in loose-fitting clothing. He took a quaff of coffee before reaching down to the seat next to him to lift up a beaten manila folder onto the table. He opened it, pulled out a couple choice pictures, and passed them to Morgan. “I thought you might find this interesting.”

Morgan squinted at the photo. “What’s this supposed to be?”

Julius rolled his eyes and snatched the photo out of Morgan’s hand. He gestured at a figure in the photo with a sausage speared on the end of a fork. “Mac Griffin,” he said simply. “The bail-jumper.”

Julius handed the photo back to Morgan and bit into his sausage. Morgan grimaced at a spot of grease on the photo. Julius muttered something under his breath and shoveled in his hash browns. After several seconds of silence, Morgan let out of a breath and said, “Alright, so when are we going then?”

Julius chewed for a moment before managing a muffled, “Let a man finish eating first,” between a mouthful of potato and sausage. A little bit of food flew out of his mouth and landed on the table. Julius deftly swept it off the table with a flick of his hand. Morgan stared at him for a moment before turning to the counter to say, “Can we get a doggie bag here?”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t just give me 5 minutes to finish my breakfast in peace,” Julius grumbled.

Morgan didn’t turn to look at Julius, instead choosing to continue staring out the windshield of his car at the squat, yellowish building across the street. They had parked the little car in an alley off the street. Police in the older (and oftentimes poorer) parts of the city like Westbrook tended to ignore cars that were out of the way, mostly because they had better things to do than bother with a couple of illegally parked cars.

OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE WHY?

Okay… so… I read this article today, which basically said that that “New Moon” broke the previous box office record (held by “The Dark Knight”) for opening day box office sales.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/usmovies.thehollywoodreporter.com/new-moon-breaks-boxoffice-record

My one statement: WHAT THE HELL.

Here is an essay on why I hate Twilight, this unfortunate matter of “New Moon” ticket sales, and Stephenie Meyer.

The books sucks. I know the book suck because I read this first one and I was struck by how hilariously cheesy and poorly written it was. It read like cheap fanfiction. No, I ought to correct myself. Comparing the Twilight series to cheap fanfiction is an insult to fanfiction writers everywhere. I’ve read Harry Potter fanfiction before. Granted, most of it is shit, but I’ve found a couple that weren’t bad. Certainly, they’re not going to start awarding Nobel Prizes for Literature to any of those fanfiction writers any time soon, but it’s would be unkind to say that they were without merit. At the very least, they were entertaining. The Twilight books, on the other hand, are absolutely horrible. Their only redeeming quality is that they are so laughably awful they can be used as a teaching tool to show new writers exactly what NOT to do if they ever hope to create anything with an ounce of literary value.

Now, we ought to delve into the reasons why I find the Twilight series to be so shit. It is very easy to say that it simply is, it is a bit more difficult to give reasons why. Let’s start with the most obvious: The story. It’s a classic forbidden love tale between a boy and a girl, only the boy is a vampire and the girl is a dithering twat, and the word “classic” should be replaced with “old and trite”. The boy is not only a creepy stalker, but he’s also a pussified version of a vampire. Vampires are soulless monsters that can’t venture into daylight for fear of bursting into flames. Edward Cullen is a sparkly motherfucker who coddles for his poor defenseless Bella. He won’t even let her do the laundry because he’s worried that she’ll fall into the dryer or break a nail. Edward doesn’t drink human blood, he doesn’t kill people, he doesn’t do anything that a monster does. There is no real conflict here, only a contrived one. There is never a single instance where Edward’s vampirism actually manifests itself in any sort of horrific, monstrous act. Certainly, there are other vampires that can be inhuman, which stands to reason considering the fact that they ARE, but Edward does not. For this reason alone, he’s a bland, motive-less hero. Bella… I don’t even want to write about her at all. Suffice it to say that she’s a useless female who’s lost without her sparkly vampire lover. There is never indication that she has any interests of her own aside from Edward. That alone makes her a detestable character.

Now let’s move on to the ticket sales. Ticket sales are undoubtedly driven by females and their obsession with this series. I’m not exactly sure why preteen/teenage girls like these books. I know why adult women do; it makes them feel younger, like they’re part of something from a younger generation. It’s certainly understandable. I continue to frown on it, but no more than I do adults who try to stay “hip” and “accessible with the teenage demographic” despite the fact that they are no longer belong in the teenage demographic. But as for the teenage girls… no, I really don’t understand it. Perhaps they’re like Edward because they love his sexy vampire body and want his sparkly vampire penis in and around their orifices. That might be the reason. If that’s the case, then I recommend purchasing a bedazzled dildo and be done with it. But, perhaps there’s something deeper. Perhaps they like vampires? Perfectly understandable. There is a great deal of fascination with a powerful, immortal experience, especially one that is feed by the life blood of humans at the loss of one’s soul. There’s the dehumanization, the super-human element, the non-human element, etc, the discussion of the boredom of relative power, the boredom of eternal life, and the nihilism of it. Trading the ability to see yourself in favor of allowing others to see a more beautiful you. There are many interesting philosophical and moral quandaries facing fictional vampires, and by no means do I wish to denigrate vampire fiction and lore. But I must stress time and time again that the so-called “vampires” (and please read that with air quotes) in the Twilight series are not vampires, but rather a pussified version of the monsterous bloodsuckers we all know (and some of us love).

On this last offense, I can only blame Stephenie Meyer, the origin of saccharine twist on vampire mythos. My main issue with her is her treatment of vampires. Vampires are not meant to be sparkly, cuddly, loving creatures. They are soulless blood drinkers who are banished from sunlight and punished for their vanity. They are damned, not blessed. I see nothing detrimental to Edward’s physical and mental wellbeing after being changed into a vampire. There is no drawback, so there is no reason not to be a vampire. I certainly don’t mind when literary tropes evolve. In fact, I encourage it. I want new things and I want new takes on old concepts. What I object to is stripping something of all meaning and stuffing it into a teenage girl-friendly package.

So… yeah, that’s about it.

What It’s Like to be a Vampire

So recently, I’ve been playing a game called “Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines”. It’s a Western CRPG based off of the pen-and-paper RPG game “Vampire: The Masquerade” from the World of Darkness created by White Wolf Games (which btw, I would love to play… either that or the updated “Vampire: Requiem”). I’ve had the game since the latter half of high school, but I just never got around to playing it because of the ridiculous number of bugs that plagued that game and slowed it to a standstill. Last week, I found an updated version of it online with fan patches and whatnot that fixed most of the problems, so although I have to push down the effects to the minimum, it runs on my computer at around 20-30 fps, which is good enough.

So anyway, as you might’ve guessed from the title, you play a Vampire, or as the game characters say, one of the “Kindred”. There are several different vampire clans you can play as: Brujah, Gangrel, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue. Vampires from each clan act differently and have different powers and stuff. For example, Gangrel have a power called Protean which allows them to shapeshift various parts of their until they reach an ultimate “War Form”. Malkavian are insane, and their dialog options reflect their insanity, as well as a number of hallucinations that only a player playing as Malkavian would see. The Nosferatu are terribly disfigured by their transformation (called “Embrace” in the game) and cannot be seen in public, lest they break the Masquerade, which is a basically a set of rules meant to conceal vampire society from the human world.

So… I’ve been this game for quite a while, and I’ve gotta admit, it’s pretty damn fun. It’s a bit different from most JPRGs. For one, you don’t gain experience from killing people, so sometimes it’s more advantageous to sneak around or use dialog or diplomacy to get your way. I feel that it’s a far more intelligent game than most others that I’ve seen. Most of the voice acting is pretty good, with a few exceptions, and the witty dialog makes the cut scenes entertaining. Roleplaying a Vampire is pretty badass too. There are a couple games that make me feelings of badassery; Splinter Cell is one, and this game is another one. It’s… quite nice. I like it.

However, I do have a couple gripes. Even though the game is almost 5 years old now, I still can’t quite run it perfectly on my computer. I’d like it to be running at 30 fps all the time, but that only happens when I’m inside buildings where the draw distance is significantly cut down. More often than not, there is a bit of stutter, and although I’m pretty sure I can eliminate it by doing some fancy shit to the game files, I don’t feel like I should have to do work to make the game run properly. Secondly, the combat feels incredibly stilted. There are guns in the game, but most of them are practically useless against Vampires. So far, I’ve only got a .38 revolver, and it does jack shit against Vampires. It’s decent enough against humans though, but I could just as easily pummel the puny humans down with my gigantic Vampire fists. I hear shotguns are more useful though, so I’m looking forward to getting a decent one and shooting some enemy Vamps in the face. Because that’s always awesome. So far in the early parts of the game, the melee combat is definitely more effective, but the only thing that you can do is execute the same 3-move combo or a sneak attack if you can get to them. I would’ve liked the option of opening up more combos when you get more skilled at melee combat… but oh well. Nothing I can really do there. The dialog system is also a bit annoying because sometimes you’ll come to a point of repeated dialog and you can’t skip through it.

But other than that. the game is pretty kickass. You can’t really go wrong with Vampires. Unless you’re “Twilight”. In which case you can go very, very wrong.