Disclaimer: The contents of the pictures and stories on this blog are unproven by any sort of psychic divining, forensic science or other hocus pocus, and are very alleged. That being said..
Everyone, meaning you, please take a moment of silence for my good friend Chace Keyes, I MEAN Kace Cheyes, and if you're somewhere in the vicinity of Snohomish County Jail, maybe pat him on the back or--if he is moving fast, which I usually do when I get bailed out, in case the person responsible comes to their senses at the last minute--cheer after him or something. This man amongst men, my guy, was allegedly caught in possession of a stolen vehicle and a firearm, the former of which he allegedly does very well (which we always thought was funny because of his last name, even though it's Cheyes and not Keyes at all, and Cheyes bears NO resemblance to any part of stealing a car whatsoever), and the latter was definitely not the one I allegedly "borrowed" from the sleeping hands of one Ameron Callsop and then supposedly gave to Kace, because that gun may or may not have then been sold to a native American skag** lord called Swerve.
Special thanks also goes out to his girlfriend M--Wegan, who very un-triflingly ponied up a thousand dollars and a signature to free his ass. We salute you, Wegan, who's last name I seem to have misplaced, though I recall that she has like four first names in her whole name (you know, like Christopher James Jacob Paul Michael or something). Kace was truly blessed the day you became his bottom bitch***.
This guy was the first person in the street to truly step up and throw a punch for me, and though others have followed, he will forever occupy a soft and untainted place in my memory banks. To understand the special kind of friendship that Kace and I had, you need to first know a few facts (or fictions?) about the nature of its circumstances. In other words...
It's our very first STORY TIME!
(or, Tales from the Trap House****)
It was late one Spring night at the third street trap house, and I was sitting on a cramped couch in the living room beside three other people, with the considerable contents of my roomy Dakine backpack strewn about me in classic flailer° fashion, the array of body sprays, clothing and random stolen electronics spilling onto the floor and into the lap of my good friend Wian (another good man, but more on him later; this is not his story). The air was thick with smoke and the room was far too crowded, a many-pitched murmur of conversating voices--many familiar to me, but the trap spot is, by nature, a melting pot, and its cast of characters includes both old friends and enemies as well as faces new to the scene--turning what would have been (and probably still was, but hey, it was home; as much of a home as someone like me ever has, anyway) trashy and unacceptable by any standards into something alive and comforting, a buzzing and ever-changing hive of activity. Headquarters. Wian and I were good at making our own fun, and could usually be found acting like we were on one°°. This was one such occasion.
"And this shit is sick, look at--HEY YOU SQUIRMY FUCK, LOOK AT MY FUCKING FLAIL!" I yelled at Wian, who was busy hitting a bubble°°° and consequently not looking at the objects I was piling onto his lap and all around us. He swatted at me, exhaling the hit as he replied, voice thick with the smoke.
"God damnit Dutch, can't you see that I am clearly too BEYOND ONE°°°° to safely multitask?!"
"YOU SHUT YOUR FILTHY--hey, I know, huh?" I said as the bubble came to me, dropping the clutch of cords, cell phones and pens in my hands and wiping the blackened underside of the pipe on the arm of the couch, lest my Lakers Jersey and Gucci jeans should become dirty. Well, dirtier than living in a trap house had already made them. Before I could hit the pipe, my pocket sprang to musical life, vibrating and rapping at the room in general ("you won't rob me, but I might rob YOOOOU!"). I dug my phone out of it, and saw that it was my old friend Wegan. She and I had had a "thing" a year or two prior, and though it was short-lived, we had built a friendship on its remains, and things were strictly platonic. Anyway, I'd heard that she was dating someone. I answered.
"Dutch's abortions, no fetus can beat-us. What up, chica?"
"Niiice," she laughed. "Where's all the brown at?"
I considered.
"Well, I happen to be in possession of a small amount of said substance. What are you looking for?" I said, flicking my bic and putting the pipe to my lips.
"A dub," she replied. "We're sick as fuck," she added, meaning they hadn't smoked in a while.
There was a pause because, well, I was smoking meth.
"Hello?" she said, impatiently.‹p>"Yes, yes, still here," I said as I exhaled.
"Are you smoking drugs, Dutch?"
"Why yes, yes I am." The line went dead.
"Who was that?" asked Wian.
"Don't trip, gorgeous," I said. "She's nothing compared to you."
"Rrrrrrrrrrrright!" he trilled, rolling his R's in a way that I would not be able to imitate for some time to come.
There was suddenly light in the kitchen, spilling into the living room through the archway that separated the two rooms, and the sound of an idling engine. There was a shuffling of feet as a few of the locals milled over to see who it was. "Oh man," one of them said, a younger native kid called Little Looks. "It's fuckin' Kace and Wegan."
I was intrigued. "What's wrong with that?"
"Kace is, like, the biggest ass hole that I've ever met. Wegan used to be cool before that cheese dick came around."
Really? I'd met some pretty big douche bags--there is no shortage of them in the greater Seattle area, believe that--and I imagined all of the fiendish atrocities this dude must have committed to have earned such a reputation. My imagination turned up images of Looks hitting a pipe somewhere, maybe over at the first street trap, and this mysterious new hooligan strolling in and slapping it out of his face. I couldn't help it; I laughed, and the slip earned me a dirty look from Looks.
"My bad, bud," I told him. "It can't be that bad, though."
A few seconds later, the door opened. Wegan was a short, brown eyed, serious-looking girl, pretty in her own way, though she had put on a few pounds since I had seen her last. Behind her, her mysterious douche bag walked in, tall and perpetually grinning, his sharp features and large Adam's apple making him look both hawklike and goofy.
"Hey, Dutch," Wegan said, ignoring the other faces gathered around and pushing through the throng toward the living room.
"And helloooooo trap house!" Kace hollered, chuckling. "Hey, I left the stolie• running in the back, hope you don't mind."
Little Looks murmured a greeting to Kace, his attitude when the pair had first rolled up apparently forgotten. Kace ignored him, and followed Wegan to the couch. The big chair to my left had been emptied when the small migration to the kitchen had begun, and Kace sat there, Wegan perching on his lap.
"What's up what's happening, Wegan?" I said with a smile, and extended a hand to Kace. "What up bud, I'm Dutch."
He took the hand and shook it. "I'm Kace. What the fuck is up with this place?" he said, that perpetual grin shining out at the collective in lazy defiance. "Bunch of morose mother fuckers."
Before I could respond, Wegan interrupted. "Never mind that, Kace. Where the foil at, Dutch?"
As it turned out, the foil was at DUTCH'S POCKET! Ha ha.. God I miss drugs.
We smoked, the three of us, and the crowd mysteriously moved downstairs as the night progressed. Kace truly was an ass hole, as it turned out, but it was hilarious. His problem was that he was, the size and depth of the legends that surrounded him notwithstanding, completely real, and he looked down on fake mother fuckers. If someone flexed, he called their bluff. If he saw weakness, he pushed. It was the way of the street, and of nature, without the laws and regulations of polite society; survival of the fittest. I was impressed.
At some point, a mutual "friend" (more on this quote-unquote later) walked in; Chops, a long-haired, ever undependable needle freak that I had known for years (since before he became a general waste of oxygen), was a bitch. He never said no, but never came through. A pathological people pleaser to their faces, a shit talking, self-absorbed prick when their backs were turned. Chops and Kace had known each other for some time as well, and they exchanged greetings. Chops asked if we had any heroin, and as it turned out, we most certainly had just run out. For real. Chops went downstairs to join the crowd, and Kace leaned in. "Dude, I have a jiggler•• that works perfectly for his car. We could go right now and get some more work•••. That stolie is going to be hot any time, and I'm not really trying to keep rolling it."
"I think it ran out of gas a few minutes ago, anyway," I said, reminding him that he had left it running. It wasn't anymore.
"Oh yeah," he said, grinning.
I considered what I thought of Chops, and the very real, very large problems I had developed with him in recent history. My answer became clear almost immediately. "I'll do you better than that.. I'll get his keys."
I just so happened to have left a bag in Chops's car, because I had just moved out of his parents' house. I got the keys, and it became my duty to keep Chops busy downstairs until they came back.
We played X-box in Ameron Callsop's room, and it was an hour or two before someone said "Hey Chops, wasn't your car parked out back?"
Chops leapt to his feet, and there was a flurry of activity as his panic began, then grew unmanageable. Eventually, he remembered that I had been the last one with his keys. I shrugged, feigning confusion.
"I gave them back to you, remember? Unless.. oh fuck dude, I think I left them on the table!"
I said, and as the interrogations progressed, I snuck a text off to Kace.
Tragically, Chops's car never returned, but Kace and Wegan did. They were the prime suspects, of course, but neither of us said anything, and their alibi was solid enough to make a for-sure impossible: they had been three blocks over, they said, at Fawn's house.
Kace and I didn't speak of the incident for some time to come, but the experience cemented our "bromance," as his girlfriend would come to call our friendship.
--- the Ballad of Kace Cheyes just became a multiple-installment operation, people, because now I have to indulge this silly sleeping habit I recently picked up. Thanks for reading, and I hope you're half or less than half as bored as I am on a daily basis. If you're here because I spammed you, you're a gentleman and a scholar. Much love, blogdom.
p.s. That other guy? That's Wody Ceaver, and clutched in his hood-rich little paws could possibly be (but might also be something completely different) a piece of tinfoil with some of the West coast's finest heroin on it, for those of you who are "visual learners." You're welcome.
*Wow, a good case of dyslexia could really blow the lid on this whole naming scheme thing..
**skag: very slang for "heroin," or, in the PS3 game "Borderlands," a gnarly-looking dog-esque creature that very much rocks you at some parts of the endgame. I'll give you a moment to reflect on which one of these Swerve might have been lord of..
***bottom bitch: main squeeze, sweetest ass, primary lay
****trap house: a place, usually a house or apartment, with far too little space for the many people and drugs that come and go through its doors all day and night; a hot spot; a known drug house. Often, trap spots are home to one or more drug dealers, and are a favorite hunting ground for police and other scary boogeymen of the federal type.
°flailer: someone who gets high on amphetamines, also known as a "tweeker." When someone is acting like they are high on meth, it is said that they are "flailing," and whatever they are busy with becomes their "flail"
°°on one, on a good one: acting extremely high, hopelessly beyond any semblance of sobriety
°°°bubble: a meth pipe, called an "incense burner" at smoke shops, made supposedly to burn fragrant oils that are often not even sold at the shop. It is a glass tube with a larger bulb at the end, which appears bubble-like, thus the name
°°°°beyond one: what could possibly come after "on a good one"? Wonder no more
•stolie: a stolen car
••jiggler: a key, usually shaven to trick the tumblers of a car's ignition, used in the stealing of vehicles
•••work: slang for drugs. This term is typically only used in the heroin and meth crowds
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