Joey Cloudy online

Isaiah Jones versus the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey)

The Thirteen Percent Solution: The Other Side of Eros

“I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me, and I don’t know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.”

-Patrick Batman

“If Hunter S. Thompson’s lawyer had been reincarnated as a 6 foot tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Southern California crotch-rocket-riding, punk rocker lesbian brawler instead of a drug addled Samoan, she would have been reborn as Penelope Stockard Bedowitz…”, the legal counsel for the last seven years of Isaiah Leonardo Jones.

Penelope, or “Penny,” was on papers by the time she was 13 when she was convicted as a juvenile. Before she and Isaiah met, in her junior year of college, she had already served time as a minor for an attempted murder case that her lawyers had to work like mad to negotiate with the prosecution to reduce the charges to simple assault. The conservative judge agreed, much to the prosecutor’s chagrin, under the caveat that she would avoid serving 7 years in a juvenile criminal holding facility by voluntarily entering a psychiatric ward for examination, observation, and counseling for a year.

Her defense team leapt on the deal. The boy she assaulted still looks as if he had a stroke to this day and has a bit of a speech impediment as a result of the skull fracture. After serving a year in the upscale mental institution, where she spent most of her time exercising and answering the obviously in need of counseling and put on a watch list to be kept away from children, shrinks creepy Freudian sexual innuendo-laced questions about her mother.

To her, it just seemed like a place full of suited, uniformed pedophiles to indulge their sick oedipal fantasies under the guise of aiding troubled youth. They were as bad as the Catholic clergy. It was in the end those in power who were aroused by the children’s confessions; secular or clerical, they were cut from the same unholy cloth. After playing the game for a year, the doctors released Penelope with a clean bill of health and a recommendation that she take up a sport to channel her anger, while continuing to see a counselor weekly until she reached age 18, and with that, her record was sealed and eventually expunged.

Penelope Stockard Bedowitz grew up as an only child of Sylvester and Merriam Bedowitz in Beverly Hills, raised by staff at the hotel where she lived in the penthouse suite with her nanny, Marta. Her parents, both investment bankers, traveled around the world partying with billionaires, A-list actors, and neo-liberal politicians as a key part of maintaining their connections in the financial consultant world.

This resulted in her Tapatío nanny, Marta Alejandra Xochitl, and the rest of the hotel’s Latino staff looking after her for most of her childhood. Penny grew up thinking she was Mexican, and Marta was her Madre until she started school. She spent so much time with the Beverly Hills Hilton’s Spanish-speaking staff that English is her second language.

Aeon looked at the tall black man beside her, a mischievous smile on her lips. That’s why she speaks Spanish with that Norteño” accent. I’ve never met her biological parents in the 10 years that we’ve known her. But while we were attending the University of San Diego, the girl would drive to Guadalajara to visit her Madre Marta every chance she got. Aeon said as they walked across the boardwalk, through the plaza, before continuing down the cobblestone street that led up the hillside to their hotel. Aeon liked Cuba, but she could see why Penny did not. It was still a slower pace of life here, and Penny was a big city girl.

She stopped to take a few pictures with her iPhone’s camera of the gigantic church, her eye fascinated by the limestone walls of the 5-story 18th-century cathedral’s baroque architecture, ‘La Catedral de la Virgen María de la Concepción Inmaculada de La Habana’.

We rode our motorcycles down there several times while I was in college. It’s only a day’s drive by car from the University of San Diego to Guadalajara. But our average speed of 120 mph we got there in half that time on our bikes. On holiday weekends, we would hop on our motorcycles and take a road trip down from San Diego to Guadalajara to visit her while I was in school in San Diego.

I thought your parents refused to buy you a bike? Isaiah asked, recalling how both of their parent felt about motorcycles.

I kept pestering Pen until she caved in and taught me how to ride her motorcycle once we got to California, and when I told her I was going to get a part-time job to buy my own, she bought me a 2021 Suzuki GSX-R 750 100th Anniversary Edition for my birthday.

I bet Alexander and Barbera were pissed. huh?

I wouldn’t know. Aeon replied with a shrug. I never told them.

Isaiah looked at Aeon, genuinely surprised she would keep anything like that from her parents. Especially her father, Alexander. Despite her tough chick facade, she was actually close to both of her parents. and almost a cliche, Daddy’s girl.

The mischievous smile disappeared, her tone now suddenly serious. I worry about her. I don’t know if it’s a chemical imbalance or if she is a genuine sociopath. I hate using psychobabble to describe people. Aeon sighed. Sometimes I’m afraid she’s going to go too far. “When we were kids, we used to blow off her antics as ‘white people’ with a laugh, but now that I’m older I’m beginning I think that she might need professional help before she hurts someone or gets hurt.” You’re the one who’s gone to war, but she’s the one I find myself having to worry about.

Izzy looked at the thickset caramel colored woman, her afro tied back with an ivory scarf, the scarlet cat-eye glasses framing her humongous brown eyes.

“If you think she needs help, then she needs help. He squeezed her hand as they walked, Just tell me what you need me to do. She’s been my best friend next to you since college.”

“I’m a bi-lesbian,” she confessed, looking at Isaiah. “I’ve known this all my life, and I’ve always known you were the one. I never fantasize about sex with men except you. Our bodies have always responded to each other’s. We began each day exercising before our studies, and I always looked forward to hand-to-hand training the most.

It wasn’t just because I liked kicking your ass every morning for ten years. I liked the intimacy of combat, the way our bodies collided. My favorite way to get you into a lock arm bar was to wrap my legs around your neck, press my crotch against your carotid artery. The feeling of your pulse as I pulled back on your arm, grinding my clit against your trapezoid muscles, neck, shoulder, and arm as you writhed your body about against my crotch, I would squeeze my thighs harder, holding your arms to your torso, pinning them between your body and my body, the harder you tried in vain to escape.

The more aroused I became, the hardness of your arm its heat radiating through my vulva. It was nearly impossible to hold on as I came in pulsing waves with your arm sliding against my pussy. I have always found combat arousing. Especially with you. That’s why I accidentally broke your arm when we were 11; I still feel awful about that. Your body responds to mine the same way. I could feel you through your gi as we grappled—you were into it too, we’re both hardwired for this. You free me to be what I truly am without judgment or guilt. With you, I can take off the mask of humanity.”

Aeon smiled. “That’s why I never worry about us. The rest of the world has gone insane multiple times in my short lifetime. I worry about a lot of things, but not us. You’re an introvert, and I’m a textbook extrovert. I’m good for your mental and physical health as well as your social life. When you have functions to attend, I love escorting you. You like to listen, and I like to talk. We’re peanut butter and fresh popped popcorn together.”

“Is that any good, or are you joking?” Isaiah asked.

“It’s no joke,” Aeon replied. “Penny used to serve it all the time when we lived with your Grandpa Hector and Ariella in San Diego on their boat while we were in college, and even after I finished college. Her Mexican nanny, Marta, used to make it for her when they watched movies. Let’s go buy some popcorn and peanut butter. We can sneak down to the marina and cook it on the boat while Penny and Sybil party at the villa.”

“Naomi left a message while we were diving,” Isaiah announced. “We’re invited to dinner tonight. She’ll send a car to the villa at 8 this evening.”

“Oh, what’s the occasion? We need to know the dress code,” Aeon offered.

“It’s casual. I’m certain she knows we’re sailors,” Isaiah guessed, though not entirely sure.

“Should I message her and ask?” he offered.

“I would appreciate that, darlin’,” Aeon drawled.

He messaged Naomi, and she replied immediately: “Your clothes for the evening have already been delivered to your rooms and are in the suite’s walk-in closet. winking smiley face emoji. See you tonight at ‘ETEMENANKIs’”

“How in the hell does this woman know our sizes?” Aeon asked. Her Mississippi accent thickened with anger.

“FRS/Facial Recognition Software, Google search, ask MOTHER, every one of us has been interviewed multiple times. There’s a wiki page for each of us, except Sybil. I’ve never counted the number of AI-generated deep fake images and videos, as well as legitimate newspaper articles and books about us. Every form of media has some scrappy bit of information about you. I try to live my life as far away from the cyber-cesspool of social media as possible. I pretend I don’t see the Ghanaian interior department agents following me at every port.” Izzy shrugged and adjusted the Panama hat again. Not being used to anything being on his head, he fidgeted with it all day.

“I know things, Aeon grinned, like you hate going out, but you always have fun with me and Penelope,” Aeon said. “I like the way it makes me feel, being useful to you by being myself. I get a kick out of watching you figure stuff out. You go after what you want, whether it’s solving an equation or sailing. When you want it, you go after it. I get along with all ten of your wives. We have been talking every day since we got engaged. Your parents love me. My parents love you, and we know they love each other a little too much.”

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

― Hunter S. Thompson

“Izzy, Penny’s my best friend, and I love her, but sometimes I think she’s completely insane. I fool around with her because she’s smart, funny, and great in bed. But she’s also dangerous, not to us, but to others. She can be a menace.”

Aeon paused, thinking back. “She fractured a kid’s skull when she was 13 for bullying an effeminate boy. After she got out of the mental institution, her parents sent her to the Academy. It’s the same one Granny Culpepper sent your mother to when she was the same age. It’s a cross between a prep school and a prison. Pennys has always been a big girl. She won the SoCal all-state girls junior heavyweight MMA championships four years in a row in high school. They have a trophy case full of her awards for fighting. I think it helped her control her temper, having a place to put all that anger. She’s never been a small girl, her wrist bones are nearly twice as thick as mine—and she still looks like a femme pussycat. My type of girl.”

Aeon laughed, remembering the biker rally they attended in college. “We would ride out to these biker rallies. They weren’t all Nazis; these were alternative lifestyle bikers, real California freaky people. Your lawyer starts another barroom brawl on the second day there. But no one is going all out; they’re just big kids having fun, wrestling, and horsing around.

I’m sitting at the bar watching the rumble when your lawyer goes full Mike Tyson and bites a guy’s nose off. They didn’t call the cops, but they kicked us out of the rally. The scary part is she was stone-cold sober. I’m a sadist, and even I wouldn’t do that for sport. I’m bent in the same way, but I can keep it under control. She never knows when to walk away. After that, I realized she wasn’t just rowdy, but something was broken inside her. She rarely talks about her life before we met her, I heard my momma say, she ran away and lived with drug dealers for a few years when she was a kid. Aeon said, trying to recall the rest.

Izzy laughed. Barbara was talking about my momma, not Penny. He grinned. She was gone for almost 2 years before they found her living in LA with a Crip drug dealer named Kool-Aid she had met the year before in Englewood. He traded her for her weight in product to a Mexican pilot who lived in Guadalajara near the lake. He owned a cabin there, but Momma and Julio lived on the lake on his sailboat. When the Mexican cops busted him at the cabin, they didn’t know he owned a sailboat boat so she sailed around the lake for a few weeks alone until the food got low. Then she decided to make her way back to LA.

She makes it across the border, no problem, she’s a redheaded white girl with a passport, no one gives her a second look. Once she gets across the border, she calls the only person she knows in LA, Kool-Aid. He sends his cousin’s girlfriend down and picks her up, and she moves back in with him, except by the time she returned from Guadalajara, he had moved to Long Beach. When he got busted, they busted her too because she was in the house. Isaiah grinned, and that is how my momma ended up enlisting in the Navy to avoid prison. Izzy grinned. The judge gave her the option of kiddy prison until she was old enough for real prison, several years, or join the military.

Wow, I had no idea. Aeon shook her head in disbelief. Helena’s so different now. Your mom is so serene. I assumed she was always a sorta’ flower power neo-hippy chicha that she is now. I knew she had to go to rehab, but I never talked to her about it. I was just a kid.

Yeah, you’ve never seen it, but she has a mean streak just like you and Granny Culpepper, and like her mom, she hides it with love bombs.

Damned. How long until we reach Baja? She asked.

Between 6 to 8 weeks until we reach LA so that is a week’s sail from LA. Why do you ask? You got a hot date in Baha?

When we get there, Penny and Sybil are going to pick up our bikes and meet us in LA.” Aeon said as they walked.

“Sybil doesn’t know how to ride a motorcycle,” Isaiah replied.

Aeon laughed. “I have a hunch she can operate any piece of machinery expertly.”

“We’d better start heading toward the hotel,” Isaiah said, adjusting his white straw Panama hat before donning his Ray-Bans. “Pen is religious about feeding and walking Mau Mau. I’m sure their company is gone by now. I’m not in the mood to make new friends and meet new people at the suite.”

“I know, that’s why I made sure you came with me diving,” Aeon smiled. “Otherwise, I might have just let you sleep in. Love you, nerd.” She kissed him on the tip of his nose before they left the boardwalk, heading towards the hotel on foot in the afternoon sun.

“I think I may know the albino’s father,” Isaiah said as they walked. “Or maybe his grandfather.”

“Who is the boy’s father?” Aeon asked.

Isaiah looked into her eyes, placing his hands gently on her shoulders. “Dead Eye Polly. The boss of bosses. A myth, a ghost, the boogeyman’s nightmare. The most terrifying psychopath I have ever encountered.”

“How do you know this gangster, Izzy?” Aeon asked.

“Naomi introduced us. Izzy replied with a shrug, adjusting the tilt of the Panama’s brim. She was in his employ when we first met in the Bahamas.”

Aeon had more questions, but decided it would be better to talk with Izzy later in private. She wrapped her arms around him, giving his waist a quick hug, then turned on her heels and began walking towards the hotel to get ready for dinner with his gangster moll girlfriend Naomi Galetea Cabala.”

Did you know the waitress on the graveyard shift at the Metro diner kept a wireless remote control for a pair of stainless-steel vibrating Ben Wa balls she kept in each hole while she took our orders and served our food?”

Aeon looked at him for a long moment, trying to see if he was serious or not, before she erupted with laughter. It was true. Aeon loved eating at the 1950s diner whenever she served them after they stumbled in trashed from a night of club hopping on the Deep Ellum Lower Greenville strip. No matter how high, rowdy, and obnoxious we all were, Ola Mae Anouilh always looked so…serene.

[Note 1.“I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing.”

― Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary

“There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”

― Hunter S. Thompson

“In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”

― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers… and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.

Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.”

― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.”

― Hunter S. Thompson]

-about the author JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.