"It started when we were little kids. Free spirits, but already tormented by our own hands, given to us by our parents. We got together and wrote on desks and slept in laundry rooms near snowy mountains, and slipped through whatever cracks we could find. Minds altered, we didn't falter in portraying hysterical and tragic characters in a smog filled universe. We loved the dirty city, and the journeys away from it. We had not yet been or seen our friends, selves, chased tails round and round in downward spirals, leaving a trail of irretrievable, vital life juice behind. Still, the brothersbloodcomradespartnerfamilycuz was impenetrable and we lived inside it, laughing with no clothes. And everything experimental till death was upon us, in our face, mortality. And lots of things seemed futile then, but love and music can save us, and did. While the giant grey monster grew more poisonous and volatile around us, jaws clamping down and spewing ugly shit around. Nothing is the same, so we keep moving. We keep moving." –Anthony Kiedis, "Deep Kick"
I once saw a commercial for the U.S Marines where a man asked "If someone wrote a story about your life, would you read it?"
And my honest, humble reply would be "hell yes".
It's not that I think I'm cool or badass. If anything I'm nothing but a pissy, whiney little bitch with expensive taste in chocolate. But one thing is for sure, drama and danger have dogged me throughout my life like herpes on a hooker. Did I ask for it? No. Would I change it if I could?... I'd have to think on that one.
Quite honestly, the thought of growing up in an apple pie-peaceful nuclear family sickens me. Perhaps I'm just jealous of the fact that some people can go through their entire lives bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, their greatest hardship being the death of their pet hamster. Or more likely, I've become addicted to the adrenaline of dizzying car chases and living a pen stroke away from my demise. The red and blue flash of police sirens, the bullets whizzing through my hair. They're like heroin to me. For whatever reason, God has graced my life with the sweet gift of illicit serendipity.
Maybe that's why I've always hated Near, he's a child prodigy. Not just Near, but all child prodigies. They never have to work for anything they have, never have to struggle to survive. They just sit back and let it all come to them, let life beg them to help them breath and thrive and succeed. That's not a life. I'd rather be a vegetable in a coma, fighting for every heart beat, than a child prodigy. In a way, I pity them. They will never know the self satisfaction of a hard day's work, nor the exhilaration of living a life that they have created for themselves. Instead, they simply drift through life without challenge, like an extremely intelligent zombie. As Matt would put it, it's like playing a video game on the easiest setting possible. Sure, you get through each level with no hassle, and there's the smug, megalomaniacal satisfaction of being the strongest player in the game. But what happens when you win too quickly? After the game is over, there is no victory prize or bonus level. God isn't there with a silver plaque and angelic choruses. There is nothing, and you are left dazed and empty, wondering where the hell your life went.
Despite all the close run ins I've had with death, I can honestly say that I don't want to die. It's not that I'm afraid to; it's just that I have too much unfinished business, too many things to check off my list before I finally kick the can. I've stared mortality in the face on many occasions, but never once have I felt fear. It's more of a bracing feeling, kinda like that split second in the air after you flip off your bike. You know it's gonna hurt, you know that ground's gonna hit you hard, but you don't have time to be afraid. All you have time to do is instinctually brace yourself and think "Oh shit, this is it". It's not until a few moments after that you recover from shock, and the severity of the situation hits you. Then you freak out and babble like a monkey on crack.
That's why I'm writing this. Because I've had too many incidents like that, too many incidents where I've thought "Damn, I hope I'll be remembered for being something more than a leather-clad douche bag with a gun in his crotch". I'll have you know, it's an interesting series of events and mishaps that have led me to become a leather-clad douche bag with a gun in his crotch. Perhaps if I write them down, someone will understand how I've become the person I am today, and maybe even shed a wee tear of sympathy for me.
Or maybe they'll tear off the pages and use it for toilet paper.
Either way, I've tried my hardest to be the bard for those whose great deeds (and not so great deeds) have gone unsung. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, refer to my previous notes on the L.A BB murder cases. I'll truly be heart broken if that ends up as toilet paper. You can scoff at my less than orthodox chronicles, but L was a great man whose tale deserves a much more literate hand than my own. It's a shame that I, of all people, am one of the last surviving individuals who knew L as more than just a voice behind a computer screen. The only other is the very man who killed him, and I think he'd be less than kind with his recollections of him. So to whatever poor soul has the misfortune of stumbling upon this journal (most likely the coroner) allow me to introduce myself. I am a gangster, and I am an orphan. I am a killer, and I am a lover. I am the alpha dog of the underground, and I am the forsaken child standing in the rain. I am Mihael Keehl, and this is my story.