The Book of Time

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

Leo Tolstoy

During the bright morning light over the central complexes of the inner city, in the middle of the ravages of daily street crime and poverty, in the mid-way up the right-side of a building of a multiple-story public housing project, a destitute population prays for peace and prosperity while a single noisy and messy apartment lies at the end of a hall. In this one-bedroom unit on the twenty-first floor filled with dirty floors and walls covered in grime, loud hip-hop music blasts into the hallway from a boombox reminiscent of the 1980’s urban street culture. Strewn about the apartment are empty Chinese food containers, potato chip bags, soda and juice containers, and many alcoholic drink bottles including wine, beer, and spirits filling an overflowing garbage can.

“Baby” yells the deep voice of a small man under five feet tall, about four feet nine

inches, with a dirty brown trench coat and black wool knit cap sweating heavily under it as he

breathes heavily, a chubby round Latino with freckles and bad acne. He carries five shopping

bags filled with more bags of chips, containers of Chinese food, and soda, juice, and whiskey

bottles a wallet with a public assistance food stamps card sticking out falls out of his pocket onto

the dirty floor and he drops the bags nearby a dusty exercise bicycle in the middle of the living

room with no apparent rhyme or reason but an old couch under garbage bags of clothing, clean

and dirty, and loose clothes draped around with brand new digital television set at the far end of

the room playing X-rated movies.

“Destiny girl” yells the man having heard no response as he drops his coat and hat on the

pile of clothes on the couch while kicking off his dirty sneakers underneath it.

“Yeah honey, come here and bring the booze” yells a youngish woman from behind one

of two sliding wooden doors to two bedrooms.

“I thought you were passed out drunk again” uttered the man with a chuckle as he opened one of the doors and entered while holding and opening the bottle of spirits.

He entered into the room and sat upon a single queen-sized bed in the middle of a tightly fit bedroom with a single purple lightbulb on a lamp on the nightstand with eighties romance music blasting on the boombox near a bright neon lava lamp.

A strange buzzing noise filled the air as the man saw a sex-toy vibrator in the hand of the almost six-foot tall mocha-skinned Latina woman in underwear moaning while pleasuring herself on the bed and resting with unkempt and dirty bedsheets covered with clothes spilling over onto the floor completely invisible due to the high piles of clothes/

“Wow, you couldn’t wait for me” uttered the man as he stepped over with bare feet to jump onto the bed with the woman spread out with her arms and legs outward as she finished her masturbation and reached for the spirits bottle as she pushed herself up allowing the man to sit beside her against a make-shift headboard of a broken wooden closet door.

“What took you so long, Chaco?” said Destiny as she fluffed her reddish curly hair while

She guzzled from the gold liquor in the bottle and then passed it to him.

“Long line at the store” said Chaco. “Sorry, the man hassled me about using the welfare card for liquor again” as he took a swig from the bottle and passed it back to her.

“Price we pay for being broke-ass poor” replied Destiny hoarsely as she sipped the bottle.

“Rosa was out sick, complications with her tenth pregnancy” said Chaco sadly.

“Poor baby” said Destiny as she swallowed large gulps and passed the bottle to Chaco who put it on the nightstand as Destiny laid down out moaned and reached for the vibrator again.

“Destiny girl, baby” said Chaco in a low sentimental voice, “when are we going to get

busy? I can get you impregnated for that family we wanted before.”

“Fool, leave me alone” yelled Destiny inebriated, “I told you we am not got no room for kids and I am not giving up my whiskey… and beside you aren’t no good in bed, I told you, boo

Chaco… just let me get my toy!” She continued to squeeze the vibrator into her underpants while

She reached drunkenly for the bottle.

Chaco frowned sadly as he grabbed the bottle and placed it in her hands while he shook his head.

Destiny rose in bed to sip from it.

Chaco crawled out of bed and left the room as he quietly closed the door behind him.

Outside Chaco frowned and sighed heavily with his hands in his pockets as he noticed something that wasn’t there before, a little black book the size of an 8” by 10” picture frame was on the filthy floor over a pizza box from last month. He picked up the book and stared at it seeing the cover appear somewhat otherworldly. He shook his head knowing it was not there a moment ago when he entered… or was it? He shook his head repeatedly feeling the drunkenness ooze out of him as he heard his partner in crime moan in the bedroom to herself in between glugs of alcohol from her bottle. He began to turn the pages of the ominously blank-covered black book and saw images of words appear on the pages as he turned them covered in a golden hue of light. The black words surrounded by bright golden light appeared on each page as if magically typed one word at a time and continued as he turned each page until he got half-way through and stopped at the end of a page in the middle of the little black book. The light ceased for each word after a second on the page but continued forming new lit-up words as he turned each page. He stopped and shook his head in chagrin at the shock of the words before him in the middle of the page centered in the middle page of the little black book. He shockingly read the sentence aloud

“And Chaco and Destiny suffered horrible and painful deaths after winning $20,000 in lottery.”

Chaco dropped the book and screamed loudly. He turned to think Destiny would come running out of the bedroom, but he heard nothing, not even her moan and vibrator toy. He shook his head thinking she passed out drunk again. He bent over with a heavy sigh as his palms and brow perspired heavily. He reached for the little black book and picked it up looking at the page as he turned for it. He thumbed through the beginning of the book and summarized what he read. He sat and began to turn each page one by one.

Hours passed and Chaco turned to the bedroom thinking his beloved Destiny is a long drunken comma from the early morning drinking continued from the late-night binge drinking the night before and the night before that. He looked at the page concerning their untimely demise. He thought about the words on the pages that preceded it that he had now studied in depth and it discussed his and Destiny’s life together, how they met as kids in kindergarten, how they grew up together gangbanging in the neighborhood, getting involved with their first alcoholic drink and drugs in the clubhouse, and how they left high school together in their sophomore year and never turned back. The book knew everything about them, including how they had lost both their parents to gang violence in the inner city and how they both did a short prison term upstate for robbery and now their lives in the projects living on public assistance and their alcohol and drug addiction. The book was a testament to their lives together since childhood. He was shocked how it ended with their deaths in the middle but then he realized it was not finished. It dawned on him that the book still had more pages to write. He turned to the page where he left off and saw how they died in a car accident with the winning lotto ticket in their hands. He quickly began to turn the pages to the end of the little black book and saw the golden light fill the remaining pages as he turned them one by one. He looked on in delight until he got to the end of the little black book and when the lights stopped, he saw the final passage, “Justice often comes to those who seek to find their true passion and calling, the gift of heaven.”

The words “The End” appeared after the final passage and he closed the little black book. He thought to himself “what could that mean?” He reopened the book intending to read and study everything from the moment of their deaths to the end, but the door slammed open and Destiny looked at him with a deathful glare in her eyes. Her breath reeked of booze and eyes were bloodshot. Her delicate highlights were straggling and covered in sweat behind her. She held her arms out to the two doors as she had draped her silk bathrobe over herself and yelled at him with slurred speech, “we need more whiskey!”

Moments later Chaco and Destiny went outside of the apartment door dressed in jeans and blue denim shirts, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows and lace less dirty sneakers. Destiny tied a kerchief around her hair and clutched a paper bag with empty whiskey bottles.

Shortly thereafter in the downtown busy pedestrian street, cars honked and came to a screeching halt as people jaywalked and cursed back at them. Chaco and Destiny exited the 24-hour liquor store and convenience mart with Destiny having smiled as she carried a paperback filled with new whiskey bottles and Chaco nervously clutched the little black book in his left hand and a lotto ticket in his right hand.

“I can’t believe you encouraged me to buy this” said Chaco with a sentimental groan.

“Shut up, wuss” said Destiny. “More winnings mean more whiskey for us!”!

“I am not a wuss” says Chaco growing emotional with a sadness and almost teary grin.

“So be a freaking man and stop being so sensitive and almost crying because you’re

afraid. We need to survive, Chaco” screamed Destiny with wide-eyed drunken rage in her eyes,

“it’s just you and me now, no one else. We are all that we have. We got to trust and keep one

another safe. We will get what’s coming to us. I am not doing time again. We just going to have good times this time around” she yelled as they began to walk across a street.

Chaco nodded in response as he wiped his tears.

“Now I need more freaking drink” yelled Destiny. “Let’s get this done, Chaco. We got to act before it’s too late. It’s just you and me!” She yelled with spit from her mouth and curse words.

“Right, Destiny girl” said Chaco as he looked to the side as a big semi-tractor trailer approached them.

Destiny continued and uttered cursed words under her breath as she looked forward without look to the side of them.

Chaco looked forward as they entered the middle of the street and took one glance down at the little black book and the lotto ticket and then closed his eyes as he uttered with his final breath “I love you, Destiny!”

Within minutes police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances covered the scene as responders rushed to the bloody mess of the young couple taken away in their prime of life. Crowds gathered as the medical technicians moved the lifeless corpses onto gurneys for transport. A pair of workers and pedestrians chat nearby as they shook their heads in horror. “Poor people…!”

“I knew them” said the liquor store proprietor who walked over hunched with a cane and snarled over his greying whiskers and stubble while his wild hair waved in the wind. He spoke slowly and hoarsely with the hint of liquor on his breath. “I knew those two…. Ever since they got out of the joint, all they wanted was to move on. They couldn’t shake the monkey, but they wanted to move on. She couldn’t give up the drink trying to cover up the harshness she suffered but all he wanted was to move on and live an honest family life. They couldn’t meet eye to eye if you know what I mean. They didn’t communicate well. They thought they had all the time in the world but in the end, it was time that consumed them both. I guess they didn’t have the time.”

VOICEOVER: Time can be your best friend or your worst enemy, the choice is ultimately yours.

The End