The Tips are Where It's At

I was telling the man that I didn't think he should be doing this kind of job, hanging around with these kinds of people. He was a tall lanky Polish looking caucasian, with short cropped hair and a slight but perpetual forward stoop, as if it his head was too heavy for his body and was continually overbalancing him. Even now as he stood talking to me, he looked down at the pavement.

"I have to do it because tips are where it's at," he said to me. "Tips are were all the money is. Without tips there's nothing really. You got nothing. So I have to do it this way," he said with a sort of dejected defiance.

I looked around at all the widely spaced cars spread out on the pavement. Here, space was plentiful and cheap. No need to be frugal with space. In the dark night, I couldn't see much beyond the pavement platter of cars, but I had the feeling that south western style desert surrounded us with sand, cactus, and the occasional outcrop of weathered sandstone. Above me towered a covered carport type of construction, similar to those you find at gas stations. Several flood lights were strung on its edges, attracting clouds of whining insects.

A cluster of men were assembled around one of the cars. Sniggering and drinking, they lounged against the car or the carport, some of them staggering at times to keep upright. They were a surly bunch. Disagreements flared up regularly intermixed with ringing raucous laughter.

Eventually, one of the men threw a shot glass at another's feet and exploding glass shards sparkled in the reflected light. Angry and confused, the victem threw his own glass at the car. Just then, the man I had been talking with earlier stalked into the middle of the group and demanded to know what was they were doing to his car. Behind him, one of the drunk men calmly picked up a long handled axe and expertly swung it over his head and struck down with a sick thunking noise directly onto the back of the car owner's neck.

The scene changed. It was daytime now as I gazed on a small house with a peaked tar gravel roof. Near the chimney, a man cowered on this roof, attempting to hide. The cops had already seen him be he pretended not to hear their shouts to come down. Eventually, they put ladders on the side of the red wood house and reached up to the man's leg and pulled him down.

He did not resist. In fact, he relaxed. The chase was over and there was something he wanted to say. "It was Wayne SoandSo (I forget the actual last name he used)," he said without any prompting. He had wanted to say it all along but he hadn't wanted to get himself implicated. But now that he was already caught, he could finally get it off his chest with confidence. He wanted the real murderer to be known. Everyone knew Wayne anyway and nobody was surprised. He would be easy to find. The only question was, would the charges stick?

Crime and Punishment

I am a man sleeping on a large hunk of burnt orange colored foam about the size of a bed. My goal is to travel out of body and attempt to gather information needed for an investigation of a crime. This is an experiment. We don't know if it will work. But I feel my mind beginning to shift into another state and then I begin to see something.

Now I am a woman in a short skirt bent over a table talking to a man and a woman. They are sitting in what looks like a restaurant, each on opposite sides of a table, settled into booths with high backings that give this area a small feeling of privacy even though the rest of the place is crowded. They are sitting far from the aisle, near the window. Because I am standing in the aisle, I have to bend way over the table to talk to them quietly, but I like doing this. My butt sticks out and I hope this will draw the attention of any men in the room because the feeling of being sexy and desirable pleases me.

We three are guilty of a crime that involved murder and finances and now we are hoping we won't get caught. I am scared but at the same time, the thrill of conspiracy excites me. I am enjoying the feeling of comradery I have towards the man. I also experience inklings of sexual tension and desire for him but I know that it would be unwise to spend too much time with him while they are still investigating our crime. I banter with the man, more for fun than out of necessity. We should not be talking, but I figure a little bit won't hurt and it makes me feel better.

I hear him say to me, "I heard about your upcoming eye surgery." We say several more things and then he says, "I guess you could get your father to take you all around." The last statements hangs in the air because we both know my father is old and infirm and would find such a job difficult.

I am talking mostly with the man but across from him sits a woman who is a lapdog wall flower. She doesn't say much and she doesn't think much other than what people tell her to think. She is also scared, but unlike me, she deals with it by withdrawing into herself. She deals with life moment by moment. Her personality is almost nonexistant and she is timid and so she is quiet. I barely think about her. She's a nonissue.

For his part, the man has a handsome but otherwise ordinary appearance, a light weight light colored jacket, and brown hair. He is trim of build and medium of height and likes to stand with his hands stuck in his pockets. He chats with me now but his attitude towards me has shifted considerably in recent days. I don't realize this but although before the crime he thought of us as partners, now abruptly he is looking at me as a liability and something out of his control. He does not like anything out of his control and he now ponders how convenient it would be if I were out of the picture. He smiles at me while he is trying to think of how to best get rid of me. His nature is pure Machiavellian.

And the scene starts to break up. My concentration is returning to the waking world and I decide this is good. Any longer and I would start to lose concentration and forget my experiences. I wake up again on the burnt orange foam. I struggle to remember details of the experience despite how difficult it is to remember from such an altered state of mind. But I am pleased. We won't know if this information will be useful or even accurate, but at least I was able to mentally travel and come back with information that seems interesting. I get up off the bed, shake the sleep from my mind, and consider what I should do next on this day. I take a few steps.

And then the scene starts to break up. I now wake up on my real bed. I am a bit confused. I struggle to remember details of the experience despite how difficult it is to remember from such an altered state of mind. I have had another experience but I don't feel like this one is interesting enough for the blog. It's not like the others. I don't think I will post it but I write down the information anyway in case it might be important. Later in the day, I think about it more, change my mind, and write up the story.