Gutierez Goes to Heaven

There had been times when he thought that if he ever ended up on the street, he would turn to crime, using his "highly creative mind" to commit the perfect crime. As the years went by, thanks to modern technology it had become virtually impossible to just walk into a bank with a gun, get the cash and walk out again, and he had started to fantasise about the perfect hi-tech crime. In his dreams he was a cyber villain, a Playstation hero, a character people would write books about and dedicate web-sites to.

But the days that an alcoholic, hooked on dodgy drugs, could become an admired romantic cult figure were over. How did that song go a few years back? "I’d never thought you’d be a junkie because heroin is so passé". The truth was that nobody was interested in a miserable degenerated idiot/genius no matter how talented he was.

These and similar thoughts would continuously mill through Gutierez’s head, like an endless movie on a perpetual film reel. There would be an intermission (call it stupor) sometimes, but usually the movie would keep on running, without a beginning or an end. It was slowly driving him crazy, and he knew it, but there was little he could or wanted to do about it. At times he would deliberately slip into a role, become part of the movie in his head, playing himself or a character based upon himself, but scripted by someone who didn’t particularly like him, or who had just created a walk-on role for him to fill up the scenery, and in the credit rolls, they would invariably misspell his name.

He was in an unhealthy frame of mind, and in some rare moments of lucidity he worried about it, but he would usually drown the unwelcome and unsettling thoughts in booze, just as he was planning to do today. Home is 8 cans of beer in the fridge and a bottle of Smirnoff Black Label in the freezer.

He crossed the road to avoid a pub where he still owed money. There was no traffic, the only noise was the laughter coming from the pub and the rain hitting the street. He had nearly reached the opposite side of the road, when he was hit on the shoulder, and he almost fell over. "Who the fuck…?" Nobody there. A black wet road, leafless trees and parked cars looking hostile in the rain, but not a living soul. "Oh come on, who is it?" No answer, the wind screaming round his ears now. He wasn’t in a condition to waste much thought on it. He had seen many things in his life, he wasn’t scared easily. There had always been a little twist in his line of thought, not because of the booze or the drugs, but something that had been there from when he was a little boy. He reacted differently to things than most people. Things that were appalling to others fascinated him, and thinks that fascinated him appalled others. This shone through in his sense of humour, which was mostly misunderstood and usually offended peo ple. It was a way of perceiving things that had grown with him, it had become a state of mind he was comfortable with. It enabled him to say: "Sorry, this is my world, please fuck off."

It started to rain even harder, and the reality of it all made him want to get home, to find comfort in that first sip from the first of many cans of lager. He started looking for his keys, forgetting he’d lost them, when he was struck again, this time on the forehead. It didn’t hurt, but the blow all but knocked him to the ground. " What the…?" He turned around. "Who is it? Where are you?"

Someone started shoving him.