Book 1 – The Lo-Tech Hobo Hero and the Mysterious Conspiracy of Evil Killer Shits

This is probably not going to be the title.
I like it as a working title though. It’s descriptive.

This is a Sci Fi/Fantasy/conspiracy thriller
or not
I think “thriller” would probably be exaggerating.

My problem is right now that some of the ideas in this book are linked in with another one, but they are about different things, they just intersect a bit.
I don’t think I could merge them into one novel.
but who knows.

I believe this book will play out non chronologically.
Meaning I may write later chapters earlier and arrange them sequentially afterwards.

Yes I was listening to Battlescar a lot when  started the typing.

Most of this storyline has been in development for over 4 years.

Chapter 1 – Only Quarters for Meals…

He had been very hungry. For a long time. She had been nice.

He was never a beggar, didn’t sit like the other poor people near the liquor store with their hands out, trying to make enough for more. He never liked that. Begging. Bad for your soul. It was better to be hungry for a few hours more. He was always able to find enough to eat for a day just by looking. There was no need to collect sticky cans and bottles, or begging. Sell me your pity for a coin and I will give you my pride for even less, that’s what it seemed to him.

He followed her slowly through the blocks. He knew where she was being led, so he didn’t hurry. Collecting larger cigarette butts from the dry ground as he watched her skirt or shoes or hair from half a block away. He had a couple of hours yet, and he didn’t want her to get suspicious of him, appearing so far from where they had first met. He stopped in the shade of an awning and ripped apart his collection of cigarette pieces, depositing the precious tobacco in one palm while ripping each butt apart. He adds some pot from a non-name sandwich baggie, just a pinch. A nicotine stained thumb and forefinger curls the rolling paper into a spliff, and he uses his last match to light it. As he exhales he starts walking again, watching her cross at the light. Blowing his smoke upward to avoid hitting a woman walking by, he slips down the street.

It’s late afternoon turning evening soon, a few hours before the club will even open. They will take her to the bridge first, next to the club. He doesn’t mind waiting. There are many places near the bridge to sit, and he has a two tall cans of beer in his pouch, as well he has almost a full gram of pot crumbles left, and there are 10 more blocks to gather cigarette butts through. He snags another cadillac sized butt from in front of one of the last 3 jazz clubs in the city, and pushes through a crowd of people picking their vegetables for the evening from a market stall.

There are so many pretty girls out today. He watches their beautiful bodies swoosh past him, thin spring summer dresses to complement a hot day. He is invisible to them, chainsmoking, stained, filthy. He tries to keep clean, but there is only so much he can do right now, with nothing. He doesn’t bother with trying  to flirt with them. They are mostly people in search of money, and he has none of it. Conversation skills must be backed up with cash.

She hadn’t cared.

He had been sitting on a curb in the park, thinking. She had offered him a sandwich and gave him a toonie. He hadn’t been begging, but he thought she could feel how hungry he was. He was about to leave as she unwrapped her sandwich across the path about 20 feet. He couldn’t watch people eat on an empty stomach, it made him feel like a dog under the table. He started walking down the path. She stopped him by calling out “hey” and shoved half a sandwich at him. “I have another one”.

He said thanks and gave her a smile. She had really beautiful brown eyes. A normal person, not all covered in makeup, brunette. She had a slight bit of wispy whiskers under her nose. Colorful comfy clothes. She moved very quickly and fluidly, producing a coin from a little hand sewn bag. “Here”. He almost said no, but he could feel as she dropped the purse on its string that she had a few of those. Her friend arrived at the edge of the park and she waved. He said thank you very much and walked over to towards the washroom buildings on the other side of the park, grateful for the interruption, he was too hungry to talk, and he didn’t really want to have someone watch him as he wolfed down the sandwich, trying very hard to chew it instead of swallowing it whole. He normally did well, but he hadn’t found much to eat in the dumpster that morning.

He went and bought a couple of tall cans, with the toonie she had given him, and the one he had had in his pocket, then had gone back to the park to sit.

Chapter 2 – The Fist

He could remember when he had found the Fist, yet he could not remember exactly when.

He remembered a time when he did not have it. Even five years ago he couldn’t remember having it.

Drunk, he was meditating. Smoking a spliff. He had the tibetan zim incense he’d splurged four bucks on and four cans of hi test left. He’d already polished off two tall cans of 8% before he’d started the six-pack. Just the way he liked it. Fuck asceticism.

In the other way of seeing he is not in a room smaller than a jail cell with no furniture, sitting on the floor, smoke curling up.

There, he is standing. It is a field. A battlefield. Bodies everywhere. Armour. Shields. Nothing is moving. The blood is dry. There are no carrion feeders or smoke. Two banners across the field hang limply down with no wind to move them. The sun is obscured by a reddish overcast extending to dark grey. His hair is very long, with string intricately woven on the ends of something like thin dreadlocks, dirty blonde.

The Fist is on his right hand. Nothing else moves as he pans his view. Rolling hills. Unfamiliar grass. He doesn’t recognize any markings. He has never been to this place in his real life, but who he is here, standing, has lived his whole life there. There is a hammer made of stone and carved wood leaning against his leg, head on the ground. There is no blood on the Hammer. He clenches the Fist and looks at it. The Fist mourns as much as he does, but he is hard, not weeping. Dry. Like the blood.

Then he is sitting in his room again, reaching for another beer. There are tears on his face, streaming into his mouth.

The Fist remains, invisible.

Chapter 3 – Greasing the Wheels

They sat under the bridge in a tight little group, pulling out their beers and settling in.

Behind them and to the side he sat on a parking cement bumper at the back of the lot which extended from the base of the bridge to the street. He  was obscured from the road by a cement base of a parking lot light post.The club wouldn’t be open for two more hours.

He had his bag, which he had pulled out of it’s stashed spot, and in it was one final toonie.He could drink the two cans in his bag and still buy another one using the deposit from the two empties. So he would sit and watch.

He smoked another spliff and considered booting up the laptop, but there was no wifi near the bridge, and he really didn’t want to be distracted. Things could happen fast here. It wasn’t the park.

Chapter 4 – Scar

The club wasn’t really his type of music, even if he had enough to actually pay the cover, never mind buying a drink. He could get a six pack and a two dollar cigar for what it cost to enter.