Jack Brenner

He was the kind of man who could stand in the ocean and kill the tide; Who could move the mountains; He could drown the sun. Jack Brenner wasn't just a dangerous man- Jack Brenner was a God. The city broke under a relentless plague of ice, snow, sleet and any of other various unpleasantries. Mad winds howled agony like a monstrous beast caught in a trap- and it was. It was his trap. It was his game, and they all knew it. It was as simple as this city was cold.

Terminally stubborn street vendors had given in to the pounding wall of white. All that was to be found were drifts and banks, piles of snow and glassy smooth patches of ice lurking in wait for any unaware passerby. Large hulking work trucks spewed snow endlessly as they blinked and beeped their way through the city streets, for what little it was worth. The storm had hit the city like a drug, hard and fast, and was quickly taking over. The tall buildings had a cold menacing architecture- That was before the storm. Now they loomed high with cold menacing icycles - frozen swords of Damocles - big enough to knock a man unconcious or put a sizable dent into the hood of whatever car might be brave enough to pass. You couldn't even score a decent hit of Coc without fording two feet of snow to the sleazy motel where the dealers found residence when the streets where too unforgiving, even for them. Even then, the buildings were uninhabitable. A thermostat set to seventy degrees, long broken, left every room with a cold steril feeling. It was the same feeling it had known even in warmer days.

The place had a life, a deep twisted history and all the baggage that came with it. Maybe it wasn't the weather. Maybe it was the company it invited- the dealers, the addicts, the crooked cops, hookers, bums, hitmen, sharks, and the occasional out-of-towner who was down on his luck- who would, no doubt, regret the fact that he had ever left his big easy chair in front of the television, back where things were easy and life was simple. The lifeless cold didn't just waft through the place, it permeated the entire atmosphere- every corner, every closet, every backroom, and every hallway. Death was everywhere. It was in the wood. It whispered through the old copper pipes. It stuck to the tile and collected on your shoes, scraping, gritty as you walked. It was as much a part of the building as the foundation itself. Or maybe that's what it was.

Flickering neon screamed 'Paradise' into the snow filled district streets. That blinking red word vomited irony as much as anything and it burned just to look at it. Paradise Hotel was known by a different name on the street. House of Death. Casa de Muerte. It made all too much sense that one man was behind it all- behind the drugs, behind the sex rings, behind the guns and the contracts; An endless cycle of snuff, smutt, and smoke. It made all too much sense that Jack Brenner was that man. Jack Brenner was Death.

The name haunted me. It chased me. It ran me down and laughed in my face. Jack Brenner was a curse. I sat there in my car, feening, staring down the sign as if I had expected it to explode into a shower of glass and smoke at any moment. Paradise. Paradise. On. Off. On. Off. Paradise. A girl walked out.

She was freshly eighteen and wiser to the streets than most. Smoke rose from hand and mouth as she sucked and savoured a drag from some unnamed and pointlessly long menthol. The below freezing weather didn't seem to bother her, the icy snow melting on her skin. I didn't need any answers to justify what I saw. The miniskirt, the low cut sleeveless shirt that fell past her shoulders. It wasn't winter clothing- it was business apparel. I didn't need any answers because there weren't any questions. It was obviously intentional. It was intentionaly obvious.

An overweight thirty-something stepped out behind her. Greasy fingers grabbed at seductive smooth skin. She could shake her hips; She could bend and grind. It got her all the business she needed. The business was banging and the business was booming. They were all over each other indescretely right there on the street- she was advertising, he was parading. He touched her, she kissed him. It was one of those over-the-top open-mouth movie star kind of kisses. It was a proper send off for a less than proper transaction. All she really wanted to do was pay her bills. All she wanted was to go home to someplace a little warmer than the sneering, groping, streets. Home to a place a little less molested by the succubis bitch that was the city, or the indominable businessman that was Brenner.

I thought of my own daughter. I thought of where she would be in twelve years. It was hard to imagine that, had I just been anyone else, she might be in the same situation or that she might even be in it anyways, but sometimes, sometimes I couldn't stop imagining it. The more I tried, the harder it got, and the more I hated myself for it. For all of it. You've never wanted to put a bullet in your own head so bad.

Sometimes I thought that I might move- just pack everything up and skip town. It's not as though I didn't have a choice, or the funds. I had more money than I knew what to do with, but I was always trying to do something with it. Even now, I forget where the good and proper deals went south. I forget where it all got dirty. Sometimes I think that was the problem. It was in my veins; In my blood. Making money was a reflex, an instinct. I had done it all, done it all to death. I owned half the city and had the other half on a leash eating out of my hand.

I followed the girl home. Her business was none of mine, but the streets are killers and everyone could use an Angel to look out for them. That's what I told myself, at least. Deep down, though, I think I just liked the view. The warm smooth friction in the cold winter air.

I continued on half a block past her door before I heard the screaming. Perhaps the only thing less dangerous for her than a night on the streets alone was the father she came home to. Selling her body from dusk to dawn didn't compare to the hell I'd imagined she survived at home. I shuddered (** Jack doesn't shudder **) to think of what she faced coming home to that. Once I had been inside. The only thing locked in the house, spare the front door, was her bedroom. A place to be. It was sad. Sad, but not surprising.

I arrived at the corner of Faith and 52nd street- 'The long road'. I don't think anyone really knew why it had became that, beyond the obvious irony. The street was littered and shameless of bums and junkies. They lived off the refuse and the kindness of other people; They lived off the refuse. They were the fallen, the broken, the people that got sucked into the city, chewed up and spit out, like rotten meat through a grinder. Some of them just couldn't take it anymore - a high-office exec who lost a mil in some stock-hype gone wrong, a pizza delivery girl barely out of high school who got picked on just once too often - while others were genuinly crazy. The hungry sifted through piles of garbage while junkies cooked and concocted any number of homebrew drugs on the street curb. Anything that could get you high without killing you on the spot was viable merchandise. Half a cup of mouthwash or, if you were lucky an old aeresol or butane can, could get you a meal.

A short oriental man smiled toothlessly at me. He was already high off something and held a needle full of more. I watched as he shot it into his arm, the dark green liquid streaming from the syringe into his vein as he collapsed onto a pile of trash, either from complete ecstacy or death; I wasn't sure which and no one seemed to care.

I thought of my own addiction. I wasn't at the Paradise for the scenery. In the three years since my daughter's birth I'd tried to connect. Tried to find humanity in me through the city. I was here to save myself and all that I had got in return was hate. I'd come to the streets for something, I didn't know what, and there I was, stuck. Stuck in a trap I couldn't shake. I stared down the road. A vicious looking dog had chased some kid into an alley out of sight and all I could hear was screaming. There was a lot of that in this town. A lot of screaming.

Screams were an unclutter language. They didn't get clogged with pointless words. They never got over complicated. There was never any fine print. A scream shouted warning to the people (** Change this? Screams are subtle like chainswas/gunshot? **). Something was going down. Something bad. It was a loud and clear to stay away and yet, it was also a plea for help. There never was any. There were no Heroes here. There was no Clark Kent. No Peter Parker. Bruce Wayne was rotting in a back ally dumpster with a hole in his head and half his face painted against the wall behind him. That's what you got. You scream all you want and no white knight would ever charge to your rescue. Not even the boys in blue heeded the call. It was simple; Those high shrill primal squeaks meant danger brooding closeby. The kind of danger this city spawned wasn't anything that anyone wanted a part of.

Laughing scared me the most, though. Laughing at me. It had become a custom of the city in my presence. Everything was always laughing, laughing at me. The bums on Faith and 52nd laughed at me. The abusive alcoholic father of a whore laughed at me. The dealers at Paradise were all laughing at me. I walked back towards my car, not that it was going to get me very far. A cop passed slowly in his cruiser, nodding solemly. He was laughing at me. I continued. A prostitute shouted promises of unforgettable evenings at me, for the right price. She was laughing at me. I continued. A junkie stared from an alley, whispering incoherent jibberish about the Kingdom of God and Salvation. He was laughing at me. There was no salvation. Death rides a pale horse; I drove a black Camaro. There was no salvation. I had started all this and there was no salvation.

I thought about ending it. Fourty-five caliber lead-poisoning was a common solution to problems for people in this city. I created a monster, this city, and it was finally coming for me. I had finally let down my guard and it had gotten in my head. I could hardly handle it anymore. When it was all done and over, I knew what was going to be said. I knew how people felt- how they really felt, even the most loyal. After the earth was laid flat and the flowers had wilted away it would all come down to the same solid message, no matter how you figured it; It was as simple as this city was cold:

Rot in Hell; Jack Brenner, 1955 - 2003