Robert E. Brown. The 2 Street Chronicles

Bad Reunion
Part II. Soldiers of God

Ten minutes of silence was broken by the sounds of his return. If you didn't know better you would have thought a mob of rioters with bullhorns were walking up the street. But it was just Joe and two friends who had happened by. When I saw who he brought back with him, my heart began to race. I had to swallow a deep chill in order to put my game face on. Those spidey senses were ringing off the chart.

Joe introduced Mick and Monk (I'm not joking) Mick was a skinny bald guy who looked like he had dressed up as GG Allen for halloween. He was decked out in leather biker jacket and spiked bracelets. He didn't have eyebrows and had a long thin catfish whiskers hanging from the sides of his chin. His spindly little hands were covered with tattoos of finger bones and he had a small swastika tattoo right under his right eye and a black tear drop under the left. He had just finished a 3 year stint for possession. Monk was even bigger than Joe with a long braided ponytail and a mountain man's beard. He didn't have the swastika tattoo, but trumped Mick with a row of three black tear drops. Monk had just gotten out of prison after serving 12 years. They said the guy he killed was a priest who had tried to fondle him, hense the name. (I know, it doesn't make much sense) The two of them had been released at the same time and had been on the town for three days straight. Joe had spotted them stumbling by the bar and chased them down.

The three of them looked completely mismatched sitting togeather. All three achieving a perfect stereotype for the look they were going for. But as is often the brutal truth about so many stereotypes, they were whole heartedly the real deal.

Mick sat tiny and mute in between the hulking Joe and Monk, both of whom bellowed a mile a minute at each other like two pro wrestlers giving pre match speeches. Monk felt compelled to repeatedly shake my hand and didn't want to let go, like he wanted to have an arm wrestle on the bar but wouldn't come out and say it. "DO YOU LOVE JESUS, BROTHER?" Monk asked again for the third time as I tried to wiggle my hand from his grip.
"YOU GOTTA BE DOWN WITH JESUS ROB, WE HATE THOSE GODLESS FUCKS" Joe interjected, slamming his fist on the bar and pointing at the fading celtic cross tattoo on his arm.
"BROTHER, WE ARE SOLDIERS OF GOD." Monk proclaimed.
I didn't even try to give them an answer, they weren't looking for one.
"I worship Satan" Mick mumbled and pulled out a rolled up plastic baggy.
"OH SHIT IS THAT WEED?" Joe asked apparently oblivious to Mick's religious affiliation. "ROLL UP A FATTY"
Mick started to roll a joint.
"Seriously, you know you can't..."
My protest was drowned out.
"YO, ROB, NOT FOR FUCKING NOTHIN' THERE'S NO ONE HERE. YOU DON'T WANT TO PISS US OFF."
Joe was right. I was totally trapped, out matched, and what? I was going to do what? Call the cops on the owners friend and dealer? I couldn't leave, I couldn't kick them out. As I had done a hundred times before, I reminded myself that this was their neighborhood, their bar, their world. I was just a tourist.
Mick finished the joint and pointed towards the back door.
"NO FUCK THAT, I'M FRIENDS WITH THE OWNER. ROB'S COOL, WE CAN SMOKE HERE."
This time I tried to stand my ground.
"YOU A NARCO, BROTHER?" Monk asked and jumped to his feet and flexed his arms like the hulk. I wanted to giggle but fought the urge.
"LOOK, ROB, THERE IS NO ONE HERE. JUST US. JUST US ALONE IN THIS BAR WITH YOU. YOU KNOW NO ONE IS GOING TO COME IN THIS BAR IN THE NEXT 10 MINUTES AND 10 MINUTES IS A LONG TIME TO BE ALONE WITH US."
He was right. I didn't care anymore and told them to do it. But to my surprise Mick handed the joint to me first. "I'm not really into smoking pot" (which I'm not)
"BROTHER, YOU ARE A NARCO" accused Monk and he started his body builder flexing routine again.
They hounded and argued, getting more and more agitated. Being stoned while trapped with them seemed like hell in hell, but I knew I was just dragging things out.

I lit it, took a hit, passed it to Joe. Something wasn't right. Joe took a hit, passed it to Mick. My mouth tasted like gasoline. Mick took a hit, passed it to Monk. "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, THIS IS SHITTY WEED" Joe complained. Monk took a hit and passed it to me. I exhaled what felt more like chemical fumes than smoke. I took another hit, passed it to Joe. Something was defiantly not right. Joe took another hit, passed it to Mick. "WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GET THIS SHIT, IT'S FUCKING AWFUL" he moaned. I remembered the taste from a party in college years back. This wasn't weed. "SERIOUSLY, I'M FUCKING INSULTED BY YOUR SHITTY WEED." Joe continued to complain with a sour look on his face. "GOD IT SMELLS AWEFUL."
"This is the best stuff on the market." Mick mumbled in a slightly offended tone.
"YEAH, IT'S GOOD STUFF BROTHER" Interjected Monk.
My body was starting to tingle.
"YO, YOU'VE BEEN LOCKED UP FOR TOO LONG, THAT IS NOT GOOD WEED."
"it's not weed" I said. My whole body felt light, like I was going to start floating.
"I GOTTA HOOK YOU UP WITH MY GUY CAUSE THAT SHIT TASTED LIKE A CAR BATTERY."
"It's not WEED!" I screamed shocking Joe into a brief moment of silence.
"WELL, WHAT IS IT?"
"It's pure wet." responded Mick with a "duh" tone of voice.
I was floating.
"...EXCUSE ME?" Joe stood up.
"You know, dusted." he shrugged.
I was a balloon with just enough helium.
Their voices started to echo, like there was reverb attached to their mic. You could see in Joe's face, a look of realization while fading at the same time. LIke he was looking up at you as he was falling off a cliff.
"YOU TWO... JUST SLIPPED... ME PCP... YOU TWO... JUST SLIPPED ME... A FUCKING... DIRTY GHETTO DRUG..."

The altercation escalated but I couldn't hear what they were saying anymore. They seemed really far away. Like I was watching a movie through dirty glass with static cutting through the audio. I remember Joe grabbing Mick and shaking him like a rag doll. Monk jumped in and the two hulks grappled each other. But this distant film that I was watching was edited and cut strangely. I only saw a couple of short clips and then suddenly they were all gone. I was standing (floating) alone in the morgue silent bar. I had 7 more hours left in my shift.

I ran through the bar and locked the doors, shut the windows. After sitting for a moment, I called a cab and went home. I was off for three days after that. I came back and no one mentioned the bar closing at 8 pm or the money sitting uncounted in the register. I never saw Monk or Mick again and when Joe finally returned a month later, neither of us said a word about that night. Shit just happens

The Sniveling Goat

Robert E. Brown. The 2 Street Chronicles

Bad Reunion
part I. Everyone's Pal

There are different levels of criminal. By level, I don't mean category like, shoplifter or hit man. I mean level of intensity, level of energy they subconsciously put off. If you've floated around the underbelly enough you feel it. I think it has to do with how much time they spend in the system, their experiences start to permeate their being. A hard con's mere presence lets you know how dangerous he is. You can tell the difference between a tough guy suburbanite and a city ghetto thug. Sometimes the guy asking for change is a harmless drug addict, sometimes you know he' s a true crack head and you shouldn't turn your back as you walk by. It's like spidey senses. At the 2 street bar those senses were honed. All of the neighborhood guys wanted me to believe they were bad ass, they spent a lot of time trying to convince me of it. But that subconscious spidey sense would tell me most of what I needed to know within the first minute. Generally the more they tried, the less threatening they were.

There was no trying with Joe. With Joe, you just knew. With Joe, the hair stood up on the back of your neck the second you heard his voice booming and thundering. He was so loud that you could hear him from a full block away if the windows to the bar were open. But Joe spent most of his time trying to convince you he was a great guy, a lovable guy, "HEY, YO, I'M EVERYONE'S PAL" which of course he was not. Joe was an aging neighborhood coke dealer and debt collector who tipped in 20 bags and personally supplied the owner. On sight, you knew Joe hurt people. He played his part from a text book, his pudgy fingers covered in jewelry and the obligatory gold chain around the neck. He was always smiling but it was a tense cocaine twitching smile, like there were invisible fishhooks attached to the corner of his mouth and the plastic fishing line had stretched ready to snap. Joe was huge, 300 pounds plus of mostly muscle. You could tell his growing gut was a new development. His aging metabolism matched with the quarts of heavy cream white russians had finally started overpowering the speed in his system. The veins were always popping out of his head and I was convinced that he was going to drop from a coronary at any given moment. There was a nervous feeling that permeated the bar when he was there, like the herd knew there was a predator watching. He would shout engage nervous customers across the bar in conversation that almost always led to the petrified patrons excusing themselves the second he closed the restroom door to do another bump.

Generally the racism in the bar was relegated to quiet disappointed musings about the days when "they" knew their place or discussions about who "the good ones" were and what made them different from "bad niggers." Joe took a different nerve wracking route in coping with his life long lilly white irish tavern being desegregated. He would engage anyone of color with a patronizing, threatening ebonics. All smiles with tense violence behind the eyes. "YO MAH NIGGAS" he would shout while waving at confused black patrons who didn't know him. "GET MAH NIGGAS A ROUND OF COVASIA OR APPLETENIS OR WHAT EVER SNOOP AND DRE OVER THERE ARE KEEPIN IT REAL WIT" the menace behind the courtesy was glaring. "YO MAH BROTHAS, WHO'S YO NUMBER ONE NIGGA?" He was daring them to address this blaring social faux pa on his turf. As always, there was nothing I could do, it always seemed that only the worst customers were on the owners "do not flag" VIP list. And like Cookie, I knew that I would have probably died if I had been able to try.

It was another slow summer Sunday shift. A couple italian girls in waitress uniforms, off shift from the dinner down the block looking bored over their beers and an older black couple hunched over heavy in conversation. It was hot and bright and the last person I wanted to see walk in was Joe. Within minutes it started. "HEY LADIES, YOU ARE LOOKING SO FUCKING GOOD DOWN THERE. WHY DON'T YOU SLIDE THIS WAY AND WE CAN HAVE A PARTY." The girls ignored him.
"YO, SERIOUSLY GIRLS, COME ON DOWN HERE, I ONLY BITE WHEN YOU ASK NICE."
The girl closest to him gave him a silent, palm out hand gesture without turning her head. Her intent was to give him the Jerry Springer talk to the hand, but her bright red nails were so long and pointy, it looked to me more like she was letting him know she was armed.
"YO, JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE NICE TITS DON'T MEAN YOU CAN ACT LIKE A FUCKIN' CUNT."
I braced for the fight, but to my amazement the girls just got up and left.
Two down.
After a minute it started again.
"YO MAH NIGGAS" he shouted at the old black couple "MAH NIGGAS, YOU DOWN WITH T.O. AIN'T CHO? FUCK THE EAGLES, A NIGGAAAAAA GOTS TA GET PAAAAAID RIGHT?"
And they were gone. Just me and Joe at the start of a summer Sunday shift that was too hot and too bright.

"THIS WAS THE LINE, THIS STREET RIGHT HERE, ANYTHING SOUTH OF HERE, WAS A FUCKIN' SHANTY TOWN, JUST SHACKS IN THE MUD WITH NO ELECTRICITY, THIS WAS LIKE BACK IN THE 30'S, THEY WERE STILL BRINGIN' DRINKIN' WATER IN ON HORSE DRAWN CARTS. INDIAN'S LIVED BETTER THAN THE IRISH BACK THEN, SHIT NIGGERS LIVED BETTER. PEOPLE KNEW NOT TO COME DOWN HERE..." I had heard this story a hundred times, Joe loved to discuss his humble roots. Then suddenly he stopped and his eyes started scanning out the window like a cat who might have seen movement. He jumped up and was out the door with out saying a word. I was saved.

(I thought)

My Company

Robert E. Brown: The Enunciation of a Muse

The young girl is the metaphorical idealization of my artistic muse that I have carried with me since a teenager. The abstraction of who, when and where I first realized that my own creative expression was something I would spend my life needing to pursue.
-She is blindfolded so that I will not be distracted.
-In her left hand she holds a pistol so that I will not be stopped.
-In her right hand she holds a spread of tarot cards because I know my destiny.
-her ankle is shackled to a weighted ball so that I stay grounded.
-She lounges surrounded in an opulent cornucopia of fruits, flowers and plants, because life is a feast
-Next to her is a severed (sniveling) goats head. To remind me to always try and temper my considerable darker urges
-Behind her is a classical temple to remind me that all great creation stems from a knowledge of the past.
-It is on fire with people fleeing to the hills because in order to advance forward, you often have to destroy those traditions.
-The banner reads NEUTIQUAM ERRO which means I AM NOT LOST in latin. Some people spend their whole lives trying to find out what road their on. I know where I am and where I'm going, for better or for worse, I'm staying on that path.

This tattoo has grown and grown. Initially it was going to just be the banner over my shoulders, and the girl was to be small in my upper back. Obviously the scope increased. Initially the whole plate was to be black & white, but as we were wrapping up, we decided to add some color to the girl to make her pop. But now that it's done, we've come to the conclusion that by doing this, it's become a color piece and we need to add more color.

But the back has been a serious trouble spot for me. My skin balloons up and swells horribly and I haven't been able to sit for very long (especially along the spin) So we have decided to move on to the second sleeve of circus freaks & clowns which we start next week. Then I'll be back to my muse.

Trish Sanchez does great work and I'm humbled that she agreed to do two sleeves and a huge back plate for a couple of my prints.

http://valortattoo.com/
1448 Brownsville Road
Trevose PA 19053
215-322-4455
fax:215-322-4457


My Company