Chapter 1

He wasn't sure if it was the smell of bottle sex, the beer or the all night parties, but something just had to change.

"Where you going Paul?" Jill queried. It was out of character for him to just get up like that in the middle of very important drunken discussions about life, and love, and religion. In fact she had noticed that he was not at all himself for the last three weeks. "Out" he snapped. He left the confines of the mildew, and stale beer stenched basement; without so much as a half look back.

Jill and the others had no idea that Paul was going out to the driveway, climbing into his 1980 K car, and driving to some were he had never been. He would drive till he new he was far enough away, that they would forget he had even existed, in their time and space. He would not return. He would not look back. He would just go. He had no idea who he would meet, or where he would end up. If he were to remain in that oblique existence, if he had not been fed up with life, if he had not wanted something better than what he had seen, if he was content with the destiny that he knew he was going to receive from that life he was living, if all of these things were, he would have known who he was going to become. But now that he had left; he had not one hint as to who he would become. The only thing he knew is that he when he arrived at his destination (what he did not realize is that his new destination, was most likely just another apex, before the journey starts again), things would be different. They just had to be. Didn't they? After all the stuff of life changes all the time, for better, for worse; it changes. In his opinion it could get no worse, hence it had to be better

Paul had done this before. He would leave for a couple of days at a time, sleep in his car, eat at greasy roadside restaurants, etc, etc. This time it was different. This time when he left he did so in a manner that left the others puzzled. This time he did not feel the urge to sit and listen to drunken discussions about religion, life and love. This time he was definitely fed up with discussing all of it. This time he knew he wanted to live it. No matter how stupid it all sounded he just had to have some real action in life. He wanted, no he needed something tangible out of all of this. He did all that was asked of him, he dealt with it as best he could for as long as he could now he needed to get some of it back. He wanted to take it back. He wanted to have what he read about. He wanted to feel what he felt when he herd people talk about it. This time he knew he was not coming back. This time he knew it was permanent. This time he knew that in order to get what he needed he would not be able to come back to this life that he had so painstakingly tried to preserve for himself and those who were so intrinsically important to him for so many years. But know he felt that it was no longer up to him to save those people in there from their own self destructive sequence. Now he felt that as soon as the sequence was set into motion they would go out without him. This time when they realized he was gone, when they sobered up and realized that he had been gone for more time than they had ever remembering him being absent for, he would be gone, never to return.

They were all there, Derek, Paul, Bill and Greg, the whole gang. This was the stuff of life. This is where he wanted to be and he never wanted to leave.

Angie showed up around midnight. When the doorbell rang Paul knew who it was, but Derek made a point of asking Greg, who was there. Derek was an instigator. Every chance he got he would try to cause chaos in this nicely arranged world that these boys had created for themselves. This basement was their escape. It was their zanadoo. It was their control in the chaos that was the streets, the people and the stuff of this small cramped town. Derek knew but frequently had to be reminded that Paul was the check against the chaos that he tried to introduce.

Paul took his job to heart and he was ruthless at it, and good at it. There was just something about the way Paul kept the chaos in check that made the others revere him, they admired him, quietly and at a distance, for the ways in which he kept the chaos at bay. Besides getting too close to the control could mean you were next. Either by fait or bad luck, but it could happen.

Greg called down, "Hey Paully! It's Angie. She want's you should come outside to talk to her." "Look at that Paully, she loves you sooo much that she can't let you have one single night alone with the boys." (this was Derek's introduction of some unplanned chaos), Paul immediately turned red. Paul had a short fuse, especially with Derek. Derek was an outsider. He moved to this shitty little whole of an existence, while they (he, Paul) were born into this. They had no choice. He had a choice. He had known more than all of these others whom felt trapped and caught. He had a better outlook on it. He had a perspective that allowed him the luxury of hope. Paul did not have hope. But what he did have; was rage. He did have the feelings of a caged animal. A caged animal that is cornered might be prone to lash out. Paul did just that. Derek hit the beer soaked shag face first. Two shots. First shot to the ball of the shoulder. Derek's right arm went numb strait away. Second shot to the side of the head just in front of the ear. Bill tried to react but he was too late. Paul moved so fast that bill did not even have time to put his beer down. If Bill wanted to stop Paully he would have thrown his beer at him, but he thought that this was pretty funny. Derek, yet again, got his up and comings. It not only was fair, it was funny too. Bill was the reason. And reason understands the rage. Reason gets the fact that Paul, for all his shortcomings could use that rage to fight like a warrior poet and he did whenever he had the chance. Reason also understood that the Rage was also the check against the chaos. This is how the Rage controls the chaos, with absolute prejudice.

As he exited the basement and carried himself upstairs he smirked, he could hear the little whimpering puppy lying on the basement floor.

Stepping outside and seeing her, seeing her silhouette outlined under the pale light of the street lamp, well he got that feeling in his stomach that young men get when the spit and the blood and the lust all flies on the same full moonlight night all at once. When the love steals your mind and leaves your soul in charge. It was the feeling like he wanted her to be inside him. Like he would give up all the control in the world just to know that she was his, and to be able to tell this angel that he belonged to her.

Long hair, leather coat and worst of all, he was on the varsity wrestling team. She knew where he lived. She knew he lived just south of the wrong side of the tracks. She knew he worked as a laborer in a factory at night after school almost every day. She knew how he lived. But she had no idea why. Being two years senior to him, she still found in him all the qualities that she was sure woman who fell in love with men all over the world. But if she were to bring him home, if she were to tell her father what she was thinking and feeling her father would not see things as she did. He would not think that this wild thing was handsome and easy on the eyes. He would think that this kid was no more than a smaller, younger, healthier version of its own sire. Yes she did know that their fathers had known each other, a thousand or so years ago, that they were at one-time friends. For some reason when they had grown up, when the boys had become young men, when their destinies were told to them, when the paths that they were on diverged; as often happened between friends, they had parted company on bad terms and had not spoken in about eight hundred years. No one new for sure the how or the why, but it was known to her that she was not to associate with any one from that clan. She could not help it though she was in love. Surely he would understand if only she explained to her father. No, she could not even get the courage to tell the wild thing how she felt, how then could she tell her father?