War is indeed Hell. I braced my body against the rusted shell of the El Camino as a hail of rounds flew over my head. An eerie calm followed- full of the metallic sounds of my breath: rapidly fogging the lenses of my protective mask. A small insect clawed across the back of my hand, oblivious. Life goes on. I darted a look through the car’s shattered window and sent a volley of ammunition into the hulk of a van my enemy was using for cover. I knelt down, heart pounding. I checked my magazine. 5 rounds left. My only option was to draw their fire. I was empty, only useful as a distraction and a target.
I stood and sent a volley ricocheting off the van. My enemy, now the most important person in my life; brother, deathbringer, raised his head and fired. I walked toward him. A brief suicide march. A grim smile played across my lips. A round flew by in the opposite direction. To my left, someone was charging me, he seemed to hover in slow motion, his two guns blazing. As ammunition burst against my body, he became an angel of death, beautiful and terrible to behold. I screamed like a 10 year old girl. This is paintball.
The ComedySportz paintball trip was twice as fun as thought it would be. Three days later I still have tender spots all over my body as well as a few crimson bumps left me as souvenirs by my six-legged woodland friends. Bless them.
We played in Joliet at the aptly named "CHALLENGE PARK XTREME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
We arrived bleary-eyed, hung over, and too early. Before long the park was crawling with teens and little kids, all dressed like fun-size riot cops. I fell in love with CPX!!! immediately. It featured a snack bar, skate park and a slew of theme-oriented paintball battle areas including The Jungle of Doom, Crash Site (South American Guerilla Tactics ), Fort Courage (Old West Indian Siege), Armageddon (Post-Apocalyptic Town), the aforementioned field of junked cars, and The Town of Bedlam(a sort of main street USA).
This main street mock-up was the most popular course for all the teens, out front was a perpetual queue of young men who needed a respite from a week of High School PE, Halo 2, and carving dragons on their Trapper Keepers. All the building facades in Bedlam had names like “Xtreme Records,” “Bedlam Town Hall,” and “Club P8T.” One building bore a sign reading “Brass Eagle,” an ode to the high-powered handgun. Over time, the sign had been strategically blasted with paint. It now read “Ass Eagle.” The gallows humor of little soldiers.
I was shot in the face, back, heart, leg, hand, and survived a near miss to the groin. It was only towards the end that I started to give as well as I was getting. My paintlust is whetted. 187. 1. 8. 7.
The night before paintball I participated in another wicked manly activity that I also managed to fag up: po’no. After the Hot Karl, I went over to a bar called the Twisted Spoke for their late night Saturday tradition “Smut n’ Eggs.” Black garbage bags are taped to the windows, breakfast is served, and bad pornography is screened. I was planning on going alone, but luckily was able to rustle up a couple of female companions. If I had been forced to eat my omelet and watch Blonde Cocksuckers all by myself, I probably would have walked in front of a bus. As it was: laughs a million!
After a weekend of such brutish entertainment, Sunday night was a time for relaxation, contemplation, and mastication. Ation.
Madeline and I went to a fine Italian restaurant where I dined on fine pasta, sipped Pinot Noir, and mispronounced everything I ordered. After dinner, we watched The Constant Gardener. It’s uneven, but pretty. That director is a poet of the slums, but he can’t leave actors alone to just play a scene in a static environment. He’s in love with the crowd and the chase.
Speaking of the crowd. To get back to my experience of “Agoramori,” I found some interesting remarks in Paris Spleen by Baudelaire: “It is not given to every man to take a bath of multitude; enjoying a crowd is an art; and only he can relish a debauch of vitality at the expense of the human species on whom, in his cradle, a fairy has bestowed the love of masks and masquerading, the hate of home, and the passion for roaming.”
“Multitude, solitude: identical terms, and interchangeable by the active and fertile poet. Or the ass eagle.”
