Disclaimer: I have no idea if this story is true, nor do I know who the original author is (NightRaven?) I was cleaning out a junk folder on my computer and I found this story that I had saved a while back. In any case, this is one of the best stories I've ever heard, regardless of whether it's true or not. Enjoy the story, folks.
Without further ado:
I am sitting here looking at a wrinkled, slightly soggy, blood-stained hundred dollar bill. My friend "Mark" gave me it last night to pay for converging a video projector for one of his clients. He felt a need to explain the condition of the bill. Since the story gave me a good chuckle, I decided to share it:
"This guy I grew up with, "Dave", came to visit from Florida. He?d not been back to Seattle for twelve years. I?ve seen him once years ago at his place down there. A while back, he had an injury that left him with migraines?and he?s always been kind of a doper. He?s totally addicted to pain pills now. Anyway, he shows up at my door in the
morning. I had my open briefcase on the dining table, and there were a couple bottles of my prescription meds on top.
"As soon as Dave spied the brown bottles, he left off saying hello to me and sprinted over; he was on them in a second, shaking them for count, and reading the labels, "You?re holding out on me! Did you get
me the Percocets like I asked for?"
"I remembered him asking me on the phone before he flew up. I thought he was kidding. But you should have seen him fiending over those pills. I told him I couldn?t just "get" prescription medicine, I wasn?t a damn pharmacy."
"He asked if he could talk to my doctor, when I said no way, he grabbed the Yellow pages and started calling every doctor. This was about 9:30 in the morning. You should have heard him working that phone. He is a car salesman; he can sell anything to anybody. By 10:00, he was out the door, with a phoned in prescription for a bottle of the big ones."
"As soon as he got back from the pharmacy up the street, he downed a handful of six big Percocets and three Xanaxes. I was like, "Jesus, Dave, what the hell?" I can take one or two, but sh!t, these were the
bigger ones. He didn?t answer because he was swallowing them down by chugging two beers. Thank God my party keg was almost empty; he was only able to get two more glasses out when he found it."
"He told me, "Mark, you?re just a lightweight. I sometimes have to take twelve of these fvckers at once. These fvcking headaches just kill me." Then he raided my fridge for some bottled beer. I had a busy day, and by the time I?d got my sh!t together to head out, Dave was lying on the couch talking animatedly to someone that was not there. I
could not conceive that he was still conscious, and I didn?t want to leave him, but I had sh!t to do. "Look, Dave, I wish you?d fvck off so I don?t have a corpse to deal with when I get home. Is there anything special you want me to do with the body? Maybe I could keep your face, eh, and saw the rest up into plastic bags?" "I?m fine", he responded, "You?ll be able to tell when I?m fvcked up when I have to crawl to the bathroom to sh!t."
"I got home about eight that evening, and Dave was gone. Thank God, was all I thought. Then I got a phone call from "Steve" (you don?t know him), who lives about a mile from me. "Dave?s over here, and he?s pretty fvcked up. He?s talking to himself and says he was by your place. What?s he on?" I told him all I knew was Percocet and booze, so
make him sleep it off and don?t let him drive."
"Dave passed out on the couch. Steve, he?s like a responsible $150,000 a year salesman for an equipment company, so he went to bed by midnight."
"The next morning, at seven am, Steve wakes up and looks out the window. His new Infiniti Q45 is missing, but Dave?s rental car is still there. He freaks and runs down to the den. No Dave. He freaks some more, and calls me. I say I haven?t seen him. We are still sorting possibilities when Dave shows up at Steve?s, his clothes in rags, literally covered in blood. He looked like the Incredible Hulk after his clothes rip. Jesus, man, his fvcking hands look like he?d
fed them into a garbage disposal."
I need to cut in here. Mark lives on a wild, undeveloped hill. Except for the yard and house, it is an unwalkable tangle of trees, deadfall, nettles, and blackberries. A quarter mile of dirt road leads up to his house, and halfway in is a sharp, steep switchback. On a cloudy night, it is pitch black up there."
"Dave says he woke up sometime after midnight, wanted to come back to my place, but grabbed the wrong keys and instead of going back in for the right ones, drove Steve?s Q45. At the steep turn in my drive, he just went straight. I didn?t hear a damn thing, up at the house. Fortunately, the mud was deep enough to trap Steve?s car before it
went over the edge and into the trees. The whole thing was covered in mud from Dave spinning the tires back and forth. We tried dragging it out with the rental, but eventually had to get a tow truck. It?s gotta be three thousand in damage, all the trim is busted up."
"It isn?t until the tow truck shows up that we really look at how fvcked up Dave is. We get him into the house, and ask him how he got so ripped up and bloody. Well. That night, his brain was so fvcked up that the only thing he could do once he gave up on the car, was head for a street light he could barely make out in the next development over. The problem was, this light was like 200 yards away through the worst blackberry bush in the whole fvcking world."
I was about hysterical at this point. Let me interject that blackberry bushes are nature's razor wire. Each year, the new growth billows up over last years branches, curling them over. The pile eventually gets twenty feet high, and at ground level the loops and coils really do resemble barb wire spools. The thorns dry, shrink, and are sharper and
harder than live ones. The dried branches break off into sharp spears."
"That dumb fvck spent at least four, maybe five hours in that blackberry bush. Way, way deep in it. He couldn?t feel anything, of course, but he ripped every square inch of his skin to shreds, trying to get to that streetlight. He must have really lost it, because he told me a bunch of people were living on my property. He said they were "Mute Gnomes" who watched him struggle but didn?t help him. He finally got back to the car, and then followed the road out and
staggered to Steves place?he?d lost one of his shoes."
"He was crashing pretty hard as he told all this, then he got panicky and wanted to go back into the woods. It turns out he had all his travel money, in cash, over a grand in hundreds in his pocket. The pocket was now just shreds of lining material. We wouldn?t let him go back and told him he needed to see a doctor. "God, maybe I should go
to emergency." Duh. We put him in the rental and drove him to the doctor."
"The doctors pulled between four and six hundred thorns out of his legs alone. It was enough to make a double handful of splinters. They said his hands were as badly damaged as if he had third degree burns, and the foot without a shoe was that bad too."
"Well, I left him screaming in the emergency room and went back home to look for the money. I only found two hundreds, but I found where he?d disappeared into the blackberries. It is a solid fvcking wall and there is NO WAY a human could even wriggle into the hole he?d made without serious fvcking injury. I guess I?ll look a little more, but
there is just no fvcking way?"
"I don?t suppose you are going to tell Dave you found his money, are you?" I asked ironically through my tears.
Mark snorted, "You?ve got to be kidding me. This guy owes me mass for
the sh!t he put me through. Fvck him."
"I was kidding."
"Yeah, well, anyway, I just though you?d want to know where the blood on that bill came from. You should see how deep he dug the car into the mud. Steve wants to fvcking kill him."
Without further ado:
I am sitting here looking at a wrinkled, slightly soggy, blood-stained hundred dollar bill. My friend "Mark" gave me it last night to pay for converging a video projector for one of his clients. He felt a need to explain the condition of the bill. Since the story gave me a good chuckle, I decided to share it:
"This guy I grew up with, "Dave", came to visit from Florida. He?d not been back to Seattle for twelve years. I?ve seen him once years ago at his place down there. A while back, he had an injury that left him with migraines?and he?s always been kind of a doper. He?s totally addicted to pain pills now. Anyway, he shows up at my door in the
morning. I had my open briefcase on the dining table, and there were a couple bottles of my prescription meds on top.
"As soon as Dave spied the brown bottles, he left off saying hello to me and sprinted over; he was on them in a second, shaking them for count, and reading the labels, "You?re holding out on me! Did you get
me the Percocets like I asked for?"
"I remembered him asking me on the phone before he flew up. I thought he was kidding. But you should have seen him fiending over those pills. I told him I couldn?t just "get" prescription medicine, I wasn?t a damn pharmacy."
"He asked if he could talk to my doctor, when I said no way, he grabbed the Yellow pages and started calling every doctor. This was about 9:30 in the morning. You should have heard him working that phone. He is a car salesman; he can sell anything to anybody. By 10:00, he was out the door, with a phoned in prescription for a bottle of the big ones."
"As soon as he got back from the pharmacy up the street, he downed a handful of six big Percocets and three Xanaxes. I was like, "Jesus, Dave, what the hell?" I can take one or two, but sh!t, these were the
bigger ones. He didn?t answer because he was swallowing them down by chugging two beers. Thank God my party keg was almost empty; he was only able to get two more glasses out when he found it."
"He told me, "Mark, you?re just a lightweight. I sometimes have to take twelve of these fvckers at once. These fvcking headaches just kill me." Then he raided my fridge for some bottled beer. I had a busy day, and by the time I?d got my sh!t together to head out, Dave was lying on the couch talking animatedly to someone that was not there. I
could not conceive that he was still conscious, and I didn?t want to leave him, but I had sh!t to do. "Look, Dave, I wish you?d fvck off so I don?t have a corpse to deal with when I get home. Is there anything special you want me to do with the body? Maybe I could keep your face, eh, and saw the rest up into plastic bags?" "I?m fine", he responded, "You?ll be able to tell when I?m fvcked up when I have to crawl to the bathroom to sh!t."
"I got home about eight that evening, and Dave was gone. Thank God, was all I thought. Then I got a phone call from "Steve" (you don?t know him), who lives about a mile from me. "Dave?s over here, and he?s pretty fvcked up. He?s talking to himself and says he was by your place. What?s he on?" I told him all I knew was Percocet and booze, so
make him sleep it off and don?t let him drive."
"Dave passed out on the couch. Steve, he?s like a responsible $150,000 a year salesman for an equipment company, so he went to bed by midnight."
"The next morning, at seven am, Steve wakes up and looks out the window. His new Infiniti Q45 is missing, but Dave?s rental car is still there. He freaks and runs down to the den. No Dave. He freaks some more, and calls me. I say I haven?t seen him. We are still sorting possibilities when Dave shows up at Steve?s, his clothes in rags, literally covered in blood. He looked like the Incredible Hulk after his clothes rip. Jesus, man, his fvcking hands look like he?d
fed them into a garbage disposal."
I need to cut in here. Mark lives on a wild, undeveloped hill. Except for the yard and house, it is an unwalkable tangle of trees, deadfall, nettles, and blackberries. A quarter mile of dirt road leads up to his house, and halfway in is a sharp, steep switchback. On a cloudy night, it is pitch black up there."
"Dave says he woke up sometime after midnight, wanted to come back to my place, but grabbed the wrong keys and instead of going back in for the right ones, drove Steve?s Q45. At the steep turn in my drive, he just went straight. I didn?t hear a damn thing, up at the house. Fortunately, the mud was deep enough to trap Steve?s car before it
went over the edge and into the trees. The whole thing was covered in mud from Dave spinning the tires back and forth. We tried dragging it out with the rental, but eventually had to get a tow truck. It?s gotta be three thousand in damage, all the trim is busted up."
"It isn?t until the tow truck shows up that we really look at how fvcked up Dave is. We get him into the house, and ask him how he got so ripped up and bloody. Well. That night, his brain was so fvcked up that the only thing he could do once he gave up on the car, was head for a street light he could barely make out in the next development over. The problem was, this light was like 200 yards away through the worst blackberry bush in the whole fvcking world."
I was about hysterical at this point. Let me interject that blackberry bushes are nature's razor wire. Each year, the new growth billows up over last years branches, curling them over. The pile eventually gets twenty feet high, and at ground level the loops and coils really do resemble barb wire spools. The thorns dry, shrink, and are sharper and
harder than live ones. The dried branches break off into sharp spears."
"That dumb fvck spent at least four, maybe five hours in that blackberry bush. Way, way deep in it. He couldn?t feel anything, of course, but he ripped every square inch of his skin to shreds, trying to get to that streetlight. He must have really lost it, because he told me a bunch of people were living on my property. He said they were "Mute Gnomes" who watched him struggle but didn?t help him. He finally got back to the car, and then followed the road out and
staggered to Steves place?he?d lost one of his shoes."
"He was crashing pretty hard as he told all this, then he got panicky and wanted to go back into the woods. It turns out he had all his travel money, in cash, over a grand in hundreds in his pocket. The pocket was now just shreds of lining material. We wouldn?t let him go back and told him he needed to see a doctor. "God, maybe I should go
to emergency." Duh. We put him in the rental and drove him to the doctor."
"The doctors pulled between four and six hundred thorns out of his legs alone. It was enough to make a double handful of splinters. They said his hands were as badly damaged as if he had third degree burns, and the foot without a shoe was that bad too."
"Well, I left him screaming in the emergency room and went back home to look for the money. I only found two hundreds, but I found where he?d disappeared into the blackberries. It is a solid fvcking wall and there is NO WAY a human could even wriggle into the hole he?d made without serious fvcking injury. I guess I?ll look a little more, but
there is just no fvcking way?"
"I don?t suppose you are going to tell Dave you found his money, are you?" I asked ironically through my tears.
Mark snorted, "You?ve got to be kidding me. This guy owes me mass for
the sh!t he put me through. Fvck him."
"I was kidding."
"Yeah, well, anyway, I just though you?d want to know where the blood on that bill came from. You should see how deep he dug the car into the mud. Steve wants to fvcking kill him."