Saturday, January 18th, 2014 - 12:35 AM PST - Jorge's House - Los Angeles, California

Well, this place was a shithole. Not sure why I expected anything different.

T-shirts, jeans, blankets and God knows what else littered the floor, almost tripping me a couple times on the way in. The tile floor of the kitchen had a patch stained red from spilled Kool-Aid that was never properly cleaned up. The fact that ants weren't still swarming the spot was astonishing, though it could be that they were too busy inhabiting one of the fast food wrappers strewn across the porcelain. Paint peeling, sink overflowing with dishes, and the smell of twenty bottles of Febreze filling the air was almost enough to make me vomit. Despite all this however, here we were, crowded around the disorganized table in the center of the kitchen, staring down at a red, cross shaped patch.

"What the hell is this?" I ask, competing with the sound of buzzing flies for the loudest thing in the house. Jorge laughs and picks the patch up off the table and jams it into my chest. "What the hell is this?" I repeat, holding it in my hand and spinning it around; trying to derive some deeper meaning from this gesture that just isn't here right now.

"Stop fuckin' with me man," Jorge says, looking me in the eyes. "What the fuck kinda deal you think this is?"

"Some kind of a deal where you get me what the fuck it is they want, and I get the fuck out of here and never have to see this mess every again."

"Well then, you in for one hell of a rude awakening man."

"Hold on a second, I gotta make a call." Handing the patch back to Jorge, I backpedal out of the kitchen, out of the house. Standing against the outside wall of the house, I pull out my cell phone and hit the first number of my speed dial. Come on, someone answer and tell me what the hell is going on here.

"What?" asks one of the voices whose face I'm not allowed to see. His uninterested demeanor pierces my ear drums - a legitimate display of apathy is jarring for me tonight, after all that's happened.

"What the actual fuck?" I reply, making my annoyance with this situation known full well before he has the chance to try and calm me.

"What the actual fuck - what?" this sarcastic motherfucker says back, stifling a chuckle for his efforts at comedy gold.

"What the fuck did you want me to get from these gang banging pieces of shit?"

"Followers. Allies. We're going to need them for Phase Two." Ah yeah, Phase Two. Another thing they're pretty stingy with information about. I've stopped asking questions about what it would entail the fifth time they said it was confidential. But if this is something directly pertaining to advancing the entire organization closer to that reality where I might start to get some information regarding it, then I guess I can do whatever it was they needed.

Wait, what?

"You want me to stay with 'em?"

"It's always good when they figure it out for themselves while on the phone with us. Yes, as of right now you are a member of the [actual gang name expunged]."

"You gotta be fucking kidding me..." I say as I hang the phone up and slide it back in my pocket. With that sudden, dejecting news dropped on my head like an anvil, I had no choice but to walk back into the disgusting house once again, back into the kitchen and back into this odd initiation ritual. Jorge's smile looks like it never faded, and the patch still in his hands stares daggers into my soul. What the shit was that for?

"Welcome to the family." Great. "Give me your hoodie."

"What?"

"I said, give me your hoodie. We got to ring this in right; giving you the mark." He grabs a hold of the sleeve and pulls on it. Looks like he isn't going to take no for an answer, huh? I take the hoodie off and hand it to him, leaving me in a T-Shirt, along with everything else sans the hat that fell on the floor. I pick that up and put it back on. He hands the sweatshirt and the cross patch to the other guy and mutters something in Spanish to him. He disappears with both in hand, down the hall. A door closes, a Jorge puts a hand on my shoulder before solemnly whispering: "Shit, he wasn't ready for that."

"He wasn't ready for what?" I ask, sliding his hand off me.

"Dealin' with drivebys and the shit that went down tonight."

"I don't know what to say, other than he shouldn't have been there if he wasn't ready for it."

"I swear, we had a fuckin' truce man and they just rolled up on us and started blastin'."

"I know, I was there too. Shit, I take it you should know that gang peace is fickle as a whore on coke. Stop acting like this was some sort of grand deception. They probably found one of their own murdered on your territory and went off half cocked on the first crew they saw. Shit like this happens all the fucking time." As I kept talking, images flashes before my very eyes of similar situations; gunfights on streets, highways, you name it. Shit, whoever I am, I was one violent motherfucker. Maybe that's why I was chosen for this particular assignment.

"Shit man, I know. I just, look. If I had known what was finna go down I woulda just met with ya myself."

"But you didn't. Stop beating yourself up over shit you can't fix now." Wow, I feel as if I heard that back before this, things might've turned out different for me, too. Introspection without remembering who I am? I'll put that on the list of shit to avoid from here on out because I'm starting to turn into an idiot making hypothetical statements like that. A tear rolls down Jorge's cheek, which he wipes away before nodding in agreeance.

"You're right," as if I didn't already know that. "I just don't want him to turn into a me or a you, he's a bright kid man. He deserves better than this."

I wasn't even going to touch on this. Instead, I nod before asking him a question I feel I should've a while ago:

"So, where am I sleeping?"

"Shit, go out the kitchen, down the hallway to your left. Door at the end of the hall, man."

"Thanks." With that, I make my way towards my room, glad to be done with this day and hoping that tomorrow will be better though I doubt things could get much worse.

Episode 3: I Thought Titan Would be More Imposing

RECORDING.

Fade in.

Our scene opens, in progress, to Lazarus struggling to get up from the ground of a severely trashed hotel room in the middle of Whogivesafuck, Saskatchherpes, Cangofuckyourself. Broken bottles of whiskey line the carpeted floors, shards embedded and hidden within the strands of carpeting, no doubt. Finally, our masked hero manages to complete the task of standing up, but does so on wobbling legs. He falls over onto the bed, ass first, where he decides to remain.

"Praise Jayzus for unfunny satire!"

He laughs and whoops, giving a big round of applause for Titan and his female companion for being the first to go to that well and being oh so origin- fuck it they knew they weren't breaking any fucking ground with this stunt stop giving them undeserved credit.

"Well shit, it looks like Titan took the time outta his day to comment on my comments to Theo Pryce! But before I can get to that, I gotta deal with some nasally bitch who gets wetter for the English language than that Diaz slut. Look hun, it's great ya think that somehow an accent's got shit ta do with intelligence, or word endin's bein' nearly as important as you claim them ta be, because ya makin' it pretty fuckin' clear that's the only way ya'd be able to pass a fuckin' class. So yeah, go back to fingerin' yourself to the Oxfords, while I sit here and manage to run both ya names inta tha ground without so much as a second thought."

"C'mon how much of a fuckin' pusscake is this Titan guy anyway that he has his shit'ead whore talk fa him instead? What's wrong, ya gotta lisp that she looks down on or somethin'? Maybe ya gettin' cold feet knowin' anythin' and everythin' ya say can and will be used against ya and she's already makin' ya look like a fool so ya can just claim that she's the one talkin' to slightly be able ta shift the blame when it gets burned to tha ground faster than Theo Pryce's credibility or Frodo Smackins' fuckin' confidence? Speak ya own words man, forget braindead broad."

"Oh shit! He's 'bout ta drop some fuckin' truth 'bout chess on me cuz I made a reference based on Theo Pryce's title! Had I known this was 'bout ta happen; I would've done it more obnoxiously. Say some meanin'less bullshit and the fuckin' masses will flock to it like sheep cuz that's all they know. Yeah, I was blowin' smoke out my ass with the chess puns Titan and now I got ya tangled up in that deception like the cretin ya accuse me of bein'. Not very smart on ya behalf, is it? And guess what people who ain't required ta watch the shit'eads promo; that's all he fuckin' goes on about! Nah, he ain't gonna go after me bein' a homo (which his bitch is definitely inta, might wanna watch out fa her tryin' ta suck my dick if we're eva in tha same room), or tha outfit or nothin' else.

It's like he don't even know who I am!"

Lazarus laughs heartily at your failure, Titan. Next time wait to be addressed you fucking anklebiter.

"But let's get onta the topic of Titan's piece of ass. The one so obsessed with the gay shit that tha Congregation's supposedly doin' that she starts to confuse the line between the twisted, incorrect and laughably poor, cliche allegations and what's goin' on in her fuckin' fantasies every time she thinks of me. Fuck, maybe she's got a picture of me stashed in that fuckin' dictionary she's preachin' outta. Like, literally that's all she's talkin' about. I'm a and lapdog.

I'm a and a lapdog. Write it thirty times on tha board ya shitheads.

So yah, keep on keepin' on and tryin' ta make me inta a to fill ya little fantasies, bitch.

Keep fallin' for elementary traps, Titan.

Keep on keepin' on, ya fuckin' yokels."

END RECORDING.