Brandon Project: Text for Writer = chua

Date entered: 1997/06/24 09:54

NARRATIVE: I'm small, but not the kind of body you can easily dismiss. You notice me the minute I walk into the room. I have a, shall we say, a presence. Last month, I was released from Riker's Island. Hijo de mi corazon. That's where I earned my title. You see it tattooed on my back: Don. Don Monster. chua is now known as don monster. People look at me like they have to, and then look away. As if they can read every murderous thought swimming in my head. As if they can see the rage pouring off my dark skin. As if they could see the world turning on my face. Maybe it has something to do with the surgery. Twenty one years ago, I was born a woman. When they shut me up in Riker's, I was a man. Now I'm beyond that. Now I'm a junkie. A theory junkie. Five years inside will do that to someone. I became an intellectual don. If you wanted to stay out of trouble, if you wanted to stay alive, there was nothing else to do there besides light weights and read. Both risky habits. But life forms around addictions. Whole cities spring up around them. I see them all the time, chua is now known as don monster. now that I'm free, travelling the highways of someone else's history. I'm still doing the crimes. I'm just not doing the time.

Somebody done fucking witched you, Monster.

DIALOGUE [don monster]: I have a, shall we say, a presence.
I'm small,
You see it tattooed on my back: Don. Don Monster.
Now I'm beyond that.
Now I'm a junkie. A theory junkie.
I became an intellectual don.
now that I'm free,
I'm still doing the crimes.
I'm just not doing the time.

Date entered: 1997/06/24 10:00

NARRATIVE: Five years inside and your body gets used to things. Makes adjustments. Changes. Your skin gets thicker, your hands coarser. Your mind sharper. More finely attuned to the senses. Like taste. The air here tastes different from inside. Heavier. It has a presence. A life. Chua is now known as don monster. I feel it circulating, wrestling across my skin, invading my pores, reminding me of this body. My body. A body I had nearly forgotten inside. A body I had taken for granted in the routines of the day. Ain't shit to do inside but work on your body. But you work on it so hard you forget you got it. And the juice makes it hard to feel anything when you're not lifting weights. Now I can feel every muscle tremble as I inhale. My chest expanding, the muscles thinning until they threaten to vanish. Then exhale. My muscles contracting into hard, solid bricks. The cold passes over me like a cloud of dust, barely settling on me. I walk around in my old clothes. So old they barely fit, stretched tight across my widening arms. I walk around my old stomping grounds and I know no fear. At least none on this first day out. People clear a path for me on the streets. I look everyone of them in the eye as I pass. Women checking me out, in site of themselves. Fucking patos checking me out. Even my homeboys.
-- Damn, Monster, you look fucking good. What they mean: You got what everyone wants. At this level of digital perfection there's no such thing as straight or gay. It's all good. You know what I'm saying?

Let me put it this way: I don't owe Uncle Ong shit.

chua is now known as don monster.

DIALOGUE [don monster]: Your skin gets thicker,
your hands coarser.
Your mind sharper.
Heavier.
It has a presence. A life.
reminding me of this body.
Now I can feel every muscle tremble as I inhale.
Then exhale.
solid bricks.
Damn, Monster, you look fucking good.
You got what everyone wants.
It's all good.
You know what I'm saying?
Let me put it this way--