Curse: The end has only just begun

by Rich Hayden

  While doing some modeling her junior year in high school, it didn’t take long before the striking brunette was offered contracts from some of the most coveted brands. Reluctantly, her father stood behind her as Ali pursued a career with the Rypt Jeans clothing line. At 18, she relocated to Chicago. Within the time span of one month, her image could be seen on billboards all around the country. She was viewed as a link to supermodels of the past, and her popularity was predicted to exceed that of Anna Nicole Smith’s during her reign as a Guess? girl. However, Ali’s defiant streak, paired with the sense of entitlement she harbored from a life of leisure, had lured her into the old traps that had swallowed so many young girls before.

  In middle school, raucous and rebellious Ali had developed a taste for heavy metal, weed, and boys. Although rather conservative, her parents took it easy on their daughter, hoping that her indiscretions were just youthful follies. They very well may have been, but by 19, Ali showed no signs of maturity. She went to parties every night, drank heavily, and discovered a fondness for cocaine. The pairing of her wild nature and disregard for responsibility did little to derail her career initially. With the fuel of youth and drugs, Ali made rounds on the nightclub circuit and was photographed with some heavy-hitters in the business. She formed contacts and exchanged numbers with girls who seemed poised to make the leap from cover girl to midrange movie star. She was living the life, basking in glamour and relishing the feeling of moving too fast, but, like a freight train into a Volvo, her career was smashed to pieces.

  It was another rowdy night out in the chilly Chicago air, and just another club filled with the stimuli of homegrown house music, flashing lights, and a plethora of mixed drinks. In an act that she had perfected, Ali drank more than her skinny frame should have been able to take as she wiggled through the beats of the music in bizarre clothing. The predictable evening of excess and eventual exhaustion took a fateful detour as Ali and another girl snuck their way into a backroom normally kept inaccessible to the general public.

  She followed her friend down the rabbit hole to indulge the only common element they shared: narcotics. Ali’s accomplice, a trampy blonde who certainly had set her best days behind her, melted into the arms of a man seated on a circular couch. Once the two women had snorted a few lines off the surface of the drink table, it wasn’t long before the blonde slid her clothing off. As she straddled the stranger, this glorified prostitute coerced Ali into a sloppy make-out session. Before the next thump of a new song could be properly established, the cocktail of youthful defiance and the drugs in Ali’s blood sent her full throttle into a backroom threesome on the sticky surface of the carpet.

  Dirt tends to follow dirt, and, unbeknownst to Ali, her scandalous tryst was captured by the unblinking eye of a cell phone’s camera. The sordid contents were sold to the highest bidder, and once the grainy sex video made its rounds on the internet, Ali’s contract with Rypt evaporated.

  Too embarrassed to come home, she stayed in Chicago with her boyfriend Max, a common thug who fancied himself as the next great amateur porn producer. The cost of their luxury apartment stayed the same, but Ali’s income had dried up, and her addiction to drugs continued to swell. As the floor of their place supported an array of collection notices along with the usual smatterings of drug paraphernalia and porn, Ali grew desperate. As she watched the random traffic of hookers and junkies flow in and out of her apartment, and the money that stuck to their trail, it didn’t take much convincing before Ali agreed to star in one of Max’s handheld features. Locked in a constant haze of hard drugs and alcohol, she was displayed at her filthy worst. This too, was viewed by millions from their home computers. With the graphic content, and with the lust for shame that she seemed to harbor, her image was forever smeared. For her imprudence, Ali was left completely bereft of hope for another fashion contract.

  Determined not to have a daughter who starred in pornography, Ali’s father disowned her. Hundreds of miles from home, the news didn’t exactly shake her, although she did express distress to Max over the seedy film. In a moment of rare sobriety, she was stung by the tastelessness of the film, and was furious that it had been posted online. She had no one to turn to, and, although her own eviction would surely follow quickly behind, Ali announced that she was leaving Max. Forcefully, she attempted to throw him out of the place that her work had bought. With her eyeliner smeared, and the symphonic odor of fast food and cigarettes wafting from between her teeth, Ali unloaded on Max.

  Armored in nothing more than a bra and the pumps which she woke up wearing, Ali shoved him toward the door and laced him with obscenities. Ali pitched a bottle at her monstrous excuse for a boyfriend, and watched as it sailed through the glass of a flat-screen TV. Max’s delight with this little tantrum only served to further incense the disgraced model. He leered at her like a hungry jackal, and like any proper scavenger, he was only there to pick whatever could be torn from her bones. She flung anything that was within clutching distance at the beast across the room. Her frustration swelled with every result of her flawed aim. But then, Ali saw her opportunity to make her point felt. Max turned away, feeling that her rage had been exhausted. After all, he had seen this show before. It was then that Ali’s cell phone crashed into the side of his head, and rained down upon the carpet in an explosion of plastic and buttons. It was that act, Ali’s fleeting moment of satisfaction and triumph that served to launch Max into fury.

  “You stupid junkie bitch!” he screamed, rubbing his afflicted temple.

  “What? Fuck you,” she snarled, drawing out the words like an impatient child.

  “I should beat you to death,” he said with an eerie calm.

  “You won’t do shit, faggot. You never do shit. You ain’t shit. Get the fuck out.” After flicking a lit cigarette over to Max, Ali turned away.

  With his fists, and without any notion to do otherwise, he beat Ali relentlessly, and knocked her unconscious. Her left arm was quickly broken, and five cracked ribs rose and fell in a splintered palpitation with every heave of her chest. Countless bruises littered her body, and two black eyes would emerge to darken the surface on her face. Max left her crumpled upon the floor, but the assault was far from over. He knelt over her unconscious body and pulled a knife from his jeans. Using a rough and serrated blade, he cut a massive wound down her face. The hot blood spurted out and leaked across his fingers as he cut. Further enraged by this soiling, Ali’s ogre brought down a punch that loosened her teeth and sent ribbons of blood onto the wall beside her. With a permanent disfigurement to her once glamorous look, he left her to die on the stained carpet among a collection of drug residue, stains, and porn magazines.

  Two days later, Ali woke up in the hospital. Under the influence of more drugs, she was hooked up to monitors and machines like a sci-fi experiment gone wrong. Her eyes were cracked half open and her jaw was wired shut. She slurred fractured speech to the nurse who had come to check on the wounded girl. Her questions were ill-formed and usually forgotten before the answers could come, but when Ali was told that Max had been arrested for attempted murder, she fell back into unconsciousness.

  Once stabilized, she became aware that her family had gathered around her, but Ali’s father was noticeably absent. At the urging of his wife, he would take back his estranged child. But all of the torments that cuddled up to Ali, he believed to be self-inflicted, and so he elected to not make the trip to Chicago to be by his daughter’s side. With her broken teeth clenched by metal and wire, she felt as sadness wove itself into her bed sheets.

  Once back home in Pittsburgh, Ali had kicked her dependency on drugs, and her body recovered. She was just 20 years old, and her family hoped that finally she would enroll in school. Ever rebellious, she decided to again try her hand at modeling. The distant relationship between Ali and her father was further strained by this news, but with promises of change, he again provided the monetary support she needed.

  With financial aid from her parents, and with what little
money she had left after all the drugging, Ali bought a considerably large set of breast implants. She dyed her hair black and had an elaborate tribal tattoo drilled into her lower back. The vicious scar on her face fit with the fierce nature of a local fetish magazine, Brutality X. With caffeine and nicotine as her only crutches, Ali agreed to work for the publication.

  She was determined to make it as a professional, clean and sober, all stereotypes be damned. She wanted to prove her father wrong and show the world that she was much more than a vapid cliché. She hated the crowd of TMZ pseudo-celebrities that her name was often associated with, and desired desperately to change her image. Ali envisioned herself redefining the modeling industry and shaking up the ideas of what it meant to be classy, beautiful, and cutting-edge at the same time. She imagined herself rising clean from the wreckage of filth and danger, but, alas, her hopes vanished as raindrops into the sea.

  She did a few spreads and some endorsement shoots, but a criminal element ran deep in Brutality X, and her lofty aspirations were soon left to decay. It turned out that it wasn’t much of a magazine, more like a loose association of burnouts that liked to take pictures. With no one that resembled a decent human being, and with all of her old demons tagging along, Ali became entrapped in a situation that served to bring her shame.

  While strung up in a hard bondage pose, Ali was left helpless to watch as the photographer paused to shoot heroin. Sobbing mildly, but glad to be restrained from a fresh, narcotic temptation, the scarred model was struck by the emptiness of her life. Eventually, she was untied by another woman, who had track marks on her arms. Rubbing her irritated flesh, Ali was left with welts on her skin and a prophetic look into her future if she stayed with Brutality X. After two months of on-and-off work, and a growing list of derelicts in her address book, she was stalked by depression. She knew how this would all end, and she saw the fanciful nature of her dreams. Reality clutched at her stronger than the drugs ever had, and, reluctantly, Ali gave up on modeling.

  Incensed that his only daughter had been a junkie, done porn, and voluntarily posed for bondage shoots, Ali’s father again severed all ties of kinship. The relationship maintained with her mother was strained, and with every visit being more awkward than the last, their meetings became fewer and fewer. She continued to feel disconnected from her family, and at some point, was made to feel useless. Her existence was a ruse, a cheap imitation of life, as it depended solely on her mother’s credit card limit. Removing the cushion of plastic was a scary proposition, but to be free of the barbs that her parents cast her way, Ali knew it was time to go.

  In a bold but necessary move, Ali walked away from the wealth of her family and took to the laborious task of making an honest life on the wage of an ordinary working slob. She didn’t stray far, but with the industrial look of Sharpsburg, Ali felt worlds apart from the life she once knew when she first ventured off completely on her own.

  Her 21st birthday was spent alone, in a tiny apartment in Sharpsburg, as the evening came to resemble the multitude of nights which had preceded it. It was all the better though, for the next day she had to open the diner in Aspinwall. She had worked at the diner for close to a month, and with the last of her Brutality X cash, her possessions and a new kitten had been moved into a ground-level dwelling on Middle Street. Life wasn’t where she hoped it would be, and it was clear that it might never be, but finally, Ali was clean and independent. It was almost as though, at twenty-one years of age, she could start living.

  She flipped on her TV, and, thanks to a bond she still held with two of her three brothers, Ali had developed a fondness for sports. It passed the time, and all the stats gave her something she could use to occupy her often-troubled mind. As the fall and the playoffs neared, a genuine interest in baseball sprouted within her. The Pirates were in second place in the division, with an outside shot to qualify for a wild card spot. Although they were drubbed the day before, this series with the Meteors was a way to pick up cheap wins. Hopefully, with the series finale, Ali’s Bucs would emerge victorious. And so, with a jar of peanuts and a cat in her lap, she settled in for a night she would never forget, at least for the remainder of her natural life.

  Part 5. Fate

  An evening fitted with an unseasonably brisk chill formed the ambiance which would conclude a rather mundane baseball series and play host to the second start of Amil Young’s Major League career. A sizeable portion of tickets had been sold, but with dewy rain peppering the night sky, only a smattering of fans had arrived at the park. It was 7:35, and the first pitch of the night had been hurled across the plate for a strike. As Amil sat in the dugout, he looked beyond the confines of the stadium and stared into an ever-darkening azure sky. His mind loitered in the distance, much the same as it had back upon the rusted diamonds of Fog Lake’s fields when he used to gaze into the might of mountains. With a tinge of silent guilt, he hoped that the top of the 1st inning would conclude rather quickly, for he was anxious to take the mound.

  Once upon the mound, Amil was relieved of all his hesitations. The troubles brought about from his inglorious background, they faded from his mind. This hump of pampered dirt was where he truly belonged, and upon its cool surface, he reveled in the devotion that this throne commanded, as all his efforts were focused and clear.

  During the first four innings, Amil crafted a weapon destined to fillet the record books. He was no-hitting the opposition and had already tallied 7 strikeouts. But history is stubborn, and it cares not to be altered. Furthermore, destiny has never concerned itself with the whims and wishes of man, and so, with intangible forces conspiring against him, Amil’s niche place in history was cemented. Robbed of a brilliant future by a failure of the body, this undoing of a man was broadcast over the airwaves for all to witness.

  Steve: “Welcome back folks, nothing-nothing ball game, bottom of the 5th inning here at PNC Park, where Meteors pitcher Amil Young is having his way with Pirate batters. Coming off a start where he one-hit the Brewers, Amil has showed no signs of fatigue or jitters.”

  Greg: “Steady as a stone, no doubt about that. It’s really impressive what this young man has accomplished. Even a fan of the home team has to be impressed.”

  Steve: “All the best to Virginia’s finest, let’s just hope our Bucs can squeeze a run or two across.”

  Greg: “The first offering from Amil, and what do ya know? Strike one. Pitch two, now, and it’s fouled off and out of play. Amil’s in command now, up 0-2 on Jose Myers. Pitch three, strike three, just like that.”

  Steve: “Ya can’t hit it if you don’t swing.”

  Greg: “Jose wouldn’t have hit that if he had an oar, that ball was blistered across the plate. Mikey Hoffman at the plate now. Amil shakes off a few signs from the catcher...and he lobs his splitter over the plate for strike one.”

  Steve: “That was a bad swing, just an awful swing. Mikey’s gonna be embarrassed when he watches this at-bat later on. Come on, Mike, don’t let him get in your head.”

  Greg: “Too late for that. And Hoffman grounds out to short for out number two.”

  Steve: “The Pirates need more patience at the plate if they want any hope of winning this game. Gotta get that pitch count up, make him earn those outs.”

  Greg: “Certainly, Amil’s looking to make this his quickest inning yet. Opposing pitcher, James Valentine up now for the Bucs. Amil’s first offering, and yes, folks, he is human, as it’s ball one in the dirt.”

  Steve: “You don’t see that from him very often. That ball just got away from him. He’s gonna be gunning right for Valentine. You watch, no fancy stuff here, just heat.”

  Greg: “Pitch two now, and oh no! Oh no! That ball sailed way wide and it’s no mystery why. Amil’s throwing arm bent in one of the most unnatural positions I’ve ever seen as he released that ball.”

  Steve: “A lot of unraveling just took place around that elbow, and Amil’s down on his knees in the dirt.”

  Greg: “As the trainers come out, Amil
’s on his side in the fetal position. The pain he must be experiencing has to be overwhelming.”

  Steve: “That really didn’t look good. As a former ballplayer, it sickens me to watch this.”

  Greg: “To watch his forearm dangle like that, you can’t help but feel a great amount of doubt for the future of this young man in the game of baseball. Baseball has too many what-if and almost stories, we don’t need another. Come on, Amil, heal up that arm.”

  As Amil writhed in the dirt with a film of rain on his face, he saw his future with all the clarity of a fortune teller. Its grim image told of surgeries to come and all the failures and complications that would accompany their damned efforts. He witnessed all the rehabilitation and physical therapy, which in the end would only come to amount to a vast squandering of time. He watched helplessly as his dreams decayed. The big contracts evaporated, the adulation disappeared, and endorsements, no matter how small, all vanished into the cool Pennsylvania air. Amil held his love, his passion, and his sense of self, but for as tight or desperate as his grasp may have been, he could do nothing but watch them die. As he lay in the dirt with his future shattered all about him, his mind drifted to the remembrance of the scarred Ali Jett.

  Part 6. A common bond

  In a predictable and dull fashion, the next year of Amil’s life was spent almost entirely with doctors and physical therapists. Unwilling to face the wretched truth of their situation without a fight, the team pumped a generous amount of time and dollars into the mending of their rising star. But alas, no quantity of money, effort or sorcery could put his shredded arm back together. Sure, he could lead a normal life, and under most circumstances, his arm would offer him little discomfort, but a career in sports had become as dead and distant a dream as the muck that shifts on the floor of the great swamp in Fog Lake.