Simon learns to duck

Okay, so Simon finally decides he has the time to learn to be quicker. Simon taught Johnny some of that Dominate hoodoo in the summer, but Simon’s been busy doing Ventrue shit like taking control of banker and politicians and shit. But now, Simon wants to learn some Celerity. How to have more than just a reflex reaction, but to harness that reflex and direct it.

So Simon shows up in these ridiculous purple Ecko sweats. What the fuck? Did Simon think that we were going to go for a light jog or something? The only person those purple sweats might look good on might be Angel. ‘Cause only black people can wear purple and not look like clowns.

So we’re standing there, making small talk at first, right? “Any trouble with the traffic on the 55 tonight? Nah? Sidestreets? Yeah, Johnny forgets that sometimes.” And then smack! Johnny just slaps Simon across the face.

Simon looks at Johnny not like it hurt or anything, but like, what the fuck are you doing? But Johnny just keeps talking, like nothing happened, talking about this new strip club that he saw on the way here and how Johnny gotta check it out later. So Simon relaxes and starts talking financial shit. Like what the latest numbers are on P.F.Chang’s and shit. So Johnny slaps him again, same hand, same cheek. This time he actually says something about it.

“What the fuck Johnny? What are you slapping me for?” So Johnny slapped him again, this time with the other hand and the other cheek. “Hey!” So Johnny smacked him again.

“What? You wanted to learn to be faster. Well, Johnny figures from watching you take a punch from Sharky a few weeks back you’re getting to be pretty fuckin’ tough. So the knife idea won’t work anymore. But smackin’ the shit out of you will. You want Johnny” –smacked him again- “to stop bitch slapping you? Then do something about it. Grab Johnny’s hand before it gets there. It’s about instinct” –another slap- “not thinking. It’s about doing” –and again- “not planning. Force yourself to just react, not think about what to do next.”

Simon just stood there, looking like Sharky must have when he was told he was adopted. Totally confused for a moment. So Johnny slapped him again.

That’s how it went the rest of the night. Talking about all kinds of shit, financials, what the fuck we are, what the Architects stand for, and Johnny slapping the shit out Simon. Started to get kinda funny, ‘cause Simon would just take the slap, look aside, actually exhale, then compose himself to continue the conversation.

It started getting late, so we had to call it a night. Might have put a bit of dent in Simon’s left cheek by accident. So we meet the next night. This time it’s a baby blue fuckin’ Armani sweat suit. Who fuckin’ dresses Simon at night? Yet again, it takes all night and Simon is not only not getting it, it seems like he’s started to get fucking pissed at getting spanked more than at a fraternity hazing ritual. For some reason, the next night is out. But he grabs his sack and tries again for the night after that. And it seems like it’s just not fuckin’ working and Simon is really starting to steam. Almost fuckin’ literally steaming.

It wasn’t until Johnny started to think about actually leaving and continuing another night when it happened.

Johnny twitched his right shoulder to try and fool Simon into thinking it was the right hand coming (hey, it worked earlier) then went with the left. But suddenly there was Simon with not only a block, but actually grabbed Johnny’s hand and was moving with the other to slap Johnny! The anger finally punched through that clinical head of his and he just reacted, just finally let the anger go, not like letting out the beast like Sharky does, but let the anger just guide his body and “fire it up.”

Johnny caught the hand easy and smiled. Finally did it. Johnny let go of Simon’s hand and said “About fuckin’ time. Started to get bored with all this talking. Not when there are strippers to talk to. Keep it real dude.” Before Simon could say anything, Johnny just started walking back to the car and Simon followed. And that was all. Too late to hit the strip club, but that’ll wait for another night.

Journal #15, Dec.4, 2007

Um. Yeah. Johnny doesn’t know if he’ll learn anymore Fortitude shit from Joe Barclay anymore. The motherfucker isn’t just a sadist, he’s fucking psychotic. Who the fuck drives off a bridge on purpose and talks about how cool it was? Who?

Okay, he’s the story. Johnny meets Joe at some dive bar down in Gangrel turf down south. A serious biker bar where some of the chicks had bigger biceps than Sharky, had more tattoos than any Brujah and were scarier than any Nosferatu. Seriously, a few of these biker chicks were more manly than most of the other bikers in there. They probably had bigger clits than most Toreador pricks. Damn.

So we’re there and Johnny is making small talk with Joe ‘cause it seems like we’re just waiting for someone or something to do. Then he checks his watch and says something about someone not coming, so we’ll do it another night. Johnny is thinking, fuck, a wasted night hanging out in a damn biker bar.

Now, for some reason, Joe picked Johnny up from the Ship in Santa Ana, so Joe was actually driving this piece of shit Ford F150 pickup truck. Johnny swears it only had an AM radio. Suddenly Joe loses control somehow and plows, passenger side first, into a fucking tree.

What the fuck? Joe, as usual, isn’t even scratched. But Johnny is picking twigs out of his fucking nose. It’s not really bothering Johnny, not after the beatings Johnny already took from Barclay, but yeah, Johnny had to fix a leg and the nose was broken. So we’ve gotta pry ourselves out of this heap of twisted metal and wood.

Johnny should have known that something was up when there was a tow truck parked just down the street. And that Joe had another car waiting for us. Should have fuckin’ known, but then again, Johnny was just confused as fuck at how Barclay had crashed the car in the first place.

Anyway, before we go, Joe asks Johnny how he feels. Then he says something about “tapping into the same place as last time.” Now Johnny is starting to understand that this wasn’t a fucking accident. “The pain exists outside of you. Stay focused.” Or something like that.

Not only is Johnny understanding that the accident was on purpose but that the lesson probably isn’t over. And that’s starting to make Johnny really nervous.

So we get into another truck. A nice big Tacoma. We get on the 241 freeway and head north back towards home. Joe isn’t talking much, but he’s pointing out shit on the road like trees or something, slipping in comments about focusing outside the pain, shit like that. We’re coming up north and Joe inserts a second key into the dashboard. The passenger airbag light changes to a nice bright red color, like blood. He turned it off.

Oh fuck.

We hit that spot around Rancho Santa Margarita where there’s a bridge over this huge fucking ravine. Yeah. You know what’s about to happen by now, right? Yeah. The goddamn psychopathic Barclay jerks the wheel of the truck and smashes through the guardrail and over the side we go, and suddenly everything is in slow motion just like in the fuckin’ movies.

And it just keeps going. And going. When the fuck is this goddamn thing ever going to hit the ground? And when it does, will there be anything left of Johnny? The damn thing keeps sailing and it’s now nosed over so now we’re upside down.

The whole time, I am desperately trying to focus, I am desperately trying to gather my energies and trying to push even the idea of pain outside my being. Not only will I not feel pain, but I won’t have pain, it just won’t be there.

And then WHAM!!!!! The truck fucking flattened. Johnny was flattened too. For a moment it seemed like Johnny’s head was squashed right down into this fuckin’ crotch. But it didn’t hurt. It was uncomfortable, it wasn’t exactly a screaming orgasm from twins giving Johnny a blowjob, but it didn’t really hurt. At least not pain as Johnny has always understood pain.

Didn’t stop Johnny’s spine from being compacted by about two feet and mangling both arms, not to mention knocking Johnny fucking silly. But once Johnny’s world stopped spinning and sent the Blood where it belonged to stretch that spine back out and to mend those arms, it was again a matter of tearing ourselves out of that mangled heap of metal.

And you know what? Joe was fucking giggling. No, he’d never admit it. But Johnny swears for just a moment or two, he was fucking giggling.

No surprise, but once we finally make the climb up the ravine, there’s a Caltrans truck already bolting a new guardrail in place.

You know what Joe said next? If Johnny was cool or wanted to do it again.

Again? Goddamn psychopath.

Johnny was thirsty. And drinks were on Barclay. That just might be the last time Johnny hangs out with Barclay for a very long time…

Barclay gets scarier

Joe Barclay just gets scarier and scarier.

So Joe wants to know more about this Presence shit. Okay, ‘cause Johnny still needs to learn more the Fortitude shit. But, see, this time, it’s not about how cool you are, about your ability to get the chicks, it’s about your ability to scare the living shit out of your unliving enemies. Some fuckers call it the Dread Gaze.

Basically, it works because us licks now burn with a fire inside. Except it’s more like a monster or a beast, ‘cause if we don’t control it, we’ll do all kinds of heinous shit like eating babies, raping old nuns and voting Republican. So we all try to control it. Except maybe for Sharky. He votes Republican all the time.

So Johnny meets Barclay at a warehouse. Don’t really need anyone outside of us two to see us. Might be a breach of the Maquerade. Now, Johnny is busy explaining to Barclay what is going on, how it works. Barclay just stands there, like he does, listening. Then he asks, “Like this?”

Next thing Johnny knows, Johnny is half a city over. Motherfucker got it right the first fucking time. He bared his fangs, hissed like a hellcat, and his goddamn soul fucking rose up like a beast and damned if Johnny didn’t run like a little bitch.

Dude is just getting creepier and creepier. Don’t want to think how he’s gonna teach Johnny the next step of Fortitude.

Brujah and those other licks

They say that the Brujah basically fall into three camps. Iconoclast, Individualist and Idealist. Johnny calls bullshit.

It’s just not that fucking simple. In some ways, Johnny fits into all three, which some might say means Johnny is an Individualist, but that doesn’t seem quite right either.

See, the iconoclasts are pissed off and want to tear down the system. Why the fuck else be an Anarch if you don’t want to tear down or at least change the system? The Idealists see some sort of glory in the past and it’s all about brotherhood. Yeah, well, there’s plenty of Camarilla Brujah brothers Johnny would happily let get ashed. And the Individualists who seem to be only for themselves.

At least that’s how it seems to Johnny. The whole point of being an Anarch is to tear down the Camarilla system. The tyrants of the Sabbat too. And that should be by all means necessary, from buying politicians to firebombing the Prince’s haven. But we should all stand together, at least as Anarch brothers, despite our many differences. And we should work together to build a better, more lasting society. That’s a big part of the reason behind the Architects of Freedom. And Johnny don’t feel it’s really Johnny’s place to tell his Anarch brothers and sisters what to do; come to Johnny with a problem and Johnny’ll be like Solomon. Keep your nose clean and there’s no reason for Johnny to issue anything even vaguely like an order.

Maybe that’s what it comes down to. Even though Johnny is now communicating with Brujah across the country, Johnny just feels it’s more important to be an Anarch than to be Brujah. Johnny wasn’t given a choice to be Brujah, it just happened that way. Fuck, like Johnny ever wanted to be a goddamn vampire in the first place. Johnny didn’t choose any of that. But Johnny did choose to be Anarch. Johnny did choose to put everything at risk for The Movement.

And so ultimately, the bonds of Anarch brotherhood trump the hoodoo voodoo bonds of the blood of Brujah for this particular lick.

Maybe that’s why Johnny deliberately built the Architects with Malkavians and Ventrue. Would have been happy with a Gangrel or one of those Nosferatu even. Ain’t seen too many of those around the OC. Some of ‘em seem more trustworthy to Johnny. And for them, it seems like The Movement is more important than blood to them too.

Simon, our Ventrue, just might be our secret weapon if we can keep Sharky from killing him. Those fuckers are just too good with all that business and politics shit. Can’t fight for fuck, but shit, you need a loan or to get the local councilman recalled, the suits are the way to go man.

The Malks are fuckin’ weird. But there’s something about them that keeps Johnny wondering if they don’t know something that the rest of us don’t. Gotta keep the Anarch Malks on Johnny’s side as best as possible, just in case they do know something. Pretty good at spying too when they wanna be.

Barclay seems to be an okay Gangrel. At least he doesn’t go around sniffing our asses and lifting his leg and shit like a few of them seem to do around here. Or is so goddamn territorial like some damn junkyard dog that wasn’t told the junkyard was sold and being turned into a mini-mall. Not that he’s in the gang, but he is friendly to us it seems. Kinda confusing though.

No fucking Toreador!!! Goddamn faggots. Pouting and preening and posing. Fuckin’ hate them.

Don’t know enough about the rest of ‘em, like the Tremere and the Nosferatu. Or the Lasombra or those Zimishe or whatever they are called. Those last two are goddamn shovelheads.

Huh. Went from Brujah philosophy to talking about clans. Weird.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

Whoa.

That's a lot of fuckin' money. Johnny got hooked up with some brothers in the Movement back in Chicago or something and they gave $500,000 to Johnny to spend to help build the Free States here. Su-weeeet!!

So the money is going to go in three different directions. First, guns. Gotta build up a stockpile of guns to be used by the Movement. Even guys like Simon gotta learn how to handle heat and that means getting them some guns to use. So Johnny figures somewhere between 50 to 100 G's will buy enough guns for everyone down here to have two.

Next is politicians. We need those weasels in our pockets to help not only against the Cam, but against the fuckin' riceferatu. So Johnny is gonna drop, dunno, maybe 200K on buying some political friendships.

Best of all? Hookers. Lots of hookers. Okay, not really, but sort of. Gotta work the streets and who knows the pulse of the streets better than hookers? Those bitches know everything but no one bothers to listen to them. Except Johnny. Spread the rest of the cash around and they'll all come to Johnny when they hear anything interesting.

Oh yeah.

But it's kinda like in the movies, you know? Never seen that much money in one place before and it was just like in the movies. Freakin' cool.

Cold, hard, cash

Yeah baby!

Okay, some Anarchs back in the midwest have managed to turn in a lot of recyclables and penny rolls and have turned that into $10 million dollars. They decided to part with that cash to help out the Movement. Well, Johnny asked for money for hookers, politicians and guns. And Johnny got 500 Gs. Half a mil. Sweet!

Now Johnny has got to figure out just how many guns and hookers that buys. And exactly where to buy them. It'll help not only fight the goddamn cammunists that have stepped south of the 10 into Anarch turf, but also those uppity riceferatu down here in the OC.

Hookers and guns baby!

Journal #13, November 16, 2007

That selfish little pricklet Range has served at least one purpose in his miserable unlife. And that's the really drive home the point between Anarchs and God Damn Independents.

To be a part of the Movement, you have to be willing to be a part of something bigger than you. You have to be willing to sacrifice at least a little bit of yourself for the greater good, for the good of the Movement. And Range ain't willing to do that. Says that the necessity of sacrifice for the cause is actually oppression. WTF? That's just stupid. And more to the point, it's extremely selfish. Range isn't an Anarch, he's an anarchist. He's a GDI and he ain't a part of the Anarch Movement.

See, now Owl is a grumpy fucker that really only cares about violently tearing down the Monarchy. MalkieMaggie is a weird little bitch that thinks that setting a better example is more important than ripping some cammunists head off. But they both have the Movement in mind, they both have shown that they are willing to work and sacrifice for the Movement.

Does the sacrifice need to be major? Like life and death? Nah. But it's gotta be enough to make it worth it. To make it actually count.

Seriously, any Anarch that would sell out a brother or sister for a debt, especially if it's a cash debt, is nothing more than a traitor. And traitors deserve nothing but a long walk on a sunny street.

At the least, Range is a GDI and not really an Anarch. At worst he's a fucking traitor to the Movement. At least Johnny has a better idea of who's really down and who's not.

The opening volleys

Like Johnny said before, the riceferatu have decided that it's time for war, that they are staking their long-held claims to Westminster and Garden Grove and now going after Irvine.

So now it's time to fight back.

So the KKK of the undead, the Knight of Retribution are now on our side (supposedly) and are going after four apartment complexes that are supposedly infested with KJ and their mortal tools. They need our help though and Simon managed to get Barclay to agree to help (the Irvine claims have gotten under their fur it seems). Seems the Gangrel are going to summon hordes of rats and mice and shit to one of the apartments in an attempt to get it condemned. Should work. Once condemned, it will hopefully be demolished, breaking part of the riceferatu's hold on the area. Or it'll spread them around which might make it worse.

Johnny tried to dump cash into the small local elections over the last few days. Focused on non-Asian candidates (sorry dudes) that either were going to whup-ass or that were only a little bit behind and extra money might help sway the election in their favor. Tried to use Johnny's other money men to cover up the cash-influx, or at least keep it from being traced back directly to Johnny. Then, Johnny figures it's the time for political parties, right? Victory balls and all that and Johnny does have the hook-ups with the parties and clbus, so Johnny is going to be busy this weekend with those parties. Gotta try to get some hoo-ups with the local politicians.

And it's about time the hookers on the street and the strippers in the clubs pay extra attention to the word on the street and let Johnny know what they hear.

This war sure as shit ain't gonna be all about personal combat and shit. Guys like Sharky are gonna be useful, but Johnny thinks that a dude like Simon are gonna be even more useful, especially at the beginning of this shitstorm.

Journal #12, November 5, 2007

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to war we go...

Goddamn it. Okay, so the riceferatu have been a thorn in the OC's side for, like, a year now. We tried a treaty, but that got bogged down by old fuddy-duddies (how the fuck is that spelled anyway?) and went nowhere. Negotiations went nowhere. Skirmishes and sniping didn't really accomplish much either. Outright bullshit just seemd to annoy them. So now they've decided that as of December, it's time for war.

And they've decided that Westminster and Garden Grove aren't enough, no. They need Irvine too. At least that'll make sure the Gangrel get involved for a change.

It's gone too far. Johnny didn't really want war, tried to avoid war, tried to gather the OC Anarchs together, but we were too splintered, too selfish and now it may come to haunt us. Now it's being brought to us, and now we have to do something about it.

It's actually kind of a relief because of that. Now Mr. Black and Remus and even the Gangrel will have to come to together and get something done, or it's yet more turf lost to the keui-jinn.

It's a good thing Johnny found that national Brujah list...some of the fuckwit Cam brothers and sisters might actually be able to prove their worth and lend some kind of a hand in the fight.

This just isn't the fight Johnny wanted.

Why even bother?

Sometimes, Johnny wonders why he even bothers.

No, not the whole Anarch thing. The business of bothering to try and defend being an Anarch to a bunch of Cammie fucktards who aren't really interested in anything but running Johnny and the Movement down. All they seemingly want to do is to spend their time insulting Johnny, Perez, Cutter and every other Anarch that pops up on the Brujah message list other than Krieger. 'Course, that's because probably even the oh-so-bad-ass Jacen and Dean, the gay wonder twins, seem to even fear and respect Krieger muthafuckin' Klein.

Is that what it's really all about to the fuckwits? Power? If Johnny has got the power, they'll respect Johnny. Isn't that what Status, Elders, even Prestation boils down to?

Johnny remembers what Prince Book of SF said nearly a year ago. He basically said it's about power, though he was talking more on a domain kind of level. It's basically being proven true by Brujah that should know better than to simply follow the Camarilla's rules blindly.

It's a hard lesson to learn, but Johnny thinks maybe he's finally getting it.