Chapter VI: All Good Things Must End
(July 2004 - August 2004)

"I searched your room, and I found a king of spades, a troll doll with pink hair, and a AA battery all in the same place! You evildoer!"
-Zion "The Book" Cao Cao

I feel that this chapter needs a bit of a disclaimer up front. I know that Zion's parents will probably read this (or atleast his mother will, as she is aware of this site) and I don't want them to think I inculded this chapter just to insult them. That isn't the case. I provide these Emails from Zion so that the reader of this story will be equiped with all the same information I am. That way the reader will be better prepared to understand why I made some of the decisions I did, as well as better prepared to understand to atleast some extent why Zion did some of the things he did. Sadly, some of whats said here (as well as in other parts of this tale) will probably offend some people. But with that said I don't plan to keep this information stashed away under my mattress like a dirty magazine in the hopes of sparing someones feelings. Thats just not the kind of guy I am. Lets pin that centerfold up on the wall and let everyone get a good look. Then its up to them to decide how they feel about it.

Another thing you might want to keep in mind is that these are emails from Zion to me, nothing more. I've already pointed out that Zion was a habitual liar who made a point of telling everyone what he thought they wanted to hear. So its quote possible these emails aren't 100% accurate recounts of the events they describe. Maybe none of this ever happened at all. I leave that up to you, the reader, to decide how much of this you want to believe or if you want to believe any of it at all. For the record though, I do believe quite a bit of what is said in these emails. I adjust a bit under the assumption that Zion likely exaggerated a bit or may have remembered certain details wrong as he was retelling his story. But overall I believe that Zion probably trusted me more than anyone else he knew at the time and if he would have told the truth to anyone, he would have told it to me.

With that out of the way, lets get on with it:

You know - I've been living a good life. Not just this summer, but this year in general. There seems to be some rule, however, that all good things - primarily happiness - has to end.

My last few days have been quite a story an an adventure. If you have any advice jump right in, because I haven't had enough sleep to make even a cursory analysis of my situation. Writing this email should help me do that.

I came home a couple nights ago at about 11:30, as I always do on weeknights because Ari's weeknight curfew is a bit past 11:00. That was when my life stopped normalcy and I seemed to be in a different reality. My Mom had called me at around noon that day to tell me a big packet from Amherst had arrived, and that it probably had my roommate and housing information, and did I want to come home and open it? I told her no, as I was fairly sure whatever board and roommate I had wasn't going to change whether I opened it now or in twelve hours. She was pissed when I told her she couldn't open it.

So my Mom's obviously a bit drunk when I come home that evening, and is acting really strange and abnormaly rude. She gets pissed when the packet doesn't have any information of value, (it just has a list of all the freshman's addresses and a couple random notes. What am I going to do - mail all the freshman for some reason?) The note to the parents consists of a three page letter talking about drugs and alcohol, and which point my Mom seems to freak out and avoid the conversation.

My Mom then decides that I'm being rude and starts calling me all sorts of petty names. It's like her getto way of cussing me out. She follows that up by claiming I stole money from her. Her logical conclusion was that I asked her for money for food - but she has a credit card charge from Safeway and King Soopers - so I must have been buying food at the grocery store and pocketing the money. In reality, I had bought stuff like shampoo, soap, shaving supplies, nail clippers, ect. The bill couldn't have been more than like $40.

I decide your style of language might be the most appropriate response here, as she doesn't seem to comprehend my explanations and I'm really tired. I think I told her to piss off. At this point she sits down, facing away from me and starts repeating, "You're high" over and over again while accusing me of smoking and dealing "grass". This goes on for at least fifty times. She does not react to anything I say.

I didn't quite know how to react to that. I was in no way high or under any influence. My mom had some new pathetic potted plant she was petting for some reason, so I threw that across the room. Probably a bad reaction on my part.

At that point my Mom informs me that she searched my room and found a box with a razor, a guitar pick, and a two dollar bill. This is about the turning point where the situation went from stupid to absurd, as I don't have such a box. Also confusing me, (as it may be confusing you,) is what accusation she is making with this claim. I really couldn't think up a scenario that involved the use of all three of those items at once or in collaboration. It would be like saying, "I searched your room, and I found a king of spades, a troll doll with pink hair, and a AA battery all in the same place! You evildoer!"

The Triad of Ultimate Evil!

So, in my ignorance I focused on the razor, and decided she was accusing me of cutting myself. I've had a couple of friends and acquantinces that hurt themselves with razor blades - although not enough to generally assume anyone in possession of a razor blade is a masechist. Now since I don't have that stuff I ask her to show it to me, to which she responds, "ohhh, you don't have it anymooore..." At about this point I decided it was okay to start yelling at my Mom for going totally mad. I didn't know the half of it.

Eventually she grabs me at starts shouting at me hysterically, "We can't let you throw your life down the drain! I know what's going on!" I take a fistfull of dirt from the former plant on the floor and throw it in her face and go up to my room. Probably another bad choice. She starts crying hysterically at that point. I mean I have never heard someone cry 1/100th that loud. The ridiculousness of it was unbelievable. It was as if she had had her leg chopped off, a car hit her, a ferral dog bite her, and a heart attack all at the same exact moment.

About the time I arrived to my room my Dad has awoken and asks, "What's happening with your mother?!?" To which my response was something like, "That bitch went crazy." Probably another bad choice. Not exactly an endearing thing to say to my father. He rushes down and hears my Mom's story, which is essentially, "He came home and started throwing heavy things at me, breaking everything, and cussing me out - FOR NO REASON AT ALL!"

My Dad, playing hero, comes up to my room and lists all these crazy "non-negotiable" punishments. To which my response is "Fuck no, I'm outta here," as I slam the door in his face. My parents, about as expected, go berserk at this. My Dad wanting to "talk about it" and for me to "act rationally." Evidently, I'm told, if I go out on my own I will be instantly beat up and all my possessions stolen, similiar to the Zion Returns Yet Again Stories or the loaded pimp guys in Grand Theft Auto III.

I essentially grab about eight huge trashbags, and throw my stuff in there. My Dad has about a twenty minute conversation in which he demeans me in everyway possible. I ignore that, and pretty much list my complaints:

1. Mom searched my room. You can't do that. I'm 19.
2. She claims I'm cutting myself.
3. She claims I'm smoking pot.
4. She claims I'm stealing from you.
5. She's making up wild bullshit lies for no bloody apparent reason - and let's just say that has me flustered.

My Dad drones on and on, and about the fifth time I mention that Mom's crazy 'cause she's accusing me of cutting myself he stops and gets real serious. He laughs and says that, "You can't be that stupid and ignorant. They even show razorblades in movies. You're using cocaine."

I think a dramatic pause goes in well about here. 'Cause that's how the scene played out to me. It was at this point that the world had gone thoroughly insane. Andrew explained to me later that a razorblade is used to take powered cocaine off a block or a piece, which is hard, and that a guitar pick would be to line up the shaved cocaine so you could sniff it, since you'd waste some if you did that with your fingers.

So, both my Mom and Dad decide, despite my protests, that the evidence conclusively proves I'm using cocaine. My Mom picks this point to blatantly lie about what happened, takes back all the other crazy claims - saying she never said them - and says I'm using cocaine.

Exit stage left, I'm leaving this crazyhouse.

Now I might not have acted smart or wise in this situation, but let me explain: I despise them. I do not wish to spend another moment with them for any reason whatsoever. I do not want to have them at my wedding, (although I later reflected if they had to come it would be best to seat them at the same table as you, Grant, Luke, and whoever else they might hate,) I do not want to speak with them over the phone or spend vacations with them.

That said my plans aren't very well lined out either. One example: I thought that all the money for my college education was in Schwab accounts in my name, (and thus are my property,) as the case is with my sister. This would have allowed me to essentially go through college only having to pay miscellanous expenses. But my Mom informed me that, "We didn't know how you were going to work out, so there's only the first year in there."

Since I'm seriously considering moving out I didn't really want to go stay with a friend - mostly because I don't know many friends with their own places and I don't think I could stay long at some parents' house. So I decided to use my Marriott Rewards card and stay some place for a week for really cheap. That would also mean I'd have a hotel with Arielle for a whole week, which should have actually made this week a blast. By bloody luck, however, all Marriott hotels were booked out. Every single one in the Denver area. That's over 100 hotels since they have so many brands!

Every single other hotel I called was booked out too, downtown, lakewood, denver tech area, DIA, Westminister, you name it. I finially found the Extended Stay in Lone Tree that had one room left. This almost impossible situation was only the beginning of my absolutely rotten luck as of late.

By the time that happened it was 3:30AM, so I decided to just sleep in my car, (Which Ari was later pissed at me for,) and I went in to work the next day. I had them cut back my hours for this week so I can arrange whatever future I'm suppose to have.

My parents seem fairly apathetic now about whether I come back. Maybe it's a game as Ari believes, or maybe they're serious. I don't know. My sister's reaction wasn't what I expected either, (thankfully.) She seems to understand.

My luck in everything has been horrible too. I've never seen so many things go wrong in every facet of my life. Ari went and decided to be depressed for the first time in about five months, which I really can't deal with right now. Blah blah blah. This is unfucking believable.

My reaction to this email was probably not what you would expect. I started laughing uncontrollably and couldn't get ahold of myself for almost an hour. Everyone in the room with me at the time looked as if I had just gone totally insane. They knew I had asked to borrow one of the computers for a moment so I could check my email and they had no idea what I could be seeing in my inbox which was so funny. They probably expected some joke email or something so they demanded to see what it was when they figured out I was laughing too hard to explain what was happening. Everyone who read the email was shocked. None found it quite as funny as I did, but it was still quite amazing to them. To explain, the main thing which set me off laughing was the phrase "I searched your room, and I found a king of spades, a troll doll with pink hair, and a AA battery all in the same place! You evildoer!" that was just too funny to me, because it was a fantastic analogy. It also didn't help that Zion compared all of this to the way he was usually beat up and had all his possesions stolen in the Zion stories because that was exactly what I was thinking all along. The whole email, from the throwing of the plant, his mom screaming loudly enough to wake the dead and the bizzare seemingly illogical accusations, it was all just like something out of the Crazy Things Happen to Zion story. The only thing missing was some Zombies.

I eventually recovered my senses and noticed that someone helpful was actually in the room at the moment. This woman had been a police officer in Aurora (one of the worst parts of Denver) and I knew if anyone could make the connection between a razor blade and cocaine it had to be her. Police officers are supposed to be able to identify drug paraphernalia, right? And I couldn't think of any part of Denver that would be more overrun with cocaine than Aurora. Seriously, Aurora is a nasty part of town. When we devised our plan to Kidnap Brian Powers we were going to take his shoes and leave him in Aurora as we assumed he wouldn't be able to get home from there without stepping on a used hypodermic needle that would give him AIDS.

Anyway, I asked her if she had any idea what the connection between a razor blade, a gituar pick and a two dollar bill was. I think the two dollar bill threw her off because she had no idea. I then showed her the email and she confirmed that the accusation made no sense. She did agree that the razor blade and gituar pick could be used on cocaine but also stated that simply seeing someone with those items wasn't proof of anything. The two dollar bill still made no sense at all in her opinion. You could use a dollar to line the cocaine up on it to keep from putting it directly on whatever surface you were working on. But almost anything could be used for that, why it had to be a two dollar bill was a mystery. I sent a reply to Zion telling him that nobody where I was could make heads or tails out of the accusations his mother was making either.

Zion then emailed me again about a week later to reveal how the situation was eventually resolved:

Things have defused a bit since I last wrote you, just in really odd ways. I spoke to my Mom on the phone who admitted she made the whole thing up, but really didn't know why. She answered questions like, "Are you crazy?!?" by "I don't think so." She thinks she may have dreamed up this box. She did say she searched my room though, which remains unacceptable.

I do and did have the financial freedom to sit out on the sidelines for a week and think before I took actions like mail redirecting, car plates, and a new job. Overall that's probably good, because I think the likelyhood is that I move back in. My Mom has promised anything I want, and to stay out of my life and not enter my room. All and all unless I just don't believe that it's a hard offer to pass up financially. I'm not going to take her at her word, mind you. I am considering options like storage rental for things like my sword. The question will simply be whether the dollar cost of such a move would outweigh the risk.

I'm going to talk to my family when my Mom comes home from visting her parents on Monday. If things go alright I'll come back on Tuesday.

I don't know what was up with the two dollar bill either, and my Mom said she didn't know if it meant anything. I'm glad *someone* else didn't know what the hell a razor blade and a guitar pick meant. So far my Mom, Dad, Sister, Ari, and Andrew have all berated my ignorance. Hell, I've known people that do cocaine, I just never watched whatever random movies that demonstrate the use of a razor blade.

And so, that proved to be a (temporary) soultion to that issue. Zion decided that he could tolerate living with them for just a little while longer until he was able to leave for Amherst. Then he would have his freedom. Meanwhile I asked him about his plans for the Golden Shields "comedy" website.

As for the website. Yes, I intend to do it someday. The problem is that I'm simply not going to have time over the next three months unless someone else wants to do the webmaster bit. So I am trying to trick someone into doing it - which may or may not succeed, (then I could just write for it.) If I fail I think we're talking about a year before I get this off the ground.

Ah, yes. Trying to trick someone else into doing all the work. A classic Zion scheme. Now lets see, how did that work out the last time he tried it? Oh yes, I remember now. East hacked Shadowbane to high hell, blackmailed Zion for leadership of the guild and then got himself banned from Shadowbane which prevented us from having any control over the guild resulting in the deletion of our entire city for the fourth time. East then followed that smooth move up by back stabbing us again when he tried to give our handful of remaining members to some random Star Wars Galaxies guild.

Go to Chapter VII, Slutsky's Big Debut