SLOW BURN - all chapters to date
Hi, my name is Fevvers (but if you are from the MMDN board you know me as purge). The following is a satiric novel I wrote about, amoung other things, the odd things people do to fill the "god-shapped hole" inside them. I hope you enjoy it.
P.S. I'm starved for feedback. So please post your reaction to it.
Slow Burn
[B]Chapter one[/B]
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I should be knee deep in third world squalor exposing government corruption, holding a urine soaked rag to my face running through tear gassed streets or at the very least on my knees coaxing burka clad women to trust me with their stories – not this. The last year has been a barrage of elementary school plays, poorly attended city council meetings and senior citizens parading through our office with odd-looking vegetables.
They don't even have the courtesy of bringing in really freakish looking vegetables. Just vegetables a little bigger than average. Or bearing the slight resemblance of small forest creatures, if you hold them at the right angle, in the right light and use a little imagination. But nothing the Globe and Mail would stop the presses for.
When I was still in university, that cloisted womb, Damen would indulge me with tales of his drunken adventures back in high school, which captured my attention because being the good girl I am I would never have had the balls to do any of it. So, one night, for the sake of just getting out of town, Damen and his friends decide to catch some loud obnoxious band in the city. And while they never heard of the opening band before they would never forget them after that night. Half way through the performance Damen and his staunchly homophobic friends peer up at the stage where the soon-to-be messiah of teen angst Marilyn Manson is on his knees sucking off his bassist. As an opener.
“It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” declared Damen wearing his favorite tattered (and now vintage) “Smells Like Children” Marilyn Manson T-shirt. The disappearing cock-in-mouth trick was not what impressed him the most. When he got back stage he passed Manson in the hall, introducing his dad to the guy he just sucked off maybe an hour before. At least that is the story he tells me. But, it didn’t matter.
Four years later I’m at my desk in the corner of the Bugle’s newsroom answering a call from a little old lady who insists that their hydrangeas are worth putting my election coverage aside for. ‘They are certainly something worth seeing,” the voice hisses. Unless the hydrangeas are growing out between your legs I’m sure I’ve seen it before. At least that is what I’d like to have said. I just sighed, wrote down the address and headed for the door - like a good girl.
Documenting people’s minor accomplishments seem to be what it is all about. Last month I spent an hour and half with a woman absolutely beside herself because her poetry about love and life was going to be recognized at some huge awards ceremony in Florida. “Florida! Can you imagine.” She can’t. Here’s a sample of the muse in action:
The candle burns bright
Overshadowed by your star
Fading, fading, fading
Twighlight looms
And like our love will fade
It goes on like this for six pages. Her husband was the one who called me and insisted I come down. Since it was a slow news week, (and it’s always a slow news week) I popped in.
She was thrilled and quickly sat me down to tell me about “the process”. The ideas would just “come to her”, she explained. She could be just sitting around watching talk shows, reworking the ass groove in her couch when out of nowhere these magical images would reveal themselves to her. And when she had enough material, as a finishing touch, she would vomit this prose onto pink pages with rose borders.
But of course this self-indulgent crap doesn’t become art unless you share it. And with the world linked with wires it was not long before she discovered Upandcomingpoets.com, a website claiming to have literary aficionados looking for the next William Shakespeare to join their ranks. So she sent in her cheque and waited. And I appeared.
Needless to say the contest was a scam to get her money. But, I didn’t know how to break it to her. That is until she told a friend of a friend who works in my building to ask why her interview had not appeared in the paper. Apparently, her fans deserved an answer.
But, I’m sure her husband will get over it.
“Hi Jeanine, its Laurel over at the Bugle calling.” At least the Fates were kind enough to give me her machine. “Umm about the article. After digging around a bit (and having heard the shit you wrote) I’ve discovered that the group organizing the contest may be running a scam. I’m still checking it out but we’ll see what happens.” I never called her back.
Every month or so I’ll get a call from another middle-aged women in a stupor about being acknowledged by this prestigious organization. Reluctantly, I’ve learned to ignore them.
Week after week they come through our office with documentation to verify their achievements, invaluable relics and trinkets wrapped in paper towel and sandwich bags, and the endless sheets of crumpled foolscap with hand written stories about family reunions, trips to the city and memorials for their dead pets. I wish they would have specified just how local the paper was right at the beginning. Instead I’m forced to compete for space with eight thousand assholes who insist on etching “I wuz here” over and over.
[B]Chapter 3[/B]
To my chagrin Lindsay was back. Of all the beats she has to cover court is by far her favorite. Each week she’ll waddle her round 4’7 frame up the steps of the local courthouse and wait for the show to begin. Who knows maybe today she got her wish and was able to sit in the same room with a real live murderer. So far she has had to settle. But it’s worth the wait, sitting through the “Driving While Impaired”s and remands for that one sexual misconduct case or a violent altercation, and in a pinch a domestic incident. Depending on the kind of day she’s having a lowly wife-beater sending his significant other to the emergency room for the third time is more than enough to give her the pick-me-up she needs.
“So, they let you out on good behavior?” I ask.
“Yeah, yeah, today it was not much to write home about. But there is this one guy who is accused of a sexual assault. I don’t know if he did it our not. The case was remanded. But the things he’s accused of doing,” she gasps.
The way her eyes are gleaming you can tell she can’t wait to hear the rest of the story next week. Vulture. What’s more fun to watch is how that twinkle disappears when one of those pillars of society calls her desk to complain about an error in her article. Or better yet when they show up at the office to ask her why she feels the need to write this stuff in the first place. Then come the water works.
But in between those visits it’s just a string of bullshit old biddy phrases.
“Oh my it’s an awful shame. I feel bad for the families. I hope they get the help they need. Blah, blah, blah.”
For someone with a psychology degree you would think she’d be a bit better with people. But as Damen once informed me “Psychology majors are the worst. They don’t try and solve anybody’s problems. They couldn’t even if they wanted to. They are there because they like to wallow in disorder and feel like they can control it somehow with their divine wisdom. Pretentious fucks. They sit there and comb through their textbooks not because they want to help people. But because they’re desperate to find someone more fucked up than they are. You find them an anorexic rich girl or some ass wipe that wants to slit their wrists and their practically creaming themselves. Assholes.”
Since then I’ve learned never to engage him any kind of conversation if all I can hear coming through his office door is Marilyn Manson’s “Get Your Gunn” over and over again.
But it’s true, if anything is. Lindsay’s a mess of a human being. And everything I’m afraid of being if I keep working here.
She’s forty years old, still stuck in this crappy job, has a crappy apartment, lives with two crappy cats, Lucy and Ethel, and is still paying off a whopping student loan she picked up back in the Eighties. Did I mention she cries? A lot.
For the longest time she would just gawk over in the general direction of my desk when she started wailing or sometimes increase the pitch of her sobbing if she thought I was off the phone. But, now she’s come so far out of her shell that she’s comfortable enough to hover over my desk (as well as someone of her stature can). She’ll just stand there silently twitching and wait.
This kind of trait in people always pissed Damen off. He’d sit in our little gray apartment and rant about how people should really speak up for themselves. Say what they want. Don’t beat around the bush. Fine words indeed. Then our relationship started to sour and I discovered what a hypocrite he was.
After complaining about how little time he spends with me I finally wrangled him into staying home one night. We picked our seats, at opposite ends of the couch and started channel surfing. We wind up watching some comedian, who makes a crack about women being so happy on their wedding day because they know they’ll never have to give another blow job again. And the fucker laughed. So I looked at him and asked what was so funny.
“It’s true. It’s so true,” he keeps laughing.
Keep in mind this was at a point in our relationship where the only time I ever saw him was when he was either eating my food over our sink or when he was waking me up at three in the morning “because I’m just so damn pretty”.
“What do you mean so true? How would you know? You don’t have a wife somewhere do you?”
“No, but. Remember when you first moved in with me?” he asked. “We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. And now….”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing, nothing, forget about it.”
Then opportunity knocks. The phone rings. And it’s his mother. His long-winded mother on the other end. Well, what kind of girlfriend would I be if I didn’t acknowledge his needs and make an effort to improve upon my behavior? Consider this a growing experience, honey, We’ll be closer as a couple.
He’s not really sure what to do when I start undoing his fly.
“Yeah, mom that’s great. I’m glad that computer class is Ahh going good.”
Eyes are getting wider.
“What are you doing?” he mouths.
I just grin and take a mouthful of revenge. If there is one thing psychology students have taught me is how to create a dilemma, If only they had shared with me the secret on how to give a mind blowing blow job while suppressing lung-busting laughter.
As for Lindsay I’ve been able to hold off her needs as long as two minutes and forty-three seconds according to the clock on my computer monitor. That is about as long as I can pretend to be so engrossed in my work and the music coming through my headphones that I don’t notice her. Or care about the nasty phone call she might have received the imaginary boyfriend who hasn’t called her back or Lucy’s latest crippling illness.
“Mike wants us to do another streeter.”
“On what if you don’t mind me asking?”
It’s not that she is always asking something of me in her passive-aggressive bullshity way or that she’s about as interesting as a documentary on toast that bothers me. What really annoys me is how everything she says is phrased with the intent not to offend. Even during interviews she’ll let loose a nervous giggle at the end of her sentences.
“So when did you find out your daughter was dead? Heh heh heh. When the police told you the news what was your initial thoughts? Heh heh heh. Has it been difficult getting your life back on track? Heh heh heh.”
I tell her we need something about the mayor exploring the option of surveillance cameras for downtown. But we’ll think of a question when we get out there.
“So what’ll it be?” I ask. “Do you want to be the phot-hog or do you want to do the asking?”
She was reaching for the camera long before I finished the sentence.
[B]Chapter 4[/B]
You would think with the downtown core consisting of an unimpressive eight blocks this would take no time at all. But at this hour the only people roaming around are senior citizens and farmers heading for their morning cup of coffee; the drug of choice if you have a big day of converting pennies into bills at the bank and deciding which polyester ensemble to wear to church next Sunday.
Lindsay and I take our usual place on the corner of Main and First, adjacent to the bank and across the street from the coffee shop – near perfect. But, I can’t help wondering how ridiculous we must look to the people driving by, me in my pea coat pacing back and forth to keep warm and Lindsay following in behind, probably like two overly ambitious prostitutes trying to cash into the untapped morning market.
C’mon mister stay a while… I’ll ask you questions that’ll make your fuck’n head spin.
But, it’s getting harder and harder to tell who’s the whore and who’s the John here. Despite all the eyeliner and spiky healed boots I wear to the office I can barely keep the distinction straight in my head. We wander the city's streets at all hours. We’ll smile and ask all the questions they want to hear. Let them fuck up the pronunciation of our names.
Sure call me Lori, anything you want honey. I don’t care. Just give me what I want so I can type this up and go home.
“We’re moving forward and examining every possibility for the city’s improvement”
More.
“The recommendations have been positive and we’re hopeful such opportunities will serve us well in the future.”
Don’t stop.
“None of this would have been possible without the hard work of the volunteers. Their dedication is what has made all of this a reality.”
Yes. Yes. Jesus fuck Yeah.
You think they care if I’m faking it?
I’ll take it all in if it gets me through until my next deadline. I don’t even know what it means anymore. I stopped trying to remember their names months ago. They all just bleed together into one big middle aged white cacophony. And that’s the case out here on Main and First. I have to keep reminding myself to write down what people look like next to their names. Otherwise we’ll have no chance of connecting them with their picture later.
Florence Swanson – old/ green coat
Bill Chartrand – aboriginal
Mike Sovenchuk – John Deere cap
George Gaminski – suspenders
“Sir, excuse me. My name is Laurel Pruderza, with the Bugle. And we’re surveying people. . .”
And they pretend not to notice us. And they keep their eyes fixed on the ground. And they walk in an arc around us, scurrying like they have somewhere to go.
So if you have a minute. I’d like to know if you really want cameras on every corner watching you? I could follow you to work Bad Perm? See what kind of bagels you like? It’ll be fun. I’ll meet you here every morning Flowered Print Shirt. If I get sick and can’t make it. I’ll just watch the tape. It’ll be like I’m always with you Brown Pants.
Things are looking up. There is a man crossing the street coming towards us – Dirty Jeans.
“Sir. Hi, I was wondering if you could help us out. We’re with the Bugle and we’re doing a survey . . . yeah . . . okay . . . Do you think putting up surveillance cameras downtown will help curb the city’s vandalism problem.”
“Hell, forget the cameras,” he spouts. “What we need dare is we need da police. More of ‘em. If those Indians saw more cops out dare and knew dayed go to jail dare dare’d be none of this. That’s what I think. I’ll tell that to anyone.”
“Great. Can I get your name?” I ask.
“Jeez, no what kind of scam is this. Give my name.” And he’s off.
It’s for the best I suppose. Judging by the look on Lindsay’s face she didn’t get the shot.
“It didn’t turn out did it?”
“Na, but maybe we can fix it at the office?”
“Why? We can’t use it. We didn’t get the guy’s name.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m just saying.”
Nothing.
I take the camera from her and see a fuzzy profile of Dirty Jeans on the screen, sans half his nose.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I tell her.
The view from the camera is a blur. So, I take it off manual focus and set it on automatic.
“Here, this should help.”
“Thanks,” she says taking the camera back and pushing what I can only assume are random buttons. “Look just in time too.”
It’s a couple in their early thirties coming out of the bank, heading our way. If I can get both of them talking we might be able to make it back to the office by noon.
“Hi, my name is Laurel Pruderza and we’re with the Bugle . . .”
Please talk.
The way my boot keeps digging into me I’m almost ready for extremes. Chase them. Dive at their knees maybe and bring them down to the concrete with me. I think people would be better prepared to answer questions about the world they live in if they thought someone cared enough to attack them in the street.
I could start wearing leather to the office. Conduct interviews with politicians pinned to the floor with my knees, put cigarettes out on volunteer program co-ordinators.
“Do you think food banks are an ill substitute for social justice?”
Scream!
“Is the government neglecting its responsibility to create an economic environment conducive to self-sufficiency? Jesus that’s going to leave a nasty scar… any revelations yet? Do like the smell of flesh burning or something? Let’s go. Think! I don’t have all day here, Fraulein.”
Maybe I should take these two back to my office and ask them there what they think about surveillance cameras. Maybe duct tape them to a chair and tell them I stopped by the school and picked up their kids for them.
“They sure put up a fuss when I stuffed them in the trunk of my car. But, don’t worry they’re safe. They’re buried in an airtight chamber out in the woods. Relax they have sandwiches and TV. They’ll be fine. But, back to the interview . . . Do you think surveillance cameras will curb the city’s vandalism problem? What do you mean you can’t think like this? Well, try. You could always think about your little cherubs watching cartoons, unattended, in a hole the ground? Take a deep breath. That reminds me, they only have about two hours worth of air left so if you could hurry this along I’m sure they would appreciate it.”
It’s a miracle. They want to talk.
“I’m with the Bugle and we’re asking people on the street what they think about the mayor’s proposal to install surveillance cameras downtown.”
“I don’t know. What do you think?” she says looking into the vacant eyes of her companion. “I
really don’t know dear.”
“Well do you think the vandalism will decrease if people think the cameras are watching them?” I ask. “Or is this a violation of people’s privacy?”
“Oh well if they aren’t doing anything wrong why should they care if there is a surveillance camera on them,” she says.
“The sooner they catch those kids the better,” her husband chimes in.
They give me their names. Lindsay gets two clear pictures. And Mr. and Mrs. Scott Thomas’ kids take a deep breath.
[B]Chapter 5[/B]
“So how did it go?” asks Mike.
“These people should be shot. Or at the very least used to test cosmetics on.”
“That good?”
“That good.”
“I have something that will cheer you up though. Read this,” he says handing me a crumbled piece of foolscap.
[B]PLEASE PRINT THIS IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE BUGLE. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT.
The Right Honorable Jean Chretien
Prime Minister of Canada
House of Common
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Dear Mr. Chretien
What kind of Catholic Christian are you?? Letting women have therapedic abortions is a sick travesty. “God, Jesus, & the Holy Spirit” must puke up there in the clouds, like I do here on earth when I listen & watch these Women on TV and radio screaming about their Right to kill the babies.
Mr. Chretien where are your morals? Don’t you like babies? Jesus was a baby. Would you kill the baby Jesus? I can’t and don’t understand how a Catholic Christian like you can let this happen in this decade in the “2000” years & forever. What would “Jesus” say? Don’t you read the Bible? I do EVERYDAY.
And Jesus would say life is a sacred thing. SACRED.
You should be impeached and made to leave the House of Common in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada of North America.
Shame on you.
On behalf of the babies and Good Catholic Christians,
Leonard Kendell[/B]
I can’t believe this guy is still alive. I used to walk passed him on my way to classes back in high school – we all did. Every year he’d be out there on his corner, his shriveled body growing more and more gnarled. More hair would fall. More teeth would disappear.
But, despite how depressing the sight of him was it was also eerily awe inspiring, like those stories of car crash victims who spend days pinned inside their vehicles held together only by sheer will and the steering column, only to die when they’ve been pulled out. They need their twisted metal the way Kendell needed his Bible. Take it away and watch the fun.
Why he was there didn’t matter. We had a routine. I’d smile and take his propaganda and he’d smile back knowing I was going to throw it out and the six-foot fetus on his placard wouldn’t be very personable at all. It’d just float there and ignore us both.
“You’re fuck’n kidding me? You’re not actually going to publish this are you?” I tell him handing back the letter.
Mike just smiles and nods. It’s getting in.
“I don’t know what’s funnier Jesus in scare quotes or House of Common,” I tell him handing back the letter.
“Really, you should be impeached or made to leave.”
Asshole. Now I’m laughing.
“You know what’s funnier?” he asks.
“What?”
“He’s going to be here in about an hour for an interview. He’s organizing another rally next week – to get the word out.”
“He should stick to a word, sentences really trip him up.”
“Be nice. He’s probably somebody’s grandpa.”
“Doubtful, and I’m guessing that’s why he’s so pissed off.”
“Well you can ask him when he gets here. He specifically asked for you – Lori.”
“Of course, I’m the only one in the newsroom with a uterus.”
“Well, there’s Lindsay,” he says just as she hobbles pass the open doorway to the newsroom and down the hall to the bathroom. “But I see your point.”
“Maybe that’s why she cries all the time?”
“Probably.”
“So where’s Chuck, I ask grabbing my coffee mug, inspecting the rim to make sure the compost of lip gloss I’ve been contributing to all week is still there.
“Relax, he’s been covering a rugby game all morning,” he laughs.
Mike thinks its uproariously funny that I suspect Chuck, Up-chuck, of licking my coffee mug when I’m out of the room. I don’t know what’s so funny about it. Especially when any pen I chew on seems to disappear off my desk and mysteriously into his mouth the next day.
It’s not that Up-chuck is such a bad person. He’s not much of a person at all really.
I remember when I first met him. He looked like a nice enough guy. Nothing special, your run of the mill grossly overweight middle-aged, shiny, balding sports reporter.
But then he opened his mouth. And as he sat there and explained where we kept the equipment, how long he had been working here, why he likes sports and the stats of the latest superstar the months passed and he was still talking at me.
It never stops. I could pick up the scissors on the edge of my desk and stab him in the face and I don’t think he’d even notice. His thin cracked lips would keep jabbering away like a fish’s when it’s out of water. He’d flap there on the ground, mouth opening and closing, opening and closing.
For some reason when I imagine doing this, driving the blades deep into his doughy face, they never seem to cut the skin. They are absorbed. Staplers, thumbtacks, letter openers, over time, have all just been engulfed. Disappeared.
And maybe it’s just the way he stops typing when I walk by his desk or the way he is always talking about how much he loves covering girl’s volleyball, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, or the odd notes he leaves on my keyboard when he’s gone.
[B]Laurel,
You look beautiful this morning my darling.
You always do.
Everything from the way you sit to the way you put on lip-gloss is divine.
Turn page.
Creeped out yet.
Ha ha ha.
The new camera is not working so take the shit box. I threw some fresh batteries in it for you so you should be set to go.
Have a good morning.
Chuck[/B]
For this reason I’ve now stopped leaving lip-gloss on my desk.
“What do think, he’s inserting it into himself?” asked Mike.
“No, but I am now.”
When he sees me walk in on Monday’s he’ll dart from his desk and throw his rotundas carcass into the chair next to mine, just as Mike is now, but wheezing a little from the 20 foot trek across the office. Then it comes. A hail of datum, most of it about movies he has either watched, bought or I’m guessing, secretly jerks off to.
He has it in his head that I need to know who the directors are, who the co-stars are fucking, the last estimate of the film’s overall budget, everything short of the gaffer’s dossier, if I’m to truly appreciate the cinematic mastery of whatever mainstream piece of garbage he picked up with a “new release sticker” adhered to it this past weekend.
“You know you could come over if you wanted. You wouldn’t have to stay too late because I know you have that school play in the morning. I checked your daybook. And I could order in your favorite pizza Californian . . . because you are a vegetarian. Since you were 16, right. And we could watch your favorite movie Nosferatu and”
“My favorite part is when the puppets are set free.”
“What puppets . . . oh yeah. If only it were that easy, eh,” says Mike.
I can hear Chuck giggling across the room. But, I doubt he knows what the hell we’re talking about. I imagine he sees what he always sees in these movies: Boy gets girl. Boy gets girl. Boy accidentally kills first girl goes hunting for second girl.
All I see is another shadow looming hard and fast up the staircase.
[B]Chapter 6[/B]
Kendell arrived early. And from my desk I can see him sitting in the lobby twisting in his chair, struggling to roll back the sleeves on his jacket so his bony fingers can better organize his notes. It’s the same ill-fitting gray polyester suit he always wears and someday I think its going to swallow him whole like a python ingesting an egg.
In his lap he has a stack of photocopied speeches by televangelists, leaflets and easy-to-read pamphlets about morality disorganized in a tattered file folder. I can’t see them. But I know they are in there. He is never without his documentation. Never.
“It is written. So that makes it so,” he would always say shoving the appropriate piece of paper in his challenger’s hand.
I should know my garbage can is no stranger to them.
Looking at my watch I decide it’s time to get this over with and make my way to the lobby.
“Mr. Kendell, good to see you,” I beam, oozing saccharine all over the floor.
“Miss Pruderza, what I have to tell you is of the utter most importance.”
Out of the mounds of material a tiny wrinkled hand juts out of the sleeve to shake mine.
“We’re having a rally – for the babies, you know and people should come.”
“Okay, well follow me. We’ll get you a chair and you can tell me all about it.”
He fumbles with his papers and follows me into Mike’s office, who was good enough to take the afternoon off.
He seats himself in one of the many squat wooden chairs in front of the desk and proceeds.
“They can’t get away with killing children,” he says.
“Who?” I ask turning on my tape recorder.
“Those women.”
“What women?”
“Well if they say its okay for them to start having abortions at the local hospital there - all of them. Women will have abortions all the time if we don’t do something.”
“Whose we?”
“Good Christians.”
“Are the other ones not on board?”
“Well, they stay at home. They want us to do it all and we can’t do it by ourselves. We have to show them it’s not right. Jesus God our Savior in the Good Book says ‘Thou Shalt not Kill’,” he proclaims searching his folder for the piece of paper that says it is, in fact, in the Bible.
“In the Hebrew version it’s “you shall not murder”. So depending on your definition of murder a Christian woman could have an abortion and still be in the clear,” I respond.
“But, it’s wrong,” interrupts Kendell. “And there is a lot of us who want to show the people that it’s wrong. So we’re having this rally and we want people to come out and support it. For the babies and for Jesus,” he says handing me a folded jaundice colored flyer. Inside, bold letters scream: ABORTION HURTS WOMEN AND KILLS BABIES just over a yellow Jesus’ head. He doesn’t look phased by it. He just looks straight ahead and smiles, outstretching his arms so I see the exposed heart in his chest.
Self-mutilation at its finest.
I imagine it started when he was working as a carpenter with his dad. Day after day building the same shitty house in the same shitty towns. It was probably only a matter of time before he started using the nails to dig into his arm. And with all of those tools at his disposal I bet he has some pretty interesting scars hidden under that robe. He likely spends hours just re-opening the old ones so they never really heal.
“But not everyone believes in Jesus,” I say.
“Well, that’s not my fault. He’s there. He watches over us and I’d follow him to hell if that’s where he wanted me to go.”
I bite my tongue.
“And he wants me to have this rally.”
I try again.
“But some women don’t believe in Jesus, so for them his opinion doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be a Christian to be Canadian. And this is a right all Canadian women have, no matter who they worship, if they choose to worship anyone at all.”
“That’s ridiculous just because they don’t believe in him doesn’t mean he’s not there for the babies. The Canadian babies,” he emphasizes.
Screw the women.
“If these girls want to do those things and get themselves pregnant they have to face the consequences.”
Go fuck yourself.
“So babies are a punishment, a consequence.” I say holding back a grin and scribbling out the scratches in my notes.
“No. No. They’re not . . .don’t write that . . . I didn’t mean . . . but its not up to them to . . . It’s God’s body not theirs,” he finally stammers.
I can see he’s flustered, papers are falling all around his knees. But he manages to grab one on its decent. It’s light purple and has the face of nationally syndicated televangilist Walt Robinson embossed on the upper left-hand side. He grips it with both hands, takes a deep breath and begins to read:
“For Thou didst form my inward parts: Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to thee, for Thou art fearfully wonderful. Wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from Thee, when I was made in Secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Thy book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.”
He looks up and smiles triumphantly.
“What does that mean though?” I ask.
He looks further down the page and reads:
“This passage proves that God was a part of this human being’s creation. God works even in the womb,” he says looking up from the page.
“But, it says nothing about that human being a fetus though. I mean God created the plants and the animals. We can still keep killing them, right?”
“Well . . .”
He reads some more.
“Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.’ Robinson says God there was making King David in the womb and is a person in the eyes of God.”
“But he knew him ‘Before’ he was in the belly, so are we people even before we are conceived?”
Kendell looks puzzled and is now frantically sifting through his papers.
“Even if we are people before conception there are some quality of life issues that need to be addressed,” I continue. “If a man fathers a hundred Children and lives many years, however many they be but his soul is satisfied with good things, and he doesn’t even have a proper burial, then I say, ‘Better the miscarriage than he, for it comes in futility and goes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity. It never sees the sun and it never knows anything; it is better off than he . . .But that’s Ecclesiastes for you.”
Kendell is now looking at me completely bewildered. So I don’t let up.
“I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power but they had no one to comfort them. So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun. Ecclesiates chapter four verse thirteen.”
Silence.
Kendell just stares at the pages on the floor. And I decide to save him.
“So what time is this rally?”
“Three O’clock next Sunday in front of the Church.”
I’m not even going to bother asking why they want to hold the rally in front of the church when their beef is with hospital administration. But, now that I think about it, it’s much better this way. I’d love to cover a church protest.
Maybe they’ll burn a cross.
“Okay, I’ll be sure to add that to the article,” I say standing up, indicating that this ends our time together.
He gets up to shake my hand and the remainder of the pages in his lap hit the floor.
As we both kneel down to pick them up he asks if I’m a good Christian.
“Is there any other kind?” I reply.
And he smiles.
[B]Chapter 7[/B]
I had been scouring the city for hours before finally seeing the glowing sign for Source Adult Video sandwiched between golden arches and public service billboards. It was the last stop in a last-minute attempt to do research for a paper in my Introduction to Feminism class. If I recall correctly my professor wanted a Marxist piece on the commodification of women in the context of patriarchy and failed me when I turned in a 40-page paper on the evolution of censorship and obscenity in America. Either way she should have been happy. Thanks to her I did learn something about dominance and subordination that term – at least in the context of academia.
But I digress. One of the things I remember most was that every place I hit was packed with people. Which was odd, considering it was Halloween, a fetish holiday in my books. People should have been out in full force, raising a collective finger to the man and shoving it into the orifice of a loved one. But no. Every place was filled with empty people. All men. All at least two arm lengths apart. And shuffling in silence from rack to rack – no pun intended.
I may as well have walked into a crowded men’s room and unzipped.
The dark-haired young man behind the counter, despite all the dirty, barley legal, girl on girl, black on white, slutty, virgin, shaky handy cam, silicon filled fun peering off the shelves, was deeply engrossed in the book he was reading when I approached him.
He had on a black T-shirt that read: JESUS CAN FUCK MY DIRTY PIE HOLE, a preacher’s collar and enough piercings to set off a metal detector from about twenty feet.
Looking at him was like licking God.
“Hi, you wouldn’t happen to have a copy of Deep Throat around would you? It’s for a paper I’m writing.”
He looked up from his book and gives me a “sure it is” smile.
“That’s a pretty shitty costume,” he replies.
“Well considering I’m a 300 pound black man I thought it was quite clever. Yours isn’t half bad though.”
“I like the irony,” he says nodding toward the timid nine-to-fiver in the corner trying to decide whether or not he wanted to add yet another Jenna Jameson flick to the substantial pile he was accumulating at his feet.
“Why so many?” I whisper, leaning over the counter.
“Why so few.” He replies.
“Ah ha, well since I’m over here, If you don’t mind me asking, being I’m assuming, a virile, red-blooded, heterosexual, what on earth are you reading that’s so interesting?”
He hands it to me just as a guy in his late teens sets a stack of VHS tapes on the counter to pay. I’m a little surprised to find that what he hands me is a horribly abused copy of the King James Bible. Almost every page is inked with multi-colored fluorescent highlighter and doodles of Jesus in some, let’s say compromising positions, in the margins.
“It’s for a paper I’m writing,” he says smiling as he returns the young man’s change.
“Really”, I say still flipping through the pages.
On the inside cover is a picture of a jaw-less Marilyn Manson with his arms stretched over an invisible cross, firmly in his place thanks to at least a dozen strips of transparent tape.
As I run my fingers across the ridges over the picture the clerk promptly informs me that there is actually thirteen pieces holding it down.
“I would’ve scratched in the fifty accompanying stars but I like the picture too much,” he said.
“Very nice. But, didn’t they ban this?” I say showing him the page.
“The Bible? No they still insist it has some kind of relevance. But if you ask me there is more filth in there than anything on these shelves.”
“I didn’t,” I smile. “I was really just looking for some filthy vintage porn.”
“Sorry. No we don’t have Deep Throat. I was looking for that too.”
“I bet. But your needs aside, do you guys even have a copy of The Devil in Miss Jones or Behind the Green Door?”
“Nope. No one seems to have an appreciation for the classics any more. Or real tits for that matter.”
“I mean the intriguing plots alone.”
“Masterful,” he laughs. “At least they’re wising up and dispensing with the witty dialogue and getting straight to the fucking now.”
“As it should be,” I grin.
“Here take this. You’ll like it. It’s funny,” he says handing me a tape from under the counter. “It’s an art piece I like to slip to the regulars when they are not paying attention. Trust me. It’ll be good research for that paper of yours - whatever it is.”
I’m a bit skeptical but I take the tape from him. I try and pay for it but he insists I just go.
“Call me back here at the store after you watch it. I want to know what you think.”
Back in my dingy apartment, notebook and pen in hand I rewind the thing and hit play.
No credits. No title screen. Just two terrier mutts. One is frantically fucking the other up the ass, desperately trying to keep its balance as the other stumbles around in a circle. All the while the video store clerk’s voice is belting out of my speakers groaning porn star cliches.
“Source Adult Video. Damen speaking.”
And then I knew him.
[B]Chapter 8[/B]
While I’ve never had anything good to say about Community Inc.’s monopoly on the city’s rental units I will say this, their unimaginative cookie-cutter apartment complexes sure make it easy for a gal to grope her way in the dark to a stranger’s bathroom at 4 am. With Damen still asleep I figured now was as good a time as any to unload the vat of luke-warm coffee in my bladder. For some reason I have no problem letting strangers stick their tongue in my ass but I can’t stand the thought of someone hearing me pee. It’s an issue I’m sure day-time talk shows will help me work through.
But, it’s his fault really. After having a good laugh about the foibles of the human species I agreed to meet him at the coffee shop next to Source, appropriately named The Daily Grind. It looked more depressing than my apartment, but in a way that made me feel good about my life. Over the coffeepots was a sign that read: FLAVOURS, with REGULAR and DECAF underneath. The woman serving it was a roly-poly kitten that evening with painted on nose and whiskers and a pink headband with black felt ears. When she turned to fill the mugs you could see her tail – an amputated leg from a black pair of pantyhose stuffed with cotton. It swished back and forth like a pendulum from the safety pin on the back of her gray polyester work pants.
Poor Kitty.
Every day is the same for her. She’ll see the same cabs and cop cars hum by, hear the same old jokes,serve the same people the same awful coffee with the same rancid cream until she dies.
Not me.
Not Damen.
We were safe. We lived in our heads. The world couldn’t touch us there. We spent hours deconstructing it on a napkin before we made our way to his apartment. It was as good as gone by the time our jeans hit the floor.
But, there I was bare ass naked on his toilet contemplating why a young man with so many angry tattoos would have Spiderman bath towels, when the doorknob turned. Of course it was Damen. At least I was hoping it was. I hadn’t even bothered to ask if he had a roommate. It could have been anyone really. So with my sphincter now snapped shut I looked around for potential weapons. With a near empty toilet paper roll, some stray pubic hair on the floor and a slimy bar of soap it looked like my odds against the weirdo behind the door was slim to none. Unless, God forbid, I get off the bowl and retrieve the razor on the other side of the sink.
Fortunately and I am using the term loosely here, it was Damen.
“Oh, sorry,” he says moving to shut the door.
But he stops himself in mid-step. He swings the door open and a mischievous grin washes over his face. He steps inside the room and slowly lowers his naked butt to the floor, sitting cross-legged in front of me - my unlikely Buddha.
“Whatcha do’n?” he asks.
“Fuck you.”
“I thought you had left or something.”
“Obviously I haven’t but I’m sure thinking about it now,” I say letting loose a nervous laugh. “I thought you were asleep?”
“I rarely sleep. I can’t. I think if you have the option you should stay awake.”
“That’s the most retard thing I have ever heard.”
“Why?” he asks.
“If you don’t give the old melon a rest bad things happen.”
“Gottcha. Bad things. I’ll write that down.”
Then there is a long pause.
“I’m kind of busy right now so maybe we can pick this back up in the morning.”
“Technically it is morning,” he says.
“Okay, then get the fuck out so I can finish peeing,” I laugh.
“Okay,” he says, leaving and shutting the door behind him.
I almost get a good flow going when the fucker comes back, this time with a felt tip pen.
“Jesus,” I roll my eyes.
He sits his butt back down on the floor and taking my leg in his hand he writes a seven-digit number on the inside of my calf. Without saying a word, he smiles, kisses my forehead and leaves the room again.
This time I lean forward, as far as I can while semi-hovering over the bowl, and lock the door with my fingertips.
“I heard that.”
“Really? Well hum a few ditties so you don’t get an earful of the rest of it would you.”
[B]Chapter 9[/B]
Fast forward to the now where I’m sitting in the Bugle’s ladies room with my jeans and over-priced panties around my ankles scanning the wall for glory holes. The door, which I double-checked was locked, has a faded picture of a stick woman in a black triangle for a dress with RESTROOM at her feet. But, trust me. It’s a lie. Not even in here do the things out there let you have a rest.
“Laaaaaaaureeeeeel”
Lindsay’s throat is repeatedly slamming my name against the door. Bending it. Bruising it. Using it against me.
“Do you need a camera this afternoon?” she finally asks.
“I don’t know I’ll have to check my day book,” I yell into my feet.
“What? I can’t hear you. I checked your daybook and you didn’t have anything. So I was just wondering.”
“Do you want to just come in and sit on my lap. Bring a list. It’ll be just like Christmas.”
“What? I still can’t hear you.”
It must be that fuck’n door, eh.
“Maybe I’ll talk to you when you get out of there. . . So when are you getting out?” she asks.
Never. I’m going to squeeze myself into the cupboard under the sink and stay there forever. I can eat the green slime off the pipes and suck the water off the floor. It’ll be great. You’ll see.
“I still can’t hear you. Everything is all garbled.”
When I finally decide to unlock the door she’s standing there waiting for me.
“I was trying to talk to you but I don’t think you heard me.”
She’s still talking as I make my way down the hallway back to my desk.
“It might have been garbled through the door,” she continues. “ At least that’s what I thought. It’s not a very thick door. But I guess sound doesn’t pass through it so good. So then I tried to talk louder and then I don’t know. I heard something. Did you hear anything? Could you hear me talking?”
“What did you want Lindsay?”
“Oh right. I wanted to know if you needed a camera this afternoon. I know you don’t like abrupt changes in your routine, so I checked your day book and I don’t know?”
Abrupt changes to my routine? She’s been doing her homework. Very nice.
Since everyone around here has taken to rifling around my desk I thought I’d make things a little more interesting and give them something to find.
As of late I’ve littered my daybook with appointments with my imaginary psychiatrist, anger management meetings I shouldn’t forget, reminders to pick up the pills and gauze I don’t need and enough affirmations to choke a horse.
All of it stemming from a gag that has now gotten way out of hand.
Stupid Lindsay thought it’d be a real hoot if everyone in the news room took a personality disorder test she found on the internet . . . so we would all know how battered her inner child is no doubt.
So the race to out crazy was on.
I was still finishing the test when I heard Up-Chuck proudly announce to the room that he was a highly dependent Borderline with moderate histrionic tendencies. Lindsay was right at his heels down playing here avoidant personality disorder and Mike beat them all with his blandness.
“I’m dirt fuck’n average,” he laughed.
“Oh don’t say that,” Lindsay reassured. “I bet there are all kinds of things that set you apart, that make you special.”
Mike and I both looked at each other with a mixture of horror and nausea.
Tell it to Oprah honey. I’m booked.
“So what’s yours say,” Mike asked.
With my back turned to Lindsay and Chuck at the printer I wink at Mike and start the show.
“Oh nothing exciting. I mean nothing too out of the ordinary. It’s just a stupid test off the Internet. You really can’t put any stock into them. Who writes these anyway – students?” And I shove the print out in the top drawer of my desk where I know they’ll find it.
“Coffee?” asks Mike.
“Sure." And we leave for the smoke filled recesses of the Bugle’s staff room.
It’s not like these tests are difficult to rig. I just had to say “yes” to everything.
Do you have difficulty trusting others?
Yes.
Do you desperately need the company of others?
Yes.
Do you find yourself unaffected by the opinions of others?
Yes
Do you require constant praise to function?
Yes.
Do you believe everything you are told?
Yes.
Do you think everyone is lying to you?
Yes.
I didn’t have to see them read it to know they had. Lindsay didn’t say a word for the rest of the day. Blessed be. But, in order to keep these wondrous bouts of silence coming I have to keep adding new bits to the act.
This week I started wearing gloves because I read somewhere that studies showed octopus ink can leach into the skin and cause brain hemorrhaging.
Lindsay, I’m sure was itching to tell me that nothing even resembling an octopus had been near either the ink in my pens or the printer cartridges when she remembered my “sporadic fits of anger”.
I sure wish she’d keep that nugget at the forefront of her brain instead of making me remind her week after week with this outlandish crap. It degrades us both really.
“No I don’t need a camera today, thanks.” I tell her tugging up my black leather gloves. “But I will need one tomorrow for that church protest . . . So don’t get any ink on it.”
[B]Chapter 10[/B]
Sometime after Damen was fired from Source for his “creative film making” he decided that what he really wanted to do was become a highly sought after tattoo artist/philosopher/ theologian. He figured that a true artist needed to have their work accessible to the people. And a pretty girl with a fucked up tattoo was as good if not better than any low budget bestiality tape he could guise as mainstream pornography.
“That high brow shit in galleries and museums is just inbred religion and finance,” he’d say.
And for a little while I believed him. I had no idea what the hell he meant. But it sounded good. Rebellious. Angst filled. Powerful. Everything I was looking for and lacking. So every night I’d sit in front of the couch playing “find the Christ figure” with one of the many Canadian novels I had to read for my English literature credit and he’d draw on any exposed piece of skin he could find. If I was cooking he’d draw on the arm that wasn’t stirring the pot. If I was washing dishes he was lifting the back of my shirt to doodle on my spine. If I was scrubbing the tub I would finish with an artistic masterpiece scribbled on my ass. Some nights we’d crank the heat up in our apartment and I’d lie naked on the kitchen table with my textbooks propped up on the counter so he could work me from head to toe. Every night I was inked and re-inked until he got his designs to an acceptable level. Then he’d photograph the section, toss it in a drawer and start again.
At first he would just copy Marilyn Manson’s tattoos as his albums howled from our bedroom. I had devils rolling sixes on every available inch of my body, all different sizes, with slightly different expressions on my shoulders, torso, ass cheeks, neck, the souls of my feet, the inside of my wrists, my inner thighs and their clones all over our sheets. Then it was eyes in the crux of my arms and knees. A Spooky Tree up both calves with his signature underneath. A copy of an imitation, indeed. There was the comic book character from Manson’s Stupid magazine back in grade school, top hats, syringes, skulls, witches, giant worms, Manson emerging from a chrysalis with bloodied wings, some androgynous white creature he insisted wasn’t David Bowie and band members through the eras – literally out the ass.
And that was fine and good. He’d blow his artistic load in plenty of time for me to shower and head off to class. Then one day I happened to forget about the housewife ironing the wrinkles out of a nazi flag on my shoulder. She hid under the strap of my “wife beater” with her crisply pressed conversation piece unfurled for all my classmates to see. And I hate the feeling of being watched that chill up my spine, the sensation of a dozen pairs of eyes burrowing into the base of my neck. I knew they were staring at one of Damen’s creations but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it was. Sometimes I didn’t know. I stopped asking. He’d draw for hours talking, preaching, about free speech, religion, middle-class Americans, drugs he’d like to do and JFK. It didn’t matter that he was Canadian, that we had our own shit to worry about. But who the fuck cares I was just a soundboard with breasts, an installation, by this point.
I would turn around and the eyes would quickly dart back into their notes, up at the automaton teaching the class or dive straight into the floor.
Do hear that siren children? That’s right. Get under your desks and cover your heads. Plug your ears with cotton and gouge out your eyes. It’s the only way we’ll be safe.
One girl in my Ethics 304 class panicked and simply closed her eyes. When she opened them again she was staring right into my crooked smile. Fortunately for her she remembered her training. She smiled back and quickly retreated into the obsolete pages of her textbook.
I played this game in all my classes that day, in every exhibition. They’d glance and look away, glance and look away, glance and look away. At least a dozen eyes were playing double dutch with my back, waiting for the opportunity to jump. And just when they thought it was safe to gawk I’d catch them. And we would all pretend it was nothing and do it all over again until we were dismissed.
You would think for an ethics class someone would have said something, like when you have broccoli in your teeth or when your headlights are still on in the parking lot.
“Excuse me miss I don’t know if you are aware of this but you have a swastika on your shoulder.”
“Really? Oh my. It seems that I do. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. You can’t imagine my embarrassment.”
But no. No one said anything. Ever.
When I came home Damen was waiting for me, eager to hear the reaction his work got. Apparently the fucker thought it’d be fun to send me out into the world with a bull’s eye on my back while he hide in the bunker. He beamed when I told him how my classmates reacted. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t his art that caused their discomfort. Or that they didn’t even see the whole picture. Every shameful gaze was another reason to raise the bar just another notch. So, That evening he stayed up all night drawing while I slept face down on the couch. In the morning I found him passed out in the chair next to me with his forearm covered in ink and our coffee table strewn with Polaroids of his latest creation.
There on my anemically white back was a highly detailed drawing of Pope John Paul II pulling up his embroidered white robe with one hand and frantically masturbating with the other. But instead of a penis he was stroking a phallic Jesus and instead of semen Catholic schoolboys marched out of Jesus’ mouth in their uniforms around my torso and left leg down to my toes.
How did I sleep through this?
In another picture, there was a close up of the last boy. On the sole of his shoe was Damen’s signature getting as far away as possible from the Pope and his mess. Another picture was a close-up of the ecstasy in the Pope’s contorted face as he tossed back his head and with rolled eyes swallowed the dollar signs falling from my shoulder. Another picture showed a close up of his skinny liver-spotted legs in a garter and torn brown stockings.
I should really wake him up but I’m going to be late for my first class.
[B]Chapter 11[/B]
Today I have Kendell’s big protest to go to and I can’t begin to tell you how little I’m looking forward to it. Worst case scenario, the place will be packed with people. Best case scenario, Kendell will be all alone, sitting on the steps of the church disheartened and six weeks pregnant.
“Yes Mr. Kendell, that is what the X-ray showed. Right here, you see that? At first we thought it was a cyst but as your test results show that little smudge there is an embryo and placenta in your abdomen . . . no, I don’t know how it got there. You tell me. . . Mr. Kendell I wasn’t implying that . . . calm down, calm down. . .. Do you drink a lot? Spend time with questionable people? . . . Now Mr. Kendell there is no need for such language . . .well yes, I understand that . . . yes I know you are in your seventies and have a limited pension . . . yes I understand that. But, it doesn’t change the fact that you are pregnant. Maybe when we find out who the father is this won’t be so . . . again sir there is no need for such language. You’re upset. This is surprising news I’m sure. Here read this pamphlet it might help . . . tossing it on the floor isn’t a mature way to deal with the situation. What’s this? Thank - you nurse. Well Mr. Kendell at least one mystery is solved. It turns out the father . . . sorry, sorry, donor is Satan himself. . . Well don’t ask me I don’t know how he got in there. What were you two doing? Now calm down. Calm down. Think about the baby. At least you won’t have to worry about how you’ll support this child now. Satan is quite well to do you know . . . and yes nurse that smile is absolutely infectious . . . I’m sorry Mr. Kendell what was that? You’re not sure you want to bring this child into the world? But, what about your morals? Your ideals? It’s God’s body. God chose for this. Who are you to question God? Mr. Kendell? Mr. Kendell? Nurse, when Mr. Kendell comes to start him on a hormone regiment immediately and inform him of the dangers of a caesarian section. Oh, and you may want to hold off on telling him about the hormones’ side effects . . . that’s right the breasts. . . it might be a little too much for him right now.”
But, I’m guessing the Fates will meet me in the middle on this one and there will be maybe a few dozen well meaning people chanting slogans and shaking placards at the sky.
But as reluctant as I am to go staying here isn’t an option either. Lindsay’s cat refused to eat anything yesterday and she is positive it means cancer so she’s been surfing the Internet for evidence to support her diagnosis. Weeping every hour or so in her own little self-pity pageant hasn’t helped matters either. And Chuck has nothing to cover today so he’s been circling my desk like a buzzard in the hopes of nailing me into a conversation. So for everyone’s safety I tugged up my gloves, grabbed a camera bag and left early for the protest.
I wasn’t three blocks away from the office when I see two Ukrainian babas vamping for the city’s new surveillance cameras.
“Sophie, you go. Go say something,” one little old lady teases as she pushes her white-haired friend into the view of the camera.
“I don’t know what to say,” laughs Sophie, as she ducks behind the other lady and starts pushing her toward the lens.
“Sing that song you would sing Sophie. It’s so nice,” she laughed trying to maneuver herself behind Sophie again.
They looked like two badly dressed sumo wrestlers rolling over each other, a swish of florescent green, blue and orange when I looked over my shoulder.
The man in the suit and tie who passed me didn’t seem bothered by the cameras. But the kid whizzing by on his skateboard with his jeans hanging to his knees and toque down around his eyes had the right idea. He gave the finger to each of them, the cameras, not the babas. They wouldn’t have noticed anyway.
From here I can see the Fates haven’t been so kind. The streets are awash with cars. And the murmur of people chanting anti-abortion slogans is growing with every step. I walk past a row of children holding wooden signs with bright red lettering : ADOPTION IS THE LOVING OPTION, ABORITION HURTS WOMEN, and ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN.
“Lisa hold the sign higher or no one will see it,” I hear a women shriek.
A bored little girl with pigtails jerks her sign high in the air. From the look on her face I can tell she doesn’t want to be here and that the maroon colored velvet dress and matching bows in her hair weren’t her idea either. The boy beside her is also having trouble holding his sign and keeps putting it down to rest his arms. Looking over his shoulder he sees something that makes him thrust the placard back over his head. I’m guessing it’s the disapproving glare of a parent. It usually is.
Behind the kids is a flock of dried up old women and dweeby asexual men I wouldn’t fuck drunk on a triple dare, walking around and around in an ellipse on the church’s front lawn, chanting and singing hymns off key. In the corner are a bunch of fresh-faced teenagers handing out flyers to people who don’t have the good sense to walk the extra block around them. And a few others are sitting on the steps of the church waiting for the speeches to start. So, I decide to sit next to a guy with spiked hair and black lipstick.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Want a pamphlet?” he asks.
“Sure.” I take it from him and stuff it in my camera bag right on top of the latest note from Up-Chuck.
[B]Laurel,
Have a rock’n day.
Chuck[/B]
Loser.
“You’re a little out of place,” I say. This guy looks like he is maybe 15 years old and certainly isn’t interested in wasting his afternoon here. “Does the father make you cum?”
“What?”
“I said did your father make you come.”
“Funny. No. It’s my mom. I hate these things.”
“Do you have to go to a lot of them?”
“Lately, yeah.”
“Boring, eh.”
“Yeah.”
“They should liven it up a little,” I suggest. “At least in the states they put on a show. See what they need to do is get some baby dolls, soak’em in fake blood and let you guys flick’em at each other.”
“That’d be fuck’n awesome,” he says. Now the wheels are turning in his head. I can almost hear the gears starting. “Or you could get a guy dressed up as a baby and have like a coat hanger or something stuck in his eye.”
“Hey there you go. Or dress up as a surgeon and chase one of the girls around with a scalpel.”
“Fuck yeah.”
The girl next to us hugging her knees to her chest isn’t convinced.
“I don’t know. That sounds pretty awful,” she says.
“You want to save these babies don’t you. How else do you expect people to pay any attention? It’s all in the presentation. I mean, Jesus had to get nailed to a fuck’n cross and bleed out before the world really took notice. Everything else was a parlor trick.”
“It’d be fuck’n cool Melissa, think about it. How hard would it be,” says my new convert.
She nods her head then gets this look of absolute horror on her face and starts to giggle.
“What if I dressed up as Mary and with blood running between my legs start screaming ‘my baby, my baby what have I done.’ Or what if . . .”
They haven’t noticed I’ve left or that Kendell has stepped into the circle of chanters for his speech. While I get my camera ready two men in gray jackets help Kendell on top of a makeshift platform.
“I want to thank everyone for coming out and supporting this noble cause,” he begins, taking out a set of recipe cards from his jacket pocket. “I think if we keep fighting the people will have to take notice,” he says reading from the first card. “And not let the women kill the babies in our town, not here, not ever.”
Pause for applause.
“No woman has the right to kill a baby. Only God has the right to take a life. The femification of the Bible will be our downfall.”
Femification?
Are those darn women ficating all over the Bible again? At all hours, in the back seat of cars and empty locker rooms? When will it end? Soon everyone will be ficating. And then what?
“The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you . . . you are not your own. You are God’s and therefore you should glorify God in your body.”
That explains the wine . . . and what my damp fingers keep bumping into.
“I beseech you brethren by the mercies of God that you present your body a living sacrifice holy, acceptable to God, which is your responsible service – as it say in the Bible there – let us pray.”
I never know what to do when they do this. But then again most of them have their heads lowered and their eyes closed so what does it matter.
[B]Chapter 12[/B]
My review of the dumb dogs was the usual fare – a picture and a blurb. Kendell stared back from the page with two blurry eyes, a gapping hole for a mouth and a hand raised to God. The people around him stood frozen with wide eyes and hands in mid-clap. Flowered hats teetered on balding heads and striped ties hung in the air. Hours from now thousands of copies will be straightjacketed and tossed in the back of the Bugle’s white delivery vans. In a few hours little hands will pick them up and drop them off in their neighbors’ mailboxes. Hours from now a few thousand people will be face to face with their very own two-dimensional copy of Leonard Kendell. The caption underneath will tell them where and when they’ve seen all this before with the date and time of the upcoming vote on the city’s abortion issue, in case they want some more. Then predictably a few thousand people will set their paper aside and watch American car jackings, kidnappings and hostage situations on the six o’clock news.
It’s disgusting. We were disgusted.
I’d come home from class and Damen would be sitting in front of the TV with his earphones plugged into his head, plugged into Manson and furiously scratching a new drawing into his sketchbook.
“My other canvas kept walking away,” he explained.
Which was fine by me. I didn’t mind being abandoned for parchment and lead. Goodness knows our kitchen drawers were full to bursting with the product of his imagination. I was a jigsaw puzzle ten times over, drenched in his poison. And it was everywhere. I once found a rat gnawing on my ankle under the fridge, there were the cartoon devils that took my left nipple hostage behind the stove – pitch forks at the ready. And a frazzled Tweety Bird was found cooking his breakfast on a spoon on my right thigh, under the telephone.
There were so many photographs we had to start storing our cutlery in a coffee can on the counter. Our cupboards were filled with dishes and sketches. Art supplies took over our kitchen table and an easel blocked out the light from our living room window.
We started taping the pictures to the living wall. Even when Damen had finally exhausted the idea of becoming a tattoo artist there were enough to piece me back together, completely, about two and half times. Damen’s 2.3 children, he said. His Portrait of a Canadian Family.
N’est pas une femme.
All the spare parts stayed in the kitchen drawer. At least until he thought it’d be funnier to put the “leftovers” in the fridge. So now we have a six pack of beer, a seven-month-old jar of mayonnaise and a mixing bowl full of pictures of my arms and legs in various states of disarray – his contribution to our food supply.
Essentially I was living with a junkie. He’d sooner create than eat. And it showed. It was like his bones were stretching the skin transparent so they could see the outside.
“What are you doing?”
“Haven’t you heard? God’s in the TV,” he smiled with his phony metal teeth. Well, they weren’t really metal – metal per se. Since he couldn’t get his hands on the kind of mouthpiece Marilyn Manson had he just wrapped a layer of tin foil on the upper and lower rows of his teeth. He said he painted better with them. Although I wouldn’t have been surprised if he actually thought it kept the government from reading his thoughts.
“Seriously doesn’t that hurt?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in a hairshirt or something?”
“Not really, besides I can suck and I can smile. What else do I need?”
At one time I thought this was endearing, but how quickly things change and stay exactly the same. Pretty soon he had a mangled line for everything. When I told him I was going to take extra courses that term and wouldn’t be able to sit for him anymore he shrugged his shoulders and said:
“Oh well all the pretty, pretty ones will leave you low and blow your mind Omega, Song 2, Chorus Lines 4 through 6.”
When I asked him to wash the dishes – for a change:
“There’s no point. Tomorrow’s turned up dead, Anti-Christ, Song 16 Line 13.”
“You know I don’t think that’s what he meant at all.”
“But it works doesn’t it?”
“Speaking of . . . are you going to go look for work today?”
“Can’t I got the devil’s hand. Portrait, Song 11, Lines 5, 15, 21 and 24.”
Then there was the beginning of what should have been the end.
“You should value this time we have together. A good god is hard to find and I’m going to join the crowd that wants to see me dead, Mercury, Song 14 Lines 4 and 5.”
Il n’y a pas de hors-texte.
“I should call up the local radio stations and request a lullaby for the city,” he continued. “It’ll need to get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day – good night.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m glad you asked,” he said pulling the earphones from his head and bounded down the hall to our bedroom.
“Okay, I’m waiting.”
“Just a second . . . . .okay . .. . wait for it . . . Tada!”
And there before me in our hallway stood Damen decked out like the Second Coming in a white robe, brown Birkenstock sandals and a pipe cleaner “crown of thorns” on his head. For a little sparkle, he added a cow’s heart swimming in a glass jam jar full of formaldehyde around his neck. It dangled off his scrawny frame like an oversized noose from his old bicycle chain. I thought he was going to fall over for a second. But he didn’t he came barreling down that hall like it was runway in Milan.
“You like it,” he asked sucking in his cheeks. “It took me like a week to sew this damn thing but it was worth it. I even got this,” he says handing me a folded up piece of white paper.
“What is it?”
“That my sweet girl is a certificate from [url]www.onlinereligions.com[/url] certifying me as an ordained preacher. Neat, eh. I’m a fuck’n prophet. Want to hear my sermon? I got one.”
“Not really. So . . . what’s the plan here? Who is this crowd you’re joining? We’re not going to have fuck’n scientology nuts or something crawling all over this place are we?
“Shit no. It’s for my art show. I know it’s a little crazy in here with my stuff being everywhere but I want people to see all this.”
“They’re not coming here are they?”
“No. But that’s not a bad idea. But get this rather then that fuck’n sad ass University gallery I’m transforming that empty classroom in the Bible College. Everybody has to walk by it to get to their classes the Bible-bangers and the regular students. So I’ll hit’em all. Fuck’n great, eh.”
“Yeah, kick me in the groin fantastic. But, why would you want to do that? I mean isn’t the whole point to get the message across that you shouldn’t force your beliefs on others? And then what? There you are going into the heart of their campus and shaking your hate in their face? What’s that going to prove?”
“Fuck, Laurel. Why do you always do that? I finally, finally get this thing off the ground and you want to fuck’n wreck everything.”
“Well what’s your argument? Why?”
“Oh, should I be censored. Is that it? Fuck’n fascist.”
“Yeah, I wanna nail you on a fuck’n cross because you’re the man I fuck’n fear, asshole.”
“Someone had to go this far. And it sure as fuck wasn’t going to be you, Anti-Christ Song 16 Line31. Bitch. What? Do you really think you are doing so much? Everything you learn in that brown building just makes you more like them. Is that what you want, to be another fuck’n widget? Well fine, I tried. Read your fuck’n books. Do you really think the answers are fuck’n in here? he screams taking the books out of my hands and whipping them at his “family” on the wall.
“Really, well what about this,” I say grabbing his Discman and taking out the big white pill inside. Let’s see if your god can fly shall we?” And with that I throw his copy of Mechanical Animals across the room. As Damen tries to retrieve it I dash to the bedroom for the other apostles. They’re all here in chronological order waiting for the fall.
I’ve barely cracked open the first album before Damen is tripping over his sandals to get in the room. When I looked up he stood huffing in the doorway with a lighter and my Renaissance literature notebook in his hand. “I fuck’n dare you. If you want to pass your exams you’ll put that down.”
“Put what down? You mean this? Sure.” I throw the CD cover to the floor and break the disc in half. Before he can take another breath I’m reaching for another.
“You miserable cunt,” he howls and lights the corner.
“Oh like I don’t have all that memorized by now. How about you? How much of . . .what the hell is this. . Holy Wood . . . do you fuck’n remember Rain Man.”
Snap. Another deity gone.
Damen, not sure what to do now. Throws the burning book in the tub and rushes to save his remaining CD collection.
“They’re just things. What do you care? You’re not into all the consumer bullshit. You’re above this. Go paint me another pretty picture bitch.”
It was not long before he had me by the wrists and threw me down to the floor.
“Fuck! Laurel. Why do you have to be such a fuck’n nut case.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you,” he says taking off the jar from around his neck and setting it on the nightstand. “Why are you like this?”
[B]Chapter 13[/B]
Damen must have been pretty pissed off because usually the next morning after a fight I find him curled up on the couch like a sated sewer rat covered in the muck of the previous night’s creative conquest. But this morning he was gone. All that was left was the groove in the cushions and smeared paint on the armrest where his head would still be if he didn’t have a campus to irritate that morning. Most of the larger canvases were gone, so was the “family” on the wall. They left behind a nice mark of how clean our walls would have been if Damen hadn’t started smoking. Like in Hiroshima when the “Little Boy” blew and the carcasses created shadows on the pavement there was my shadow shielding the wall from the impending filth.
I felt awful. I wanted the hole to go away.
And with the way I was feeling I knew I wouldn’t make to class so I wandered over to the campus where Damen would be. But, no one was there when I arrived. But at 7 a.m. who would be? There on the walls was our “family” and the only painting I ever really liked. I once told him that my mother defined happiness as a chubby baby. So he painted me one. It was one of those unrealistically beautiful blond-haired blue-eyed cherub perfections that you’d see hawking diapers or life insurance on Prime Time TV. It was so life like you could almost hear it cooing from across the room.
“Do you like it?” asked Damen.
“It’s nice. What do you call it?”
“Speed Holes.”
“Why?”
Then he smiled and handed me his paintbrush. “Well you see”, he said picking up a very large knife from the coffee table and stabbing the canvas “This little guy is going to be whipped through life so fast that he is going to need some help you see. And no one likes pretty. At least not for long. It’s too perfect,” he says twisting the knife in one of the eyes. “We all want to destroy it. Who can stand the sight of the beautiful? It reminds us of how filthy we are with our scars and cellulite. So the pretty are on their own. They need Speed Holes so they can fall to hell faster,” he says slicing into the image’s chubby white wrists. “Less wind resistance. There is no sense delaying the inevitable, letting it float there in the air when the dirt below is waiting, right?”
The joy of his first Christening launched a whole series of paintings based on his favorite dead baby jokes.
“Laurel, What’s funnier than a dead baby?”
“I don’t know?”
Turning around his canvas so I can see he says “ A dead baby in a clown costume.”
It was hideous. The child’s face was a greenish gray color I’m guessing from its pink ruffled collar choking its neck down to a half an inch. Its lips were painted a messy red as if the kid’s drunken mother took some of her old lipstick and with her fist drew it a mouth. Upon closer inspection that’s exactly what it was – my lipstick. And it stained Damen’s mouth too.
“Aaaaaah come on. Don’t turn away. Everybody loves a clown. Laurel, where you going man. It’s just a fuck’n painting.”
Then there was Pinky. The punch line of “What’s pink and red and sits in a highchair.” A plump little creature with a mouth full of razor blades dribbling blood down its bib as big blue tears slide over its cheeks. He let the paint run so that the tears left no face behind as they made their descent to the bottom of the canvas.
I hated it.
Then he incorporated cheap plastic baby dolls into his work. In a piece he called, Dizzy, Damen nailed the doll wrist first to a sheet of plywood and put a marker in its other hand. The little doll would draw its circle until the marker ran dry.
“You know how you end this,” he told me spinning Dizzy around and around. “Nail its other wrist,” he smiled and then stretched out his arms like Jesus on the cross. “That’ll be our little joke.”
Then there was Time Out, a doll put together from the parts of other dolls. She took the longest to make because Damen wanted to both smash the doll's features and leave the imprint of a shovel behind. So it took hours of microwaving the head and smacking it with a shovel to leave the mark he wanted.
Ding. Whap. Ding. Whap. Ding. Whap.
“What’s more fun than spinning a baby on a clothesline,” he said as we watched the little face turn round and round on the glass tray. “That’s right,” he smiled. Taking the head out with his novelty lobster claw oven mitts “Stopping,” Whap. “it” Whap. “with” Whap. “a” Whap “Shovel”.
Then finally there was Twisted Sister. I came home early from class one afternoon to the sound of our smoke alarm blaring down the building’s hallway. Our neighbors had their heads poked out of their apartments to see what was going on and I stood fumbling with my keys, terrified that Damen was passed out and being consumed with flames while I tried to answer their questions.
“What’s making that noise?”
“Do you know what’s going on?”
“Gosh, could be a fire. Should we leave our apartments?”
“Miss you should really get in there, could be serious.”
Fortunately it wasn’t. It was just a home birth. Damen had a baby doll spinning in my blender. Well not spinning so much as smoking.
“Hey, why do you put a baby in the blender feet first?”
“Did you at least put some water in there before you started it?”
“Shit no. It’s not natural. Answer the question.”
“Jesus fuck is that on fire!” I shrieked, running to the kitchen sink to fill up whatever filthy pot Damen surely had waiting for me with water. You’d think I’d know to invest in something as handy as a fire extinguisher when I moved in with an “artist”. But I didn’t.
“Let it burn, she’ll be my phoenix.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Help me!”
“No, let nature take its course.”
“Nature? You set the fuck’n fire,” I screamed dousing the blender and plastic child in a soup of chlorinated water and the florescent orange gum of three-day-old macaroni and cheese. Water rushed the table, covering it like cheap plastic sheeting until it cascaded to the floor. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“To see the expression on her face,” he smiled triumphantly.
Our whole dysfunctional “family”, bastard children and all, were here hanging on the wall waiting to be gawked at.
I hated it.
Outside Damen had a sandwich board with “Family show” written in blue pastel chalk with little white clouds in the back ground to greet the dupes. How appropriate.
But, I’ve seen this show before. The one I want to watch wouldn’t be on for a few more hours so I made my way to the nearest coffee shop for supplies. I made my return to the scene just in time for the opening credits. A few students had started making their blurry-eyed trek to their classes and started passing by the room, oblivious. I took my seat across the hallway in a little makeshift pit the school incorporated into its architecture. It’s sunken into the floor about six feet and lined with benches and tables bolted to the floor for the students. From here I could see without being seen.
Everything was still pretty quiet when the doors of the classroom swung open and Damen stood there in full sacrilegious garb and his tin foil smile.
“I fuck’n died for you,” he shouted pointing at a girl in a green cardigan and plaid skirt walking to class.
“And you,” he pointed to a guy who, I’m guessing was only here because of an athletic scholarship. “And you didn’t even bother to say thank-you.”
“Fuck-you,” replied the jock as he walked off.
“That was close. Let’s try it again shall we. Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaank Yooooooooooou, he said slow enough so even the most mentally challenged could comprehend. “ I fuck’n die for you and this, this is what you do,” he says pointing to the gallery. “This, this filth is what you give me in return.”
“What’s going on,” I hear one girl beside me ask the redhead on her left.
“I don’t know, I think he’s selling something. Or freak’n out. It is midterms. But, I’ve never seen this one this bad before.”
“Nope, selling something. Look he’s a fuck’n “artist”,” she says making scare quotes in the air with her fingers. “Look at me I’m so deep. I’m so pained.”
“Could be worse it could be one of those fuck’n scrawny drama students parading their naked ass down the hallway to show how comfortable they are with their bodies,” says the redhead.
“I know. Did you see the hips on that one girl? Fuck. They make clothes for a reason. Cover that fat ass.”
“I know. Fuck’n gross. So how long do think this monkey is going to dance?”
“Till the crowd thins. Ha, ha, ha”
“Ha, ha, ha.”
The fine arts students had nothing nice to say either. They sauntered past Damen not even blinking an eye at his work. Then they sat in the pit across from me with their cappuccinos.
“Pedestrian”
“Pedestrian horse shit, if you want to be accurate. This innocence lost crap is just so tired.”
“And the sacrilege . . .so, 1996. I could have just cried for the poor bastard.”
“I know.”
The drama students were awful. They circled him like vultures criticizing his performance. Some even offered him advice while he tried to stir passersby.”
“Enunciate! Enunciate! You want the people down the hall to hear you.”
“Yeah, yeah and use your arms more. Make me feel your presence. Like this. Watch me. I fuck’n DIED for YOOOOU,” he said clutching his chest. “Now you try. Go on don’t be shy. You were doing fine before. Go on make me believe you really are Jesus.”
The philosophy students weren’t much better that sat next to me and debated whether Damen existed or not for a few hours before one of them settled the argument by pushing him over and stealing his cow’s heart.
Unsuccessfully Damen tried to get it back. But, not being much of a fighter he just pushed the guy while he still had his back turned and the jar flew out of his hand and smashed on the floor.
This wasn’t fun anymore. Even the people passing him in the hall were dicks.
“Fuck buddy, move.”
“The truth can’t move it’s always there,” Damen screamed back.
“Jesus, get out of the way freak. Some of us have classes.”
“To learn what? I got the only lesson you’ll need right here,” he said shaking a fist full of his testicles at her.
“Has someone called security yet, this loser is getting annoying.”
“Send the cops. Haul me away. I’m a fuck’n hydra.”
The cops never came.
And you can only watch Jesus thrash around for so long.
It only cost a quarter but a gave him his wish. I called the cops. And they directed me to campus security.
“Campus security.”
“Yeah there’s a guy down here disturbing students. You need to clear him out.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Um. Purging ignorance from the masses.”
“Another fuck’n artist? Is he killing anything or making lewd comments to the female student body?”
“No. Not yet anyway.”
“Well we can’t help you. Freedom of expression and all you know gotta respect the kid’s rights and all.”
“He smashed a cows heart?”
“What?”
“A cow’s heart. In a jar of formaldehyde. It’s all over the floor.”
“Oh well that’s just not sanitary. We’ve got health codes. Where are you? We’ll be right down.”
[B]Chapter 14[/B]
I think deep down he knew it was me who called security, the chief priests of campus corridors, to haul him away. And deep down he’ll know that I did exactly what he wanted. I gave him his finale From that day forth he’d forever be known as “that guy”. That guy, that crazy fuck’n guy in the bathrobe? Or was it a cloak? It could have been a beach towel but, you know, that guy with the pig in the jar? Or was it a live sparrow. What ever happened to That Guy, they’d ask.
Well, he lives in my apartment.
He didn’t die. He didn’t go to prison. And no one tried to close down his art exhibition. I bailed after the phone call but I’d find out later through the rumor mill that the boys from security just handed him a mop and told him to clean up the mess. They threw the heart in the nearest garbage can and watched Our Savior sop up the slurry with their arms folded across their chests. But this is not how it was suppose to end. How could it? So, he tossed off his sandals and walked into the pool of formaldehyde-drenched glass, with his arms outstretched to the security guards.
“Forgive them Father they know not what they do,” he muttered.
A massive shard wedged itself into the center of the fleshy bit under his big toe. It crawled in and made a home for itself there and Damen was a gracious host. He liked the way the light hit it and the contrast between its cold rough edges and the warm crimson blood racing to it was something that apparently captured his fascination. Even after the incident I’d often find him cutting himself, trying to drive the shards under his skin.
“The pain, the pain was exquisite,” he confessed.
The rest of his foot was no less artful in his eyes. Little shards had spread themselves like stars in a constellation and sparkled until the blood eclipsed them.
His left foot was the real horror show though. Rather than just stepping in the mess he grinded the glass in with his foot. The skin tore, and the blood didn’t drip so much as flowed.
“Fuck, it was awesome,” he would later relay.
The bulbous security guard quickly rushed in, picked him up by the waist and flung him away from the mess. Damen squirmed but the guard managed to bind his gushing foot, to the horror of the students, with his shirt. Yelling at his scrawny assistant to grab Damen’s ankles the two hauled him to the medic’s office.
So there was Damen being hurled down the campus halls, with the portly security guard’s breasts bounding, just inches from the top of his head and the little one in front looking back for direction from the guy in the back. He kept tripping on his feet as they turned the corners. But you really can’t blame the guy. I doubt the smell wafting from Damen's injuries was doing the guy any favors. A girl in my International Relations class would tell me later that the guy was almost green in the face when he passed her. And the stench was almost as bad as the sight of Damen’s feet.
“But you couldn’t look away and no matter how much you tried to plug your nose the stink managed to find its way in,” she said.
For a little while, I thought maybe they did take Damen to the police station. But I eventually got a phone call from the campus clinic to pick him up at the city hospital.
When I arrived he was propped up on pillows with his feet wrapped in so many bandages you would have thought he stole Mickey Mouse’s shoes on the way over.
“I did it, Laurel. I fuck’n did it. And all I had to do was give’em a little blood.” He said.
The hubris was blinding.
“What?”
“Even if they didn’t see my face they’ll always remember my feet. My feat, ha, ha, ha, get it. Punny.”
“You lost a lot of blood, hon and the nurse told me you passed out for a while.”
“Yeah I don’t know if it was from the blood loss or the formaldehyde”
“You’re thinking of chloroform.”
“Either way, fuck Laurel it was awesome. This one girl fuck’n screamed and started to cry. You should have seen it. Then when they finally got me to the clinic there were people outside trying to see what was going on in the window. I was in there . . . shit for at least a half hour and when I came out, you know what, they were still fuck’n there. All these people. ‘Is he okay? Is he alright? What did he do? Oh my god.’ Oh my god. Oh my fuck’n god! It was so good. We should go back to the gallery and see how many people are there now. I bet its fuck’n packed. Those assholes.”
And while he yammered on and on all I could think about was how I was going to get him from the bed to my car without his feet touching the ground. It was too bad there wasn’t a moat around the hospital. I could probably convince him he could just walk across it.
“Well of course it’s safe. If anyone could . . . I mean this should be a walk in the park for YOU. That’s right, jump. Yeah, yeah I’m watching. I’m watching.”
But there was no moat and I still needed to get this punk home. And good luck finding someone healthy and strong in an emergency room. Fortunately the Fates were smiling on me, for once, and the waiting room had a few prospects. So, while Damen giggled into his pillow about his upcoming infamy I trolled the waiting room for volunteers - the Marys.
Mary Storozischuk was waiting for the doctors to sew her husband’s thumb and forefinger back on.
“Oh Christ, It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him to be careful with the table saw he never listens,” she said . “I’m fine. Mary he says. So I says, I says to him oh sure you are but don’t come crying when you go cutting yourself to pieces. Then what good will you be? And here we are. Again. Shit if this was the States we’d have had to sell our house to cover his medical bills. Cigarette?” She asked handing me a smoke from the crumpled pack in her jacket pocket.
“No, I’m good.”
“Suit yourself,” she said lighting the cigarette in her mouth. “And what about me,” she continued. “Do you know what its like just sitting around waiting for the next disaster? It’s hell. And he thinks its funny. He brags about it to his friends- his scars. You’d think he got them wrestling wolves or something. Idiot.”
Then there was Mary Procopski, her husband was suffering from second-degree burns and a broken nose because he didn’t think to read the bag before deep frying store bought perogies.
“God forbid he eats only three meals a day,” she started.
Like gunfire each little potato filled bomb burst out of the pan. Hard and fast was the attack. Dumplings slammed against the cupboards, shattering a window and one, the reason Mary was here tonight, hit her husband square in the face.
Howling on the floor with the perogies still flying out of the pan he screamed for Mary. Leaping from her bed she tore into the kitchen, stepping over her husband she turned off the element and threw the pan into the sink. She then lifted him off the floor with one hand and grabbed her purse off the top of the dishwasher with the other. With him on his feet she somehow grabbed a few parkas off the hooks and got him out the door and into the garage to the truck, so the story goes anyhow.
“And the whole way, all he could do was bitch about how he was missing the game,” she said. “Can you believe that? I have a class to teach in the morning and he’s worried about missing hockey. You should see our truck. There’s blood everywhere. The doctors must have thought I shot him when he came in. I should have. Then I could finally clean that damn truck.”
Needless to say those two were an easy sell. When I told them why I was there they quickly agreed to help.
We just needed to find Damen. Predictably he was gone. Predictably I found the Marys. Predictably this was going to end badly for him. But we were going to go through the motions anyway because apparently you don’t fuck with something that has been working for more than 2000 years, right?
So, rather than telling the staff we combed the halls for him, only to find him on his back spread eagle in the maternity ward waiting for abuse. I’m guessing he got bored talking to himself and walked there on his hands, maybe to preach to the children who knows. But, little did my sweet boy know that blood loss mixed with a rush of it to the head is not a good combination. So there he lay.
“Okay now do you think we should we call a doctor,” asked Mary Number One.
“Would you?” I smiled.
“Serves him right. Let’s fuck’n drag him,” said Mary Number Two.
So the Marys grabbed his arms and I grabbed his ankles, letting his head and belly drag on the linoleum, that is until we heard somebody coming. Then we’d quickly flip him over and get him up right. But once the person passed it was back to the floor for Damen.
Whap.
Well that is until we got caught by one of the nurses.
“Um. Would you ladies like a wheel chair,” she asked.
“No, no we’re fine,” said Mary Number One. He’s not a patient. He’s just a little drunk. New father.”
The nurse wasn’t buying it. There was a streak of Damen’s dried blood following us down the hallway and his bandages were starting to unravel.
“Okay, but when you get to the parking lot flip him over. Pavement is not kind to young skin and I don’t want to see this guy back in here tonight.”
“Yes ma’am”, I smiled.
When we successfully got him out of the building I was a little sad to have to say goodbye to my new comrades.
“It was really nice meeting you two. Thanks for all your help,” I said.
Looking at Damen lying in my trunk with his Jesus outfit and bandages in tatters the two Marys just looked at each other and smiled.
“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll see you again,” said Mary Number One.
“Yeah, I’ll save you a seat,” laughed Mary Number Two.
[B]Chapter 15[/B]
Thoughts of leaving this nonsense screamed through my mind as fast as Damen and I were flying across the iced ashvalt. How did he think this was going to play out? The curtain would drop, the audience goes home and while he’s sniffing roses in some white walled creation of his mind I would be there sweeping up the aftermath with a corncob broom and a Colgate smile? Maybe he’d let me work the door instead? I really should ask.
“Hey thanks for coming out tonight. Yeah great show. Yes I’m a very lucky woman. You just can’t imagine.”
Maybe he’ll mention me in the liner notes. Maybe I can wait backstage during the encores. Maybe he’ll put me in the autobiography no one will read. Maybe they’ll let me keep a little piece of the cross they’ll string him up on. Maybe I could keep the bullet they extract from his head. Wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t that be perfect? I could be a living record of his bullshit sacrifices. Or maybe he’ll just keep leaching off me until I throw him out.
What a fuck’n mess. And the angrier I got the heavier my foot was on the gas. Not that anyone cared. No one was on the road. Buildings, road signs, the hum from the radio, it all mish mashed into nothingness. And I had to celebrate because for a moment everything was okay. I had the world and a messiah in the trunk of my car and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
I pulled into a grocery store parking lot, took my hands off the wheel and let the car take us where it wanted. What happened now wasn’t my problem. It wasn’t me. It was out of my hands. We spun in circles, slid at odd angles, and missed lampposts by inches. We tumbled over speed bumps and drove over medians. And it was wonderful.
I turned the radio off just so I could hear the death rattle in the trunk. Rolling, bumping, something I thought was a moan, was the most beautiful music I had ever heard. And we spun around and around like drunk figure skaters for hours. At least it seemed like hours.
“Honestly officer. I really don’t know what happened. You could imagine my shock. Can’t you?” I told the rearview mirror as we worked on a triple Lutz toward a row of shopping carts. “Okay this time with out that stupid smile. ‘Honestly officer. I really don’t know what happened.’ Again. ‘Honestly officer. I really don’t. Honestly officer. I don’t know what happened. Honestly officer. Honestly. Honest mister I swear.’ Ahh! You’re the actor,” I laughed over my shoulder to the trunk. “How should I do this? Should I tilt my head a little? Maybe widen my eyes like this when I start to cry?” I screamed. “What do you recommend . . . .oh fuck.”
We were sliding towards the big glass doors of the store’s entrance and I had no traction. I just pumped the break like an idiot and waited. What else could I do? I closed my eyes and felt the car go around and around and around and waited for the sound of shattering glass and alarms sounding but they never came. Around and around and around we were moving faster and faster, spiraling into the concrete and still nothing. I could feel the tires beneath me, the glass showering over me, metal caving in all around, but, when I opened my eyes we were perfectly still, sideways, but still meters away from the doors.
And there was silence. The sound in the trunk finally stopped.
“Oh shit what if he is dead? What if he is actually dead? Yeah you fuck’n lunatic he’s dead. Go home. And stop talking to yourself. No one is listening.”
True enough. I was on my own. So, I took my own advice, backed the car up and slowly head for home.
A good girl would have checked the trunk. I just turned the radio back on.
We passed Source, The Daily Grind, and a church on the way. There was Mary on her knees in the cold and the muck with a light shining in her face. Surrounded by plastic men and plastic animals, a blue plastic Mary wept for joy at the sight of the newborn in the crib. At least that’s how the story goes.
“All eyes are on you sister, don’t fuck this up.”
Maybe that’s not piousness on her face. Maybe its exhaustion. Maybe it’s the drugs. How else did she get through? Faith? In what, the screaming sack in the crib? He couldn’t even chew solids let alone save mankind. Kneel down, move your lips and pray and you will believe? Can you put that in a capsule? I really don’t have the time anymore. You understand don’t you? I have messes to clean, hospitals to wait in, classes to attend - shit to do.
But before I could get all worked up four teenage boys emerged from the shadows behind Mary’s makeshift shelter. One grabbed the figure in the crib while another whipped down his jeans to pinch a loaf for her to rejoice over.
They all looked so happy.
Little did they know I had a better prop in the trunk. And wouldn’t it be grand for the neighborhood to find Damen with his broken crown of thorns and pus filled bandages lying in cold shit on the doorstep of their church tomorrow morning?
But, it didn’t matter now we were going home. He’d be waking up on my doorstep not theirs. Like everything else, It’s really only your problem if you let it be I guess. After all I could just abandon the car and walk home. But, I didn’t. I’m a good girl . . . and I hate walking.
When I pulled into our parking stall I reluctantly popped the trunk and went to survey the damage. Even if he was dead I didn’t want to know about it and if he wasn’t well I didn’t want to know that either. But he was fine. He was asleep. The motherfucker slept through all of it.
I yelled, I shook him, I grabbed a handful of dirty snow from under the car and stuffed it down his robe and nothing.
“Well, fuck. I can’t get you out of there by myself,” I screamed to the upstairs floors, the ones filled with neighbors ready at the drop of a hat to cram their nose where it doesn’t belong. The ones who will open the door for you and expect a life debt in return. No, none of these people were getting up. Not for this. Although they sure as hell didn’t mind watching. Even from down below I could see the corners of curtains being folded back, hear the sound of windows being opened slightly and whispers hushing the sounds within but no one came out.
So I ran upstairs to our apartment grabbed an armful of blankets and pillows and attempted to make Damen a little nest in the trunk. - that big faker.
“Seeeeeeeeeeeee,” he said nuzzling his head into the pillow.
“See what,” I whispered.
“Yoooooooooooou loooooooove me.”
“Go to sleep fuck wit before I put the pillow over your face.”
“Flirt. Yoooooooooou looooooooove meeeeee. You say you don’t but you dooooooo.” He sang swatting the tip of my nose with his index finger. “Yoooooooou looooooove meeeee.”
“Are you high?”
“Maybe,” he said lifting up his robe, showing me the massive bulge in his tidy whities. A pill bottle was trying to escape through the slit in the front. But with both hands he dived in and caught it and brought back it and a few of its brothers. Then, with little success, he tried to read the labels to me.
“Cyclops – been-za- pry- a. Cyclops-been-za preening. Cyclops -bensa. . . That one!” he said thrusting the bottle inches from my face.
“Cyclobenzaprine, hon.”
“Cyclobenzee... what you said. And Flexeril. And Xanax. And Valium. And. . . Zyban?” He throws the last bottle just inches past my head and into the snow bank behind me.“So, I’m either high or I just quit smoking,” he laughed into the pillow.”
“You didn’t take all of those?”
“Don’t know.”
“Where’d you get these.”
“Stole’em. Well I didn’t really steeeeeeal them. Turns out patients don’t really raise a fuss when Jesus Christ rifles through their purses and pants pockets to steal their drugs. So I borrowed, really. It’s only stealing if they don’t know, you know.” He said tapping his nose.
“Ah ha, okay. Well Mr. Pain-free-to-the world do you want to sleep inside tonight.”
“You offer’n?” he says with a cocked eyebrow.
A thin stream of blood trickled out of his nose and down his chin, his crown dangled off his left ear and has stringy robe was now up around his chest.
“Sure, get out of the trunk.”
“Noooooo, get IN the trunk.”
Then a voice from above screamed. “Why don’t you just fuck him already, lady.”
“Fuck you!” I shrieked back in the direction of the voice, wherever it was coming from. But, in return all I could hear was laughter and a window shut.
“Get out of the trunk. We’re going home,” I growled.
Now I was scolding him. Mother of mothers I should have grabbed his ear and dragged him out. That’s probably what really happened to Van Gogh. One of his whores probably caught him passed out in the cold and tried to get him home before the country lost another unknown national treasure.
“We are home,” he said, reaching out his hand. “Come home Laurel.”
“Wait here.” I go back into the apartment and grab one of our office chairs and drag it down the stairs to the parking lot, where Damen is asleep yet again.
“Fuck, get up.”
“What?”
“Remember, we’re going to get you home?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Hop on. I’ll help, you.”
Don’t ask how but we managed to get him upright on the chair. He straddled and I pulled. It was a nice change. The door was a challenge and the steps up to our apartment were murder. He had to more or less roll up them with periodic bouts of crawling. But he got there. It was just a matter of rolling him in the door after that. A responsible girlfriend would have called a poison control line. A tired girlfriend would have left him face down on the boot mat to sleep it off with her shoes. I at least dragged him by his ankles into the living room and threw an afghan on him.
“Laurel?”
“yeah?”
“Hi.”
“Hi. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep. I never sleep.”
“Try.”
“Okay”
“Damen?”
“yeah?”
“Hi.”
“Hi,” he laughs.
“Why do you do this?”
“So you’ll notice me. So you’ll la la la la love me.” He said passing back out.
Touché.
[B]Chapter 16[/B]
I was looking forward to today as much as I had the other 378 other days I’ve been working here. Get up. Brush teeth. Wash face. Shower. Put on clothes. Eat breakfast. Brush teeth again go to work. And as I’m doing this I know three quarters of the city is doing the exact same thing, not necessarily in that order. Then we’ll all hop in our cars and drive to work, even though most things are a twenty-minute walk or less. So, here I am with the rest of lemmings, gloves pulled up to my elbows and listening to ill-placed pop songs.
With only one radio station in town you learn pretty fast to tolerate looking across intersections and seeing people mouth the words to the same song you are. The woman with the three kids in the backseat fighting, the farmer with his John Deer cap poking out from under his toque, the old man pulling into the gas station across the street, were all reluctantly “walking on sunshine” today.
“And don’t it feel good . . . hey . . . all right now . . . and don’t it feel good,” we mouth.
I see the same faces almost every morning. I watch them take the same route, at the same time while making the same gestures day after day. The guy with the John Deer cap is always playing with his nose. The woman with the kids struggles to ignore the war zone in the back seat and they watch me talk to myself and check for lipstick on my teeth. And we all sing along.
“I feel alive . . . I feel alive . . . I feel alive . . . that’s really good”
And when I get to the office I’ll walk in the door at approximately the same time I did the day before. I’ll hear the same generic greetings all the way to my desk and if I’m lucky someone will have already made coffee.
“Hey Laurel”
“Yes, Chuck”
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Working, and you?”
“No I just thought, if you wanted you could come over and”
“Can’t. Working.”
“I know how you like Nosforatu and”
“I’ve seen it. I have it. I’m working. But thanks man.”
“Okay, yeah so this weekend. You’ll never guess what I rented”
“I really don’t.” And don’t care. “You know I reeeeeeeeeally have to get going here.”
Thank the Fates I really did have somewhere to go. I had to head off to one of the elementary schools for their Christmas concert. Sure it didn’t start until ten o’clock but I had things to do, places to go, busy, busy, busy. It says so in my daybook and if its in print it must be true, right? I had appointments, interviews, and errands to run. It was all right there in black and white – my life. There’s your proof. What more do you need? Pictures? I’ll get you pictures. I can PhotoShop my way into something much better than this I’m sure.
Besides, I sure as hell wasn’t going to stick around and listen to Chuck stammer on and on with his Sci-fi trivia. So, I grabbed a camera bag and tore out of there as quick as I came.
“Hey, where you going,” Mike shouted from his office.
“Escaping, fuck off.” I whisper hanging from the side of the doorframe.
“Come here. What did you think of the vote?”
“That gong show?” I said taking a chair.
“Wild, eh?”
“Did you like how the priests trolled the tables telling people how to vote?”
“Nooooo. I didn’t catch that.”
“I thought you were covering this thing? I said facetiously. “Yeah. It was a beautiful thing to see a reverend and a minister tag teaming like that, hovering over terrified old biddies telling them that Jesus would want them to vote for the babies. As if shelling out their pensions in the hopes of buying into heaven wasn’t enough. Christ. I don’t know about you but I’m buying my ticket at the door. Last night was disgraceful.”
“You have no idea. The Catholic women’s organization roped me into interviewing their president.”
“Noooooo.”
“It’s true I wouldn’t lie about such a thing.”
“So what did they say? Was this before or after the ballots were in?”
“Before. They took off pretty quick after the results.”
“I bet. So …”
“The usual. We believe life begins at conception, God’s will, the right of the child, the usual.”
“You should have been on the floor with the rest of the mortals. Some asshole tried to hand me a pocket Bible when I picked up my ballot. Because surely I was going to sit down and read that juggernaut before voting, right?”
“What’d you say?”
“Ha. I told him I was a good Christian woman and that he should save the Lord’s good words for someone who has lost their way. Then we looked at each other knowingly, like people with mini-vans do when they pass each other on the road.”
“What a circus. I can’t believe it passed by one percent of the vote.”
“I know I’m still a little hung over . . . mentally. Mentally hung over.”
“Liar. That’s okay. You can get away with it – once. So where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“Nowhere. Chuck rented some movies and”
“Say no more.”
“Yeah well I still have to head off to a Christmas concert this morning, in honor of the fetus that made it.”
“Don’t bitch. You could be trying to track down board executives, who are probably installing bullet proof glass in their homes as we speak.”
“Surely. Speaking of crazies, What time are you expecting Kendell in?”
“Shit, I didn’t even think of that. But I’m sure he’ll wander in today. Why wouldn’t he?”
“Did you see him last night?”
“Oh fuck. I thought he was going to have a heart attack the way he was getting all worked up.”
“He was crying.”
“Nooooo.”
“Yup, I caught him out front getting all worked up about “da babies”. He was a bit of a mess. So, have some tissues on hand. It could get messy.”
“I’ll ask Lindsay.”
“ooooooh, well played.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, I better jet I wouldn’t want to miss all that grade ‘A’ news.”
“Okay. B-bye then.”
Back in the solitude of my car I got to squeeze out a few more minutes with the people who really understand - me, the voice of the local radio announcer and the melancholy lyrics of The Cure’s, Pictures of You.
“Let it all go,” said the voice. “Let it all go.”
Showing up as early as this at least gave me the opportunity to reflect on how miserable I am. The teacher was kind enough to give me a chair to sit in; of course being a classroom of Kindergarten students it was about two feet tall. Teetering on one ass cheek, with my legs crossed under my chin I watched the kids draw pictures of what they wanted to be when they grow up. The girls drew ballerinas and the boys drew policemen and firefighters, with the exception of Hunter.
“Oh Hunter. I said to draw what you wanted to be when you grow up,” the teacher said disapprovingly.
“I did. I’m going to be a giraffe,” he said holding up his picture for the group of kids sitting at his table.
“You can’t be a giraffe,” she said. As his classmates laughed at him.
“How come?”
“You just can’t. And giraffes don’t have three heads . . . and they’re not purple.”
“Mine is.”
“But, they’re not. I’m going to give you another piece of paper and you can start over,” she said smiling in that condescending way adults smile at children.
And this is where it begins I thought. Poor Hunter.
After the teacher went off to crush the creativity of yet another young soul I thought I would try and cheer him up.
“You’re picture is pretty cool,” I said.
“No. It’s wrong.”
“So.”
Hunter looked at me blankly.
“I used to know this guy who would paint like you draw. And no one even said anything about his stuff. At least someone noticed you were different. Besides you did your own thing. That’s pretty cool, right?’
“Yeah, 'kay.”
I was dealing with an unbeliever.
“And this guy always told me a good picture comes from your gut, not what people tell you was good, you know.” I hoped he did. I was starting to confuse myself with this dumbed down gibberish. It seems like it got through though, Kind of. When he got his fresh piece of paper he put the crayon in his bellybutton and tried again. Holding the purple crayon and moving his tummy over the paper he laughed like a little leprechaun as he squiggled on the page. His little friends took notice, flipped over their drawings, the firemen, the cops and dancers and with wax crayons in position scrawled what felt good. Sweet anarchy.
Poor Ms Johnson.
“Children. Children. That’s enough. You’re getting crayon all over the tables. That’s . . . put that down.”
With all the rules about appropriate touching, Poor Ms. Johnson really wasn’t sure if she could grab the offending writing utensils from their little hands and bellies. And what if she missed her target? Scandal.
“Please. Please. Behave,” was all she could chant.
Fortunately, like most kids’ drawings no one stopped when their picture looked somewhat complete. They all scribbled their sheets until everyone’s drawings looked like the same shaded in catastrophe. And they were ready for something new.
“How about a song?” Ms. Johnson wearily asked. “The concert will start soon and we should practice.”
The children complied, lining up like little soldiers, little firefighters, cops and ballerinas and waited for their conductor’s direction. I on the other hand decided to regain the feeling in my ass and got off my tiny chair.
“You put your right foot in,” they began.
The Hokey Pokey? That’s not Christmasy. What the hell?
“You put your right foot out,” they bellowed, some with their left foot out, others with their right but seeing their friends with their left foot out tried to change feet in time for the next line.
“You put your right foot in,” they continued with their feet a flailing. “And shake it all about.” The poor girls in the front had obviously been watching too many music videos and were trying to shake a little more than their feet.
“And turn yourself around”
No one turned together, many not even in the same direction. But the more mistakes they made the more fun they were having. The louder they started laughing. And pretty soon they were going out of their way to make as many mistakes as possible. Some jumped. Some sang only the parts they liked. Others just spun around and around.
“And that’s what its all about,” they screamed falling to the floor.
Ms. Johnson was not impressed, especially with a guest present.
“We’re going to have to do that again,” she said. “And this times no games. Your parents will be out there watching you and you don’t want to look silly, do you? Do you?”
Poor Ms. Johnson.
For the next half- hour the kids had their right and left limbs in and out and spun around.
Und again.
Und again.
Und again.
And just when you thought it would finally be over the concert started. They marched out single file into the gym where their parents were waiting for their performance, paused for the introduction, climbed onto the bleachers and proceeded to give the crowd what it wanted – in an orderly fashion. Blank faced and with all the enthusiasm of a janitor scrapping gum off a urinal they went into their pitiful routine.
“Right foot in . . . shake it all about.”
Ms. Johnson kneeled down in front and mouthed the words and showed the kids what to do while parents whispered further instructions over her shoulders.
“Lisa! Smile! smile,” urged a mom.
“Nick! Nick,” waved a prideful dad.
“Tanner over here. Over here,” smiled another parent with a camcorder.
They all seemed to have cameras.
“Film? Digital? What you got? Really?”
The age old “whose is bigger” question probably kept them good and busy during the intermission. I wouldn’t know the city’s emergency alarm went off and I had to bail. It was the signal for all the volunteer firefighters and bored reporters to head to the fire department for the location of the community’s latest disaster. I had my seat belt on before the last howl of the alarm rang over the cityscape.
[B]Chapter 17[/B]
I was approaching the fire department just as one of the trucks was pulling out. Generally this was Mike and Chuck’s schtick. A telephone ringing throughout the day I can handle but getting off my ass to answer a fire call hardly seems worth it. And that siren is always wailing about something; old men driving their trucks into walls, car engines on fire in the mall parking lot, fender benders on main street, assholes setting the walls of their house on fire after trying to finish a soldering job on the porch, farmers burning stubble on windy days, and then there is the test the city does every day at noon to make sure it is working properly . . . it just never ends.
Roooooooooowl Roooooooooowl Roooooooooowl
“Is one of you going to get that?”
Roooooooooowl Roooooooooowl Roooooooooowl
If I was barking at an empty office I would begrudgingly go. But, if I wasn’t, one of the guys would already be fussing about and racing to get out the door. I can see why. Its all the little boy fantasy of car chases and imminent danger without any of the responsibility. That’s the beauty of objectivity. It’s static and cold, letting you dip your toes into a crisis only as far as you are willing to go. It’s also one of the many reasons journalists are slumped into the same venomous category as lawyers, politicians and those assholes who sit in the front row of Gasper Noe films inhaling popcorn and sucking back soda while everyone else watches the screen through their fingers – we can detach.
But, I couldn’t see Mike or Chuck’s car parked outside. Which was a little odd because lately whenever I had something to cover Chuck would be there fumbling with his camera bag and stammering some nonsense about the coincidence. But, Mike was probably in the middle of an interview and Chuck was likely at a hockey game, or plotting a dramatic suicide. Either way it meant I had to follow the truck.
Barreling down the road to the city’s perimeter an ambulance cut out ahead at a speed that would have made my car doors rattle. And with all the ice underneath us I couldn’t help thinking that if one of them touched their breaks, for whatever reason, that’d be it, my objective ass would be a smear on the road. And I could see it all in my head, the ambulance sliding sideways into the oncoming car. The family of four suddenly finding themselves being thrown down an embankment, by of all things, an ambulance. Four horrified faces and four silent screams whirling around and around until they descend, all the while hoping that they hit the ditch before the fire truck screaming down the highway hits them first. But not so. The ambulance, the suburban, the fire truck meld together into a heap with my pathetic little car crowning the whole mess.
And who would come get us? Who was would clean this up? Not me. I’d be too busy wetting myself and coating my clothes with a think layer of vomit. Best case scenario, I would be able to slide out of the wreckage on my own -–and take a few pictures. Sure, that could work. Then I could maybe hitchhike back to the office and download them in more than enough time to meet this week’s deadline. And that’d be a pretty sight, me standing there scratched up and torn from the climb down with my puke stained parka rolling up the bottom of my jeans to flash a frostbitten ankle at the next motorist. Male or female it makes no difference.
“Holy shit what happened to you?”
“Badger. Any chance of you turning around and heading to the city?”
But that’s not what happened. The fire truck stopped behind the ambulance who stopped behind the police car, that stopped behind the smashed up vehicles who couldn’t get any traction and what felt like a million miles away there was me, cursing my high heeled leather boots as I tried to walk to the crash site.
Right foot in. Right foot out.
No problem.
Left foot in. Left foot out.
Child’s play.
Even from back here I could tell it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Flash.
In focus. But not pretty.
With each snap of the shutter another little piece was stolen. The gray mini-van ass side up in the ditch with the Emergency Medical Services people helping the driver out of his seat, flash, was now logged away in the memory card of my camera.
He was holding his head and had his arm around one of the ambulance workers.
Flash.
They wanted him on a gurney but he stubbornly waves it away and walks with them to the ambulance leaving the van behind in the snow.
Flash.
He turns his head and looks at the car he hit, or hit him, its too early to tell. But, the press release that will hum out of our fax machine in the next couple of hours will probably fill in that blank for him.
Flash.
I don’t know how much he would have seen though police officers, EMS workers and firefighters were swarming all around it.
Flash.
Now they belonged to me.
Another ambulance was coming down the road– not a good sign for whoever was in that car. I tried to get around to the front of it to get a better look. If it’s as bad as I’m anticipating no one needs to see this. They can look at crunched metal. Flash. Or the profiles of guys in uniform looking very serious and very efficient. If they would just get their heads out of the car that is.
Looking through the shattered windshield I couldn’t see much. Her face was streaked with blood and it was hard to tell if she knew what was going on. But, I’m positive that I know her. I know that car. I know that face, or at least that bad perm. I don’t know why I’m so surprised. Everybody is somebody’s cousin’s friend’s co-worker’s first kiss or some such ridiculous redneck scenario in this town. But, I know this lady, or knew her, I can’t see. Then it dawns on me. It was the lady with the screaming kids. Through the glass I can see her being shifted around by the EMS workers, like a puppet that just had its strings cut, she flopped over in their arms and waited to be carried away.
And don’t it feel good, I thought.
It was probably just another day for Bad Perm.
Wake up before the kids, on your mark, make a pot of coffee, get set, turn on the news, go.
“In Baghdad today a car bomb tore through a crowded restaurant killing five Iraqis and wounding 39 others. It’s believed that at least one American has been injured as well as three British tourists. In further news . . .”
Get the kids ready for school
“Give your sister her shoe back. I don’t care if she took yours first. Give it back. Stop fighting . . . . . . . stop fighting . . . . . stop fighting . . . . . stop fighting . . .. get dressed . . . . . get in the car . . . . get in the car . . . . stop fighting . . . . stop fighting.”
Drop the kids off at school. Drop the baby off at daycare. Go to work.
Put the coffeepot on.
Turn on the news.
“A two-year old Palestinian girl was killed last night when Jewish settlers fired upon her father's car as they were returning from a trip to the hospital. The girl’s father is reported to be in serious condition.”
“Have you two brushed your teeth yet? Hurray up we’ll be late.”
Eat your breakfast. Feed the kids. Put the dishes away. Get them in the car. Check to make sure their seatbelts are on.
“Stop fighting . . . . stop fighting . . . . stop fighting”
Turn the radio up.
Drop the kids off.
Go to work.
Turn the coffeepot on. Turn on the news.
“In Iran today rescue workers pulled nine more survivors from the rubble of a devastating earthquake that claimed the lives of approximately 35,000 people. Provincial officials do not anticipate that the death toll from the quake will reach above the 40,000 mark however . . . ”
Wake up the kids. Get them dressed. Get them to school and daycare in one piece.
“Stop fighting . . . stop fighting . . . . stop fighting”
Drop them off. Go to work.
“Stop fighting . .. stop fighting . . . stop fighting.”
Tap the break. Feel the car fishtail back and forth. Wait for the sound of metal gnashing, tires squealing and the useless pump of the break.
Feel the steering wheel meet your forehead.
And silence.
Then perhaps someone driving down the road with a cell phone would have seen you there. Maybe stopped and had a gander while no one else was around.
“911, What is your emergency?”
“Ah. Ah. Oh my god. Oh my god.”
“Sir, please state your emergency.”
And what do you say really? Looking at this woman slumped over the steering wheel with fluids leaking out of her. What do you say?
“Jesus. Oh god.”
“Sir. Sir. State your emergency.”
Well it’s not really his emergency is it? Pass her the phone asshole. Push the curls back and set it to her ear and see what she says.
I look up and there she was. The ambulance crew was trying to fold her limbs onto a gurney and she was spilling all over it.
“Oh, Rex, take me away from all this.”
“Yes darling.”
The ambulance doors shut. The cherry lights on top and she is whisked away.
And standing there in the snow with my stomach rolling I remembered that sound, hollow like seraphims shrieking, as the ambulance got further away.
[B]Chapter 18[/B]
Hot water and dried beans aside it was the same dance more or less. I’d wake up every morning, have a shower and reluctantly make my way to the living room to see what disaster awaited me.
“You getting up today?” I asked the heap of flesh absorbed in the couch.
“Nope,” it’d reply.
“Showering?”
“Nope.”
“Mind if I crack a window then?”
“Yes,” it hissed, glaring at me like I was evil incarnate through two razor thin slits in its face.
For a few weeks, while Damen’s feet were heeling he would camp out in the living room and paint pictures of his wounds. And while he painted I surfed employment websites fantasizing about leaving and slowly packing my belongings in the trunk of my car. I just needed a good reason to leave.
After he recovered the place was wall to wall with four by four-foot plywood panels of his bleeding, oozing feet. Each one progressively magnifying a section with the last panels showing a shard of glass the size of my arm penetrating the pad of his foot. The skin hugged the edges of the glass as blood climbed up the sides. “Like a church window,” he said with a paintbrush in one hand and a handful of shards in the other.
“Laurel put down the gauze, for fuck sakes. I’m not some fuck’n Cirque Du Soleil performer. I can’t paint and check out my foot at the same time? Just settle. I know what I’m doing.”
“They’re called mirrors asshole. Look into it.”
I didn’t say anything when his canvases started piling up in front of the balcony’s glass doors but I should have when he duct taped the curtains to the wall so the light couldn’t infiltrate the room. This should have been my reason. This should have been enough.
“Don’t artists need decent light to paint?”
“It’s a common misconception. Don’t feel bad princess. No one expects you to know these things,” he said with his face partially illuminated by the candles on the coffee table.
“Thanks,” I replied picking one of them up and pouring the hot wax on his hand. “It’s alright, pumpkin no one expected you to see that coming.”
How about now? Why not leave now?
“That wasn’t disgust on my face,” he said grabbing my belt buckle and pulling me over the coffee table.
But that was months ago and I was getting stir crazy - from the lack of light.
“No. Those drapes come down today,” I screamed tearing at the duct tape.
“Nooooo. You crazy bitch. I’m not done painting this yet.”
“Crazy! When was the last time you went outside? Or saw the outside for that matter?”
“You can’t,” he howled trying to grab my wrists and push me away from the window.
“I can,” I shouted grabbing the curtain rod with both hands and swinging my feet off the ground. With a dull thud we hit the floor with the curtain over top of us.
“You just don’t fuck’n get it,” he said pushing me off him. “What the fuck’s your problem?”
I was never going to leave and neither was he.
“What are you gawking at,” he continued.
If my expression even reflected a fraction of the horror I was staring at he had a right to question. His stark white frame was barely holding up his boxers and his five o’clock shadow was now the begins of the world’s worst beard, thin and patchy with varying shades of red and brown throughout. His fingers and forearms were smeared with flaking paint and from my vantagepoint on the floor at looked like a lot of his scars were getting badly infected.
“You need to,” I started.
“Don’t tell me what I fuck’n need.”
“Look in the fuck’n mirror and tell me what you see. You like Edgar Allan Poe? Have you ever read the Oval Portrait? Here’s a little fuck’n synopsis,” I screamed leaping to my feet. “A painter, much like yourself ” I said waving my hands at him like I was one of Barker’s Beauties displaying a new car. “Come with me,” I said grabbing his bony wrist and dragging him to the bathroom. “You need to see this. Stop being an ass. Move your feet.”
“Fine.”
Standing in front of the mirror with my arms around his waist and my head peering around his scab covered shoulder I continued.
“A painter, much like yourself had the task of painting a beautiful woman, his new wife. And with every brush stroke he killed her little by little. As the painting grew more and more beautiful the more weak and haggard his new bride became. It was sucking the fuck’n life out of her,” I said squeezing his stomach tight. “You see what I’m driving at?”
“I should stop licking my paintings.”
“What?”
“The oil paints. They’re toxic. I should cut back on using my tongue to push the paint. Is that it? Okay fine, whatever.”
“What,” I shrieked turning him around. “No, you crap weasel. You’re painting a corpse and you don’t see it.” I turned his jaw so he faced the mirror. “Do you see it now?”
“You know your tits shake when you’re mad?”
“What?”
“Your tits,” he says juggling them around. “They shake. See?”
“You are such an asshole,” I said, laughing against my will.
“I’m well aware,” he says cramming a warm tongue in my mouth. “If it makes you feel any better,” he garbled. “I’ll have a sandwich.”
“Two,” I sneered putting a frigid hand down his shorts.
“Two it is.”
“And a shower.” I demanded grabbing his testicles in a firm grip and leading him into the tub with me.
“Yes, ma’am.”
And then tomorrow would come. And a week would pass. Sometimes two, if I was lucky, and we’d be right back where we started.
“It’s four o’clock in the morning. Why don’t you go to sleep already? You have been clanking around in here all night,” I said peering at Damen in my flannel pajamas as he stood in our living room stark naked and weaving back and forth grimacing at the canvas in front of him.
“No. I can’t. I’m in the middle of something,” he said.
“You know if you would just step another couple more inches to the right I could see you’re . . .”
“You’re not going to distract me. Go to sleep.”
“Suit yourself, but if I brushed my teeth right now it probably wouldn’t taste like a animal crawled in and died.”
Peering around the canvas with a cocked eyebrow he couldn’t help but laugh at me standing there with my fingers up in my uncombed hair and licking away the drool that had encrusted on the corner of my mouth.
“You’re pathetic.”
“So, I’m told,” I said walking away with my hands on my hips with an exaggerated wiggle.
It was only a matter of time before he was hoping over the coffee table and trotting down the hallway after me.
“Oh my god,” he yelped pulling his tongue out of my mouth. “You taste like death.”
“You should talk Mr. I’m-going-to-suck-on-a-plastic-two-liter-of-French-beer-all-afternoon.”
“Oh you think you’re funny do you,” he said tickling me down to the floor.
“Fuck. Stop. Fuck. Stop.” I squealed.
“Make up your mind I’m getting mixed signals here,” he said laughing while I giggled myself into the first stage of a coma. “I’ll fix you,” he said grabbing the inside of my thigh and right arm and throwing me over his shoulders.
“Oh fuck. Put me down. Put me down.”
“Sure,” he said taking me into the living room and spinning me around.
“Stop I’m going to puke.”
“Shit. We don’t want to add puke breath to that concoction steaming out of your mouth,” he said dropping me into his arms and carrying me like a bride over a threshold to our bathroom. Kindly he held me up in front of the sink so I could catch my breath and my balance.
“Pay attention.” He said laughing. “This is a toothbrush,” he said grabbing his red Spiderman brush out of its holder.
“Oh fuck off.”
“And this is tooth paste.”
“I’m not going to use your toothbrush. That’s gross.”
Making his evil professor face in the mirror he grabbed my stomach and started tickling me again.
“Gross, little girl? You had my dick in your mouth last night and you won’t use my toothbrush? That’s cold. Really cold.”
“Fine I’ll use yours if you use mine.”
“Fuck no, I know where your mouth has been.”
“Fuck you.”
And then morning came
“It’s your fault.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah. Your fault. I was on a roll last night.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fuck, you just don’t understand,” he said storming off into the office and locking the door.
Asshole.
Depending on how moody he was it could be days before he’d resurface. And this time he was going for a record. We were on day four when I decided to finally leave the apartment.
Rising with the sun I took it upon myself to head down to the health clinic and pick up some pamphlets on mood disorders. And as he dozed away I proceeded to staple the pile to every stick of furniture in our apartment, taped them to every door, posted them on the fridge and with bright red lipstick wrote on the bathroom mirror: WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? I was down the street at a coffee shop picking at a cinnamon bun and ruining an undeserving paperback when Damen would have finally decided to emerge from his chrysalis and view my handy work. When I came home all the pamphlets were torn off the furniture. Their remnants still hanging to strips of tape and curved metal throughout the apartment. Looking down the hall I could see that the office door was finally open. But he wasn’t there.
He didn’t come home that night or the next. But on the third day, surprise, surprise he somehow found his way back to the couch in the living room.
Then tomorrow arrived, on cue and we hit the ground running.
I cooked breakfast. We ate it in silence. Then I went to class.
When I came home all of his rancid feet paintings were outside lining the walls of the building by the dumpster. The rain ruined most of them. And elementary school kids were kicking in the ones that looked somewhat in tact as I tried to find my keys. Predictably, Damen was locked in the office.
Banging on the door I asked what happened.
“That’s what you wanted right? Well you got it.”
“I never said that you had to…”
“You didn’t have to. They suck. Well I’m done now. Happy?”
“Yeah, I’m fuck’n ecstatic.”
I sat in the living room watching a blank screen on TV for about an hour before I decided to get up and leave. I drove to the first art supply store I could find and cleaned out my chequing account. I picked up as many canvases my car could hold, new brushes, paints, sponges, knives, and headed for home – ignoring the luggage underneath.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Painting. And you?”
“I want to see,” he said.
“Alright.”
Turning the canvas around he peered at my creation, a gray blob with a pink bow on it playing with a red splotch, conveniently labeled kitten, bow and yarn.
“I call it My Boyfriend Needs to Stop Moping Around the Apartment Before I Kill Him. Do you like it?”
“It’s dreadful.”
“Fuck you I’m putting it over the couch.”
“That’s quite a lot of canvases you have there on the floor.”
“Yup, I figured with exams almost over I’ll have a little more time on my hands so . . .”
“Am I suppose to be so horrified by your shitty painting that I’ll be motivated to start again.”
“Sort of that whole look at the crap that is being produced out there come fix it kind of thing? Yeah sure, something like that. But for now I’d just like you to start wearing clean clothes again.”
“Easy there . . . baby steps.”
And for a while I completely forgot my plans. We got him cleaned up and enrolled in the school’s fine arts program. Not because he need to learn anything I assured but because he could qualify for a student loan and start helping with the rent. He painted a few more works, got a little bit of encouragement from some of his professors and things were good, very good. But all it took was another disappointing art show to destroy that.
“Nice. They thought it was “nice.” He screamed throwing the guest book down in front of me.
[B]Name Date Comments
Brad Majors Sept. 9, 2003 Nice
Nancy Smith “ Mildly creepy
Kermitt Frogg “ Neat
Barbie Dawl “ Okay[/B]
“That’s it,” he screamed.
“What the hell did you expect? It’s a campus gallery.”
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck”
He stormed into his sanctuary and locked the door - again.
“My day was fine thanks for asking.” I’m leaving you. I found a job far, far away. My bags are packed and have been in the car for months. I wrote out a cheque for my last month’s rent. It’s been in my wallet since your last little outburst. You can have it if you want it. This time I mean it. I swear.
He was never going to get out. Neither was I.
If I was going to leave I was going to have to do more than just write inane insults on the bathroom mirror. I had to shut that door for good.
“I’m sorry,” I pleaded. “Would you come out? I know its frustrating. But maybe that’s just it. You’re just not showing your work to the right crowd. Maybe, maybe we should move. I’m done school now and you hate your classes so what’s keeping us here? We could go anywhere Toronto, Paris, Montreal . . .”
He opens the door and looks at me with exhaustion welled up in his face.
“So you are listening.”
“Yeah I’m listening.”
“So its really not that bad.”
It’s not you its me.
“You really think that?”
“Absolutely.”
You’re a real nice guy but its just not working out.
“I just need to hear you say that sometimes, you know?”
I let my fingers find their way up the back of his neck and grab a fist full of hair as our mouths pressed together. His hands were sliding up my shirt and unclasping my bra and all I could think about was whether our not I could do what I had in mind. I wrapped a leg around his waist and let him pick up the other and carry me to our bedroom. With him pinning my hands over my head and my legs still wrapped around him I closed my eyes and felt his tongue run up my throat and across my cheek to my ear lobe. I could hear his breathing get faster and the doubts were whirling in my head.
“Nuh uh,” I scolded as his hands ran up the front of my shirt. With a quick thrust of my hip I was able to roll him underneath me.
“Just watch,” I whispered, to no objection.
I kicked my legs over the side of the bed and rolled my stockings off in the air while he frantically peeled off his T-shirt and jeans. He was completely naked by the time I let him pull the last stocking off my foot with his teeth.
Pushing him down with one hand and talking the stockings with the other I straddled him and tied each of his hands to the posts of our bed. Finding an old pair on the floor I did the same to his feet.
I slowly began to unbutton my shirt with one hand while running my fingers along the inside of his lips with the other - to get them wet for what was to come. Once my skirt, bra and garter joined my shirt on the floor I grabbed the back of his head and rubbed it between my legs, letting him lick the bottom of the shiny panties beneath. With little success he tried to get his tongue over the trim to the moist place within. As I made my decent his tounge rolled over my stomach and my breasts gently biting and sucking each nipple until our last kiss.
Choking on each other’s oxygen supply I had never felt so empty. I didn’t want to let go. I sucked his tongue and bottom lip like fang marks, until finally opting for the soft skin of his neck. Moving down his frame I peeled off my panties and tossed them aside. Licking, biting, lightly running my nails down his sides I found where I needed to be. I brushed my lips over his erect penis then slowly let my tongue wrap around it, all the while watching as he struggled to see the ongoings beneath his bellybutton.
Pulling his foreskin back I gave him a moment to anticipate and to give myself a second chance to rethink what I was about to do.
With one hand running my fingers in his mouth and alternately twisting his nipples I licked the shaft from root to tip. I moved my body so I was sitting on his chest with my ass up under his chin. Then with my ankles under his knees I grabbed the root of his dick with one hand and pulled the skin as far back as it would go with the thumb and fingers of the other. After timing a dozen or so quick nervous strokes, about a second apart, I knew I owned his ass. I could feel him squirming beneath me, trapped between my thighs. And with ten strokes in rapid succession I decided to finally let off and give him a few seconds to come down. Then I started with the slow progression again until he was writhing.
“Finish me off. Finish me off,” he wailed.
I took a deep breath and reached for the duct tape under the bed. Leaping off I grabbed it and tore a strip for his mouth.
It was difficult to tell if he was excited or frightened. And I was glad. I sprinted to the bathroom before I lost my nerve and grabbed a tube of “fuck me” red lipstick from the cabinet. Racing back I quickly scrawled SUCK ME in big bold letters on his chest while he mumbled something. But I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
I grabbed my backpack and threw the clothes on the floor into it. Then seeing the Polaroid camera on the nightstand I took a picture of him lying there and threw that into the bag too.
“One good turn deserves another don’t you think, don’t you,” I screamed finishing off the film and whipping the burgeoning photos at him.
He started flailing like the mattress was on fire. And I got scared. I really didn’t know how long, or if, those stockings would hold. So I quickly flung open the closet and put his “Smells like Children” T-shirt on and a pair of his jeans and headed for the door. Floundering down the stairs with my unzipped boots and parka on and my toque and mitts in my hand I almost forgot to pull the fire alarm on my way out. With the alarm sounding I took a deep breath and somehow kept myself from running to the car. Once inside I managed to get my keys into the ignition through the haze of tears and was on my way out of the city, covered in his smell and leaving the echo of sirens behind.
[B]Chapter 19[/B]
There it was Bad Perm’s life, reduced to a series of stills, just sitting there, innocuously zipped in a leather bag next to me in the passenger seat. That was how this town would remember her. This was their introduction. These were the images her kids would try and strangle out of their consciousness. And I sat there in my car, in my parking stall at the Bugle, the same one I’ve been parking in to close to a year and a half now and wondered what the hell I was doing. I didn’t want to go in there. I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to have to explain this. My eardrums were already straining from the sound of Lindsay’s squeak in my head.
“What happened? I heard there was an accident?” she’d gasp, pretending she hadn’t heard every detail on the radar only moments ago.
But tell me again. Tell me again, her face would beg.
“I heard she had kids. Can you image? How awful? Oh that one’s good, the one with her hand dangling over the gurney as the paramedics try and lift her into the ambulance. I like that. It really captures the severity, you think? But was she okay, I mean. I’m just asking. I mean this is really serious. This is a real tragedy. I wonder how her family is, you know? This must be just awful for them. Oh, there was another vehicle. Oh god. The glass is really smashed up . . . was it . . . was it, you know, messy,” she’d ask in her quietest, politest, voice hoping no one could smell how wet she was getting between her legs.
“Can I see?” Chuck would ask, leaning over my shoulder, drenching me in his tobacco-laden stench. “That’s pretty rough. I saw a movie like this once. The chick was high on blow and thought the guy behind her was a cop. But it wasn’t.”
And then. And then. And then.
“And then when the paramedics and the cops finally checked her car they found out she really wasn’t the killer. It turned out to be one of their cop buddies. It was a great movie. Do you want to come over and watch it? I own it you know. So if you ever want to, you could just . . .”
Lap it up. Fuck’n maggot. Yeah, she’s probably dead. You see? You see that hole there? See all that white mish mash there? It’s alive with worms, wriggling and feeding and cashing their cheques? You see them? Yeah right there baby. Right there.
But, I don’t want to go in there, not today, not tomorrow, not any more. I want to go home. I want to go home pull the covers over my eyes and die. Would that be okay? Can I go home now? Can I up and die now? Can you all fuck off now? Guess not? That wouldn’t be very professional, right?
Just take a big breath, unlock the door and grab your bag. Ready. Set. And here we go.
“Was it bad? Is that lady dead,” Chuck pried.
“Did you get any good pictures? Lindsay asked crossing her chubby legs. “I’m just asking. Of course you take good pictures I’m just wondering about the accident? Did she slide off the road? Were there a lot of police officers? I heard the siren but I figured that you were . . . “
“You have to go,” Mike said bursting from his office.
“What?” I asked, a little relieved that the other two had to shut up now.
“You have to go to the hospital. It’s on the radar. Kendell and his nuts are blocking the entrances. You have to go. Go!”
“I’m going with you,” Chuck declared.
“I’m fine, really.” I said looking over my shoulder.
“No. I’m going with you. I have to talk to you anyway.”
“Now?” I spit back.
“Yeah, it won’t take long.”
“Later.”
“Would you go already,” Mike barked.
“Going!” I snapped back, stepping out the door with Chuck at my heels.
I was getting into my car when I heard the jar of the door. Chuck was trying to unlock the passenger-side to no avail. And he just stood there shivering, wearing nothing but his white sneakers, a pair of gray polyester pants and judging by the regimented crease marks a white dress shirt he picked up in a pack of three from a chain store. With the other hand a suet-filled knuckle rapped on my on my window until I finally let him in.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Thanks nothing. You’re slowing me down.”
“Sorry, sorry, I just needed to talk to you,” he said blushing as I put my arm around his headrest to back out of the stall.
“Well talk quick. It’s going to be a short trip.” I muttered trying not to hit the idiot in the club cab pulling out into the thoroughfare.
“Okay, yeah. I’ll be quick. My psychiatrist said that you and I should sit down and talk. You know to improve our working relationship.”
“What?” I squawked.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know if you know but, I’ve had feelings for you for a long time now and I don’t like how you’ve been treating me.”
“Excuse me?” I said praying to whoever would listen, God, Buddha, Allah, fuzzy dice, magic eight balls, the Fates, anyone who could make the light ahead of us turn green. “First of all. I don’t work with you. You’re the sports guy. I’m a news reporter. My job has nothing to do with yours. Second of all who gives a fuck what YOUR shrink thinks I should be doing.”
“Okay fine, well maybe you should give me a chance. You never let me show you how much I care. Maybe if you have some time you could come over and I could cook you supper and we could watch your favorite movie and.”
“No.”
“I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately, judging by your daybook. And I was thinking you need some time just for you. So how about an evening of relaxation. You come over I’ll cook us some supper and we could . . .”
“No.”
“Not even to come over and watch a . . .”
“No.”
“Nothings going to happen that you don’t want to happen.”
“No.”
Turn green fuck. Turn green.
“You know it’s not always about you,” he blurted. What about me? I’ve never had a girlfriend before. I’ll be 37 next month and I’m still a virgin. Do you know what that’s like? I’ve tried to be charming but, (sigh) I always seem to screw it up somehow.”
Cue attempt at boyish grin; look longingly for undeserved sympathy, wait for her to roll her eyes, and . . . commence sulking.
“I don’t see how this is my problem.”
“You know I almost quit my job because I can’t handle you ignoring me like this.”
“Again. That’s your problem not mine,” I said turning the corner, straining to hear the commotion up ahead.
“Well, I just want you to be nice to me.”
“Why, because you have a prescription? Tell your shrink it doesn’t work that way.”
“I just, I just . . . ”
“Just get out of my car would you,” I screamed over the sirens.
“I tried to kill myself you know,” he shouted struggling to get his seat belt off.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I wanted to see you again.”
“Fuuuuuuuck.” I wailed slamming the car door. “You know I’m not going to solve your fuck’n problems. That’s up to you. And what business do you have throwing this shit at my feet - now. Right fuck’n now.”
“Because I love you,” he gushed emphasizing “love” like he knew what it meant.
“Really? Is that why you leave me creepy notes, and follow me around.”
“And park outside your apartment at night and watch you work on your computer through the window, yeah. I can’t help it.”
“Why tell me shit like that? This isn’t healthy.”
“I know. I know. That’s what my psyciatirist said. But if I hurt you in anyway I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you,” he rambled indulging in some weird breaking-up-with-me fantasy as I stormed toward the three ring circus of ambulances, cop cars and screaming up ahead. “Don’t walk away from me Laurel,” I heard him wheeze. “I just want to make sure I’ve secured your friendship and support as I try and heal.”
“Sure. Whatever. You know you can go back to the office now. I can handle this on my own. Really, go.” I screamed over my shoulder. All the while biting my tongue. Because deep down I knew that all I had to do was stop in my tracks and turn around. And with him staring down at me with those big dumb desperate eyes I could end his life. With a breath, with a little honesty, I could have him running down the street in tears looking for the quickest means to end his life. And deep, deep, down that’s exactly what I wanted. Maybe they’d replace him with someone younger, funnier, more secure with themselves. Maybe he’d hate the world as much as I do. Maybe he’d like the same philosophers I do and maybe he wouldn’t come running to me every month or so to bother me with his feelings like this. Maybe. But it’s doubtful.
Why do people run to me when their inner child dies? When that space inside, that one that feels entitled to unconditional love and tenderness finally dries up, they should dig a deep hole and bury it deep or cremate it or strap rockets to its back and send it off into oblivion. Just stop dragging it behind them every place they go. Stop showing people how battered and bloated it has gotten.
What if we all carried glossy photographs of our dead inner children instead of real sons, daughters, nephews and nieces?
“Yes, That’s Tommy his arm fell off the day my parents got a divorce. The boils? Yes, well, that was from when Heather, in First Grade, liked Corey instead of me. So I kicked her off her bike and she told me that she’d hate me forever. The dislocated hip was from my first “F”. The bleeding ear was from losing my first job. The festering wound above his right knee is from losing my house and . . . Wait where you going? I’ve got more to show you. Don’t you want to know about the half-eaten eyes? Everyone wants to know about those. Hey! Come back here.”
“I can’t just leave you here,” I heard Chuck wheeze. His voice was getting further and further away and I found myself jogging, sprinting, running, like every bad dream was chasing me – and it was.
I was racing from and head on into catastrophe. The ambulance that I saw scream into the city with Bad Perm in its belly was parked outside and being bathed in vitriol. Kendell had chained himself to the doors of the emergency room entrance and was screaming and spitting on the police officer that was trying to cut him loose with a pair of bolt cutters. He was shouting something about how the officer couldn’t do this to an old man and that he fought in the war and that in a democratic society the babies had a right to live. Then he just cried and screamed over and over again about how he didn’t fight for this, “not this”.
A lot of people thought it’d be a good idea to chain themselves to the hospital doors this morning. Every entrance was being guarded by the righteous as Bad Perm clung to whatever will to live she had left in the ambulance. Two women had chained themselves to the front doors while about a dozen people lay in front of them; old ladies, middle age men and a few kids being held tight by what could only be assumed to be their parents. This wasn’t Thailand but who knows maybe there was a shop around the corner that rents them out by the hour – sans garters. It could happen. It could happen here. If it did I don’t know if anyone would notice. If they did they probably already had coupons.
Screams were coming from all corners of the building some from the understandably angry people inside, from the police, the EMS workers, people on the street with cell phones pressed to their ears, from Chuck, from me and the people screaming verse at us all.
“Abortion destroys the work of God,” I heard a man bellow amongst the cacophony. “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever; nothing can be put to it nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. As it is written Ecclesiastes chapter three verse fourteen. Let us sing.”
Flash.
A woman was testifying out of view. Something about the living hell of never hearing a baby cry and celebrating birthdays that never came and the sanctity of motherhood. All the while the children in sight clasped little hands over their little ears trying to block out the ever rising sound.
Flash.
A teenage girl was screaming at a police officer as he dragged her away screaming.
“It’s God’s body. It’s God’s body. They have no right. No right,” she wailed.
Flash.
“It’s not natural,” screamed another.
And somewhere the sound of a frantic EMS worker was being drowned out.
“She’s going to die. Open the doors. Open the doors. Jesus. She’s losing too much blood.”
And somewhere inside the ambulance a heart monitor held a solitary note.
“Cuff him,” I heard the officer shout as Kendell was lifted off the ground.
Flash.
Two officers escorted him to the car as his feet dragged behind.
Flash.
“You can’t do this,” he screamed. “Who are you to judge me? God will decide. God will right this. How dare you defy his will. How dare you.”
“Sir, watch your head.”
“God will decide. Only God will decide,” he shouted through the tears and mucus running down his face.
Then the door of the police car shut and his decrees were reduced to a muffle.
Flash.
The ambulance crew transported its sheeted cargo into the building.
Flash.
People were opening the doors and pouring out to scream at the protesters as they were escorted away. And they were screaming back.
Flash.
All the while Chuck yammered behind me.
“I still want to talk about this. Can I carry your camera bag? It’s probably really heavy. Please, allow me. Are you mad? Are you mad at me now? Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? Is there any chance of you coming over? Really? You know, whenever you want. It doesn’t have to be today. I’ll wait for you as long as it takes. When you’re ready. Where you going? Hey Laurel wait up? Don’t walk so fast. Hey, how? How am I going to get back to the office? Wait! Wait!
And another loud wailing sound was silenced by distance.
[B]Chapter 20[/B]
Sitting there downloading pictures in the dark, watching little sheets of paper twist on the screen into a yellow folder icon, I knew it was another five minutes of my life I wouldn’t get back. And as I sat there looking at useless mini cassettes, inked up notebooks and useless pens and inhaling stale air and scratching at the finish peeling off my desk I couldn’t help thinking that that tiny one half inch by one-inch folder had eaten a year and a half of my life, eaten everything. It ate Bad Perm, Kendell, the school kids, city councilors, RCMP officers, dance recitals, bingo fundraisers, Christmas tree lightings, ribbon cuttings, summer festivals, tractor pulls, protests and prized petunias. All of it filed by date and regurgetated on command. I could delete it but it would just fill right back up. Someone. Someone not me would fill it back up. And while I sat there and watched the little floating pages I started to think of all the places I could go and all the jobs I’d rather be doing. Meaningful jobs. Jobs that would make me happy give me some purpose. If that’s what I wanted. I wasn’t sure any more. I wasn’t sure of anything, really.
I could work at a holocaust museum. I could wear a suit and look serious all day. Maybe that’s what I wanted.
“Yes, that’s right its estimated that a million to a million and a half children were targeted by the Nazis genocide program. Why children? That’s a very good question. Unlike today of course, they were seen as a drain, “useless eaters” who had nothing to contribute to the workforce.
This here, if you’ll look to your left is an oak chest of drawers that was converted into a hiding place for a small boy, yes that’s right, about your size. Well thousands of children were able to escape from being put into concentration camps by hiding in places like these . . . yes a little like hide and go seek but not nearly as fun I’m afraid. Anyway thousands survived not only by hiding but disguising their identities and . . . the gas chambers? You want to know about the gas chambers. Well that’s coming up. No it didn’t burn their skin off? But I’ll get to that. No I don’t think anyone ate their eyeballs either. But . . . you’re missing the point six million people; a million to a million and a half children were herded up and slaughtered. Imagine this building filled with children; rows and rows, standing side by side and on top of each others shoulders squishing into every corner, every available space. That still wouldn’t reach the number killed. The gas chambers? Yes, fine, down this hallway are some photographs.
Along with electrocution the use of poison gas was one of the means implemented by the Nazis to exterminate people. In their main camp, Auschwitz, they experimented with ZYKLON B or hydrogen cyanide. When ZYKLON B gas pellets were exposed to oxygen they turned into a lethal cyanic gas. No, no ones lungs exploded.
This is a picture of one of the chambers used. As you can see there are exhaust vents on the ceiling and an exhaust chimney on the facilities roof. You can see in this photograph that the doors are similar to the ones used for the disinfection gas chambers. And this photograph, if you’ll walk with me, is a false showerhead in the ceiling of one of the chambers. Notice the tiling in the room and the sign over the door “Brausebad” or shower room. This facade was used to make the chambers victims believe that they were going to have a shower after discarding their clothes in the hall that connected the disinfestation chamber and the homicidal chamber . . . . Yes efficient. Anyway . . .
The poison? Um, well you see those two drawers there. The poison would go in there from a tin of some sort. The person dispensing it would put on a gas mask, open it up and put the ZYKLON B in each bin and wait for the people to die. After which a mechanical extractor would send the fumes into the atmosphere and draw up fresh air through a hatchway above the bins.
And then? The bodies would be moved into another chamber until they could be incinerated.
You want to see a film of this? Well, sure we have one in the theater that tours such a facility? . . . No. There are not people actually being gassed in the film . . . yes I’m sure . . . positive, yes . . . no we don’t have one with that I’m sorry. The what? Sorry? That evil doctor guy ? You mean Dr. Rascher? Yes, well Dr. Sigmund Rascher conducted a number of “medical experiments” on people held in these camps. Some involved immersing them in cold water until they died and even testing combat gasses on them. No we don’t have any films of that-Sorry.”
And then what? Where would I go when I couldn’t handle it anymore? They need to bring back the old time freak shows, the bearded woman, the fire breathing man. Where did they go? We need them now more than ever and they’ve left us. We sit here fiddling with camcorders trying to figure out how to keep ourselves entertained and they leave. We’ve taped strangers trying to live together in studio constructed apartments, women pissing in public toilets, footballs to the groin, shark attacks, baby danglings, floods, pseudo-lesbian kisses, assassinations, pet tricks, self-induced vomiting, people jumping out of smoke-filled skyscrapers, self-mutilation, child molestation, car accidents, police chases, and homicides. And we’re still bored. Where did they go?
Anything that filled our hearts, made us smile, made us moan, made us scream, made us feel anything at all has long been cryogenized and waiting for its freezer burnt resurrection. Just pull back the cellophane on your single serving portion. Reheat on high for three minutes. Stir and enjoy. Tasty, isn’t it, all those sodium phosphate- enriched colors? So good you almost forget where they came from.
All it took was a shot to the head and the foresight to slit the throat on clean earth. If you hurray the heart will pump all the blood out for you. Stick your knife into the throat and cut outward through the graying skin, making sure to sever the main vein and arteries on your way down. Twist the head until you hear the bone snap.
Can you taste it?
Cut out the diaphragm. Sever the connecting tissue. Take out the lungs and toss them aside. But the heart, you’ll want to keep that. Take it in your hand and squeeze out the blood. Then for a real treat cut under the jaw in the soft space in the middle, reach in and cut the tongue loose – save that. Take the head and skin it, take its ears, eyes, nose and any other “unnecessaries”. Then get an axe, a sharp one. It's time to get the brain.
Got a bucket? Is the camera running? You don’t want to miss this. You’ll want to replay this again and again until it just looks like lunch. And it will.
Over the lips, over the gums, look out stomach here it comes.
Or I could just hold your hand as you stare into the mirror. Pretty hair, pretty eyes, pretty girl. Just think a smaller nose is only a slice away. Make your addition to the bucket. Everyone else has. What’s your problem? Remodel the space with plastersine and you can have a new nose everyday. Those cheekbones could be higher. Insert scalpel here. Look I’ve already sterilized it for you. What are you waiting for? Skin tone uneven? A little naugahyde and some clear nail polish could fix that. Here let me show you? Those tits aren’t big enough. I’ll get the meat saw hold still. Hold still. Sure there may be some discomfort but hey Dicks dig scars. And, if we botch it we can always redo it later. Trust me, I can fix this. I can fix all of this.
I’ll go the art galleries. I’ll make it pretty again. I’ll watch over the suffocating non-conformity. The still lifes, the self-portraits, the wheat fields, the orchards and fishing boats, the lilies, the rotting carcasses, the cow shit and hay bales. I’ll swirl it all around with a big stick and collect their $15.95 at the door.
Fuck’em. Fuck’em all. I’ll have my own exhibit. I’ll dig up Bad Perm. Put her in a nice dress and fix her hair. I’ll get her car from the scrap yard and slide her body back into place behind the wheel and crunched metal. I’ll prop her head against the steering wheel with her hands at her sides – just like old times. She’ll just need something for her shattered teeth, maybe a rubber ball fixed to a one-inch leather strap. That’d be pretty. You’d pay to see that.
I could chain Chuck to a wall and we could watch him limp around moaning in pain from all the office supplies poking out of his bleeding orifices. I’ll post the x-rays in the foreground. You know you want to see that.
Lindsay would sit in the middle of the room, pickled in a glass tank filled to the brim with formaldehyde. Like a chubby little goldfish, with her five-second memory she would bob there in her bowl grinning as the pills, daggers and dildos floated around her stubby frame.
And Kendell could be pinned to the arms of an oscillating fan. We could spend the day collecting bets as to when he would finally slide out of that horrible suit and how bad the damage would be. We’d make a mint, you’ll see.
And Damen . . . Damen can stay right where he is - as in installation.
Looking up I could see the folder was full and the pictures were renamed. It was time to go. The last thing I need is to be alone in the office when Chuck finally hobbled back. So, I returned the camera and made for the door.
Pulling out the stall I could see Chuck darting across the street and waving his arms at me. He was just a little man in my rearview mirror now. Stepping on the gas pedal I watched him get smaller and smaller until he disappeared. Now why can’t they put something like that in a gallery? Why isn’t that on my TV?
[B]Chapter 21[/B]
For a minute I thought everything was going to be okay. I went home, locked the door, turned the ringer off the phone and popped the cork on a cheap bottle of wine, a few bottles actually, and got to work. By one in the morning the majority of my things were packed and I had resigned myself to sitting on the floor of my living room to scratch profanity into a dollar store Zen garden with a plastic fork. F-U-C-K. S-H-I-T. C-U-N-T. Like snap, crackle and pop. F-U-C-K, S-H-I-T, C-U-N-T. Over and over again I scrawled until the words didn’t mean a thing. Raking the smooth sand I could almost feel the bullshit promises on the side of the box coming true.
For $9.95 you too could escape the frantic pace of modern day life and contemplate Zen philosophy – the serenity in simplicity. F-U-C-K, S-H-I-T, C-U-N-T, By raking the white sands in a wavelike pattern around the provided river rocks you will feel the day’s tension drip from your weary soul. F-U-C-K, S-H-I-T, C-U-N-T, included in your very own Zen garden is one 11 by 7 inch synthetic wooden tray, sand, rocks, an authentic four inch Zen garden rake and book of sacred meditations. Nothing grows here, not plants, not flowers, not even weeds, F-U-C-K, S-H-I-T, C-U-N-T. But if you think hard enough you should be able to squeeze some meaning out of it all. The sand could represent the ocean, the rocks the islands of Japan, your heart, your head, your mind and hidden somewhere in the structure of the garden’s empty space is a tree. F-U-C-K, S-H-I-T, C-U-N-T.
I had been sitting there for what felt like forever and as nowhere near enlightenment. I just had sand all over the floor, aching temples and a glowing phone. Apparently someone was calling – again.
You – have – nine – new- messages. To – check - your- new- messages – press – three – to – listen- to- your – archived- messages- press (beep) First – message – was – sent – at – 8 – P-M.
“Laurel pick up the phone. It’s Chuck I just um. I just wanted to say I was really sorry about what happened today and I think maybe that we should talk. So call me back, ‘kay. Alright? I just want to make sure we’re okay, you know. So yeah, ‘kay call me back.”
To – archive – this – message - press (beep) Message – erased. Next - message – sent – at - 8:15 P-M.
“Laurel. I just want to say that I have never felt like this about anyone before and I know I’m not (beep)”
Message - erased. Next – message – sent – at - 9: 34 – P - M.
“Okay, I know I fucked up. I know that. I know that now. Just please (beep)”
Message - erased. Next – message – sent – at - 10: 02 – P - M
“I know you’re home your car is outside and (beep)”
Message - erased. Next – message – sent – at - 10: 36 – P - M.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of that (beep)”
Message - erased. Next – message – sent – at - 11: 13 – P - M.
“Sorry I’m leaving so many messages its just that (beep)
Message - erased. Next – message – sent – at - 12: 34 – A - M.
“Hi, its me again (beep)”
Message - erased. Next – message – sent – at - 1: 55 – A - M.
“Why can’t you love me? I love (beep)”
Message – erased. Next – message – sent – at - 2: 33 – A - M.
“I can’t take this anymore (beep).”
Message - erased. You – have – no – more – new- messages. To – listen – to – the – message – envelope - press (click).
Maybe he killed himself, wouldn’t that be nice? I thought. I wonder how he’d do it. Pills, razors up the wrists, gunshot to the head? If he was smart he’d cover his bases and do all three. Or like Kafka’s Penal Colony he could create a machine to carve his sins out for all to see: love me love me. love me love me. But why steal the thunder from his suicide note, right? Because you know there would be a note. Some sad bastard, tear soaked, emotionally crippled plea for understanding.
“Laurel! Laurel!”
Speak of the devil . . . opening the balcony doors I could see Chuck down below in tears. His car had mounted the curb and run down one of the young spruce trees at the front of the building and a few house lights were starting to turn on.
“Laurel,” he gasped. “You’re okay. You didn’t answer my calls. I thought maybe . . .”
“I’m fine,” I scowled, gripping the ironwork to keep from slipping on the ice.
“You’re . . . you’re drunk,” he said, faining concern. “I hope I didn’t upset you, before,” he said with a smile, surely hoping I was drowning myself in cheap post to punish myself for not spreading myself wide open and letting his wave of adipose crash into me.
“Yeah, well so are you,” I slurred. “And what business do you fuck’n have driving. At least I’m at home. You could kill someone. Someone with kids.”
“Its, its okay. I’m safe Laurel. I’ll call a cab I promise,” he said. “Can I come up and use your phone?” he said trying to hide his smirk.
“I’m sure there is a pay phone at that corner store up the street,” I said digging for change in my pocket to whip at him.
“But, I thought maybe.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to be nice to me.”
“Define niiiiiiice. I talk to you don’t I? Don’t I”
“Yeah but.”
“But what.”
“It’s your tone. You don’t sound glad to talk to me.”
“My tooooooone. My fuck’n toooooone”
“Laurel, I’m sorry. You’re upset. How about I come up there and we just talk about this, like adults.”
“Like adults!”
“Shhhhhhhh. That’s not what I meant. I meant that.”
“Shut up out there,” I heard a voice scream.
“Some people have to work tomorrow,” another bellowed.
“You! You shut up. I love her,” Chuck screamed. “I love you Laurel,” he laughed. “I fuckn’ love you. I want to make love to you and make you my wife. I fuck’n love you.”
“Shut up,” I screamed. “I’m calling the police, you sick fuck.”
“Don’t, don’t don’t. You can call them later I promise just let me tell you this,” he said unfolding a piece of foolscap.
“Fine,” I said rolling my eyes. “And then you fuck off, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go home. I would never lie to you Laurel. I would never want to see you unhappy. Okay, okay, here goes. I’m not good with words and stuff and I know you like poetry so, so, I borrowed some. Okay, okay here goes. ‘But soft what light through yonder window breaks? It’s the east and Laurel,” he says pausing for a response, grinning up at my balcony with a smug look on his face. I nod and roll my eyes.
“ Laurel is the sun!,” he continued “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, there, that, that thous her maid art far more fair than she: Be not her maid, since she is envious: Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And no one, no one but fools do wear it; cast it off,” he said waving his arm. “It is my lady: O it is my love! I love you Laurel. O that she knew she were! - She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that? Her eye discourses; I will answer it. I am too bold; I know, I know but maybe she will forgive me because I am only so bold because I love her so much. I added that in. But its true, so true. And, okay, okay, where was I okay ‘tis not to me she speaks.”
“Shut the fuck up you asshole,” another neighbor roared.
“You shut up I am wooing my ladylove,” hollered Chuck as he lost his balance and the sheet in his hand fell to the snow. As he scrambled for it I went back in the apartment and grabbed an afghan off one of the chairs and turned the stereo on.
“Laurel! Laurel! There is more. Don’t go. You promised.”
“I promised nothing,” I said stepping back out onto the balcony with the afghan tight around my shoulders and the stereo remote in my hand.
“You’re cold. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Okay, okay. There is just a bit more,” he said taking a big breath. “Having some business, do entreat her eyes. To twinkle in their spheres till they return (sign). What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
Fuck this I thought. I could faintly hear the music from my apartment. It was better than the racket out here so little by little I inched up the volume until I found myself slowly lifting my heels off the balcony floor and mouthing words only audible to me: “Is this what you wanted? This is what you get. Turned all of your lives into this shit.”
And he kept on.
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,” he said remembering his routine and quickly getting down on one knee. “As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven. Would through the airy region stream so bright, That birds would sing, and think it were not night.”
I was almost jumping now. Angry now. “ You fucked yourselves and you, raised these sheep”.
“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand (sigh),” he said brushing the back of his stubby digits across his pudgy face.
And I just kept jumping and turning the sound up. Chuck could have been down there muttering Swahili and I wouldn’t have known it. I just kept mouthing the words: “You played a role and I will destroy you with one simple hole.”
“O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek. That was Shakespeare. I don’t get all of it. But, but that’s how I feel. That’s how we are. Romeo was older too. Is that what’s bothering you? The age difference? Because if it is Laurel, Laurel?”
Poor Chuck. Looking up he would have seen me high stepping like Marilyn Manson on the Guns, God and Government tour, There wasn’t a grimace, a strut, a taunt I didn’t have memorized. Sure I was holding an afghan around my neck like a cape and slipping on ice patches. But I was sure screaming pretty good and so were the neighbors if I remember correctly.
“You wanted so bad to make me this thing and I want you now to just kill the king,” I screamed.
“Laurel? Laurel!”
“Shut up already. I’m calling the cops,” screamed a voice. Lights were turning on in all the windows down the street, dogs barked, people shouted and I kept on singing: “This is what you deserve and I’m not sorry,” I screamed. Grabbing the railing in front of me with both hands I spit as far as I could. From Chuck’s face it was hard to tell if the shattered look was from my gesture or because my saliva missed him by a long shot. I didn’t care.
“I’m not sorry! I’m not sorry!” I shrieked just as the flashing lights of a police cruiser turned onto the street.
Chuck not knowing what to do looked to his page again. But there was nothing left to read. “Laurel! Laurel! I have to go, now. But don’t think for a second that this means I don’t love you. I do. More than you know. I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you. I fuck’n love you.” He shouted scrambling for his car.
“The cops,” I laughed, throwing my hands up in the air and losing my balance. “Let’s all say hello to the cops” I ordered pulling myself back up with the railing. But blanking on how the rest of it went I dismissed the whole affair with a wave of my hand and I went back into my apartment slamming the door behind me. After that all I remember is sliding to me knees and giggling myself to sleep.
“Get off my stage. Get off my FUCK’N stage.”
Needless to say the next day at work was a little awkward. The cops put Chuck in the drunk tank overnight and he looked like shit hunched over his keyboard. Not that he was so fuck’n fantastic any other day but this was different. He was still wearing the same clothes from the day before and it looked like he just wet a comb to fix his hair this morning. He also wasn’t making any eye contact. Which I must say was a relief.
I wasn’t any prize either. Aside from a splitting headache my stomach kept rolling and no amount of famotidine tablets were helping. In fact, they were just making me sleepy. Lindsay even had to shake me once because I fell asleep at my desk.
“Oh my god are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I just didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night,” I said glaring at Chuck as he waited for the printer to spew off his page. “Some asshole was howling down the street all night.”
“That’s awful. Where are the parents of these kids?”
“I know isn’t it disgusting?” I said watching as Chuck slinked out of the room for a smoke. “So how are you? What’s on the agenda today,” I asked.
“Well, I have court so I’m hoping there will be a story there. You know with the protesters and all.”
“Oh yeah,” I replied.
“Yeah, I think that old man might be up for muuuuurder,” she said, drawing out the word ‘murder’ like she never wanted to let it go.
“That must be very exciting for you,” I said holding my aching head.
“It could be the biggest story all year,” she beamed. “But you have to feel bad for that lady and her kids.”
“The dead one, right” I interrupted.
“Yeah, And those poor, poor children. Can you imagine.” I didn’t respond so she continued. “I mean those kids will have to grow up with out a mother now and they were so young. One was a baby I heard. How horrible.”
Still she got no response.
“I mean we don’t know if she even knew what was going on when she died. I wonder if she was in pain? Do you think they’ll show pictures? I mean its evidence right? Right? Laurel? What do you think?”
“Do you get off on this?” I asked.
“What?” she asked.
“Do you get off on this,” I asked looking her in the eye. “Do you sit at your little desk over there throwing St. John’s Wort down your throat every morning hoping that someone will spill some blood. Every week do you scurry down to that courtroom clutching your little notebook and holding your breath as the guards bring in the next shackled prisoner? Does your heart race? Does your breath quicken? In the back of your head do you hope that the guy looks you in the eye. Some big, dark skinned brut who killed a guy in bar fight maybe,” I moaned running my hands up the outside of my thighs. “And . .. .and . . . (gasp) if he looks at you do you clutch your breath, let it strangle while you scrump and suck every salty ounce of excitement. I’m just asking? I mean it must be very exciting for you sitting there safe in your suit, behind armed guards. I mean, those guns. All that power. The way they hang on their hips. I sweat a little just thinking about it. How about you, Lindsay? Those poor families. Those poor, poor families. How awful. How sickly sweet,” I growl, licking my lips. “Absolutely delicious,” I wail grabbing my knees and forcing my legs open. “So much better than sitting at home with my cat, so much better than waiting by the phone. So much better than surfing the Internet, Oh god how much better,” I howled into her tear soaked face.
“I just. I just. I just,” she sobbed, running to the bathroom.
Poor Lindsay. Some people like to watch. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re not hurting anyone are you? Come on Lindsay. Everybody does it. Come on Lindsay. Don’t you want a peak. Just a little one?
‘What was that all about,” Chuck asked, returning from his smoke. Grinning as he noted we were alone in the newsroom together.
Most people would take a scowl and a shoulder shrug as a sign to fuck off but not Chuck.
“Sooooooooooo.”
“So what,” I replied.
“Nothing. I’m just saying.”
“You’re not saying anything.”
He nodded in silence, looking very uncomfortable.
“We need to talk,” he finally said.
“No. You need to fuck off and leave me alone.”
“I can’t.”
“You will. They’re called restraining orders.”
Poor Lindsay only a few dozen feet away from all this drama, right in her very own office building. I wonder if she had her face pressed to the door right then. Part of me wanted to get up and find out. I could kick in the door and stomp the splinters right into her head, she’d never see that coming. Or maybe I’d just grab her by her neck fat and throw her on the newsroom floor along with a notepad and a pen. If she wanted a show I’ll give her a fuck’n show.
Chuck started to laugh before I could finish my thought. After that disgusting chortle, that one that made his jowls shake its hard to think of anything else.
“But, we work together,” he said.
“That can change.”
And again he nodded but this time elevating to a state of agitation.
“You can’t go. I’d die first.”
Resting my elbows in my lap I leaned over in my chair, Chuck followed hoping for . . . who knows, maybe just hoping.
“Are you offering?” I asked.
Chuck bolted up out of his seat and tears filled his eyes.
“I would, Laurel. I fuck’n would. If I have to live my life without you I’d kill myself. Just like Romeo did for his Juliet. Life wouldn’t be worth living.”
“You should read that play again.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Neither am I. Either kill yourself or stop talking about it. I’m sick of it.”
“You don’t care. You don’t care,” he screamed throwing the papers off my desk. “You don’t fuck’n care what happens to me,” he howled throwing my stapler across the room.
“Mike! Guys! Someone!” I screamed covering my head.
“Oh god. Oh god. I’m sorry Laurel. I’m sorry. I’m, oh god,” he screamed running out of the office past Mike.
“What the fuck,” Mike screamed, bolting into the room.
And all I could do was stand there and shrug my shoulders, trying hard, so very hard, not to laugh.
[B]Chapter 22[/B]
When I left, Mike was still picking the papers up off the floor and Lindsay’s pathetic sobbing was still bouncing off the bathroom walls. Driving down the city’s rutted streets past vacant stores, comatose pedestrians and a sea of two bedroom houses with their varying shades of aluminum siding and frozen dog shit in the front yard I was suddenly elated with my decision, so much so that I spent the majority of the drive just imagining how it would all play out the office the next day.
There it was. Nine’ o clock would roll around and Mike would convince himself that I had either slept in or was having car trouble. Chuck, if he bothered to show up at all, would spend the morning fidgeting in his chair and typing my name into search engines to pass the time. And Lindsay, sweet Lindsay, would bleed the situation like a tick, feeding herself fat on lurid details about my demise.
She’d dream up some dramatic suicide attempt that would leave me neck deep in a bathtub of pink water and vodka. And over and over again the image of me slicing my wrists up to the elbows and crying out for her forgiveness would play in here head. Sure, why not? The signs were all there. Any idiot could double click and fill in the blank to find that out: experiences drastic changes in behavior, withdraws from friends and social activities, loses interest in work, takes unnecessary risks, increased use of alcohol or drugs. It was all there.
Bastards.
If any of them had been paying attention at all they’d know I’m more the type to burn the city down to a nubbin, than kill myself. And as I drove closer and closer to my apartment the image of my office cohorts transformed into a fun-filled fantasy of arson and chaos. There I’d be dashing down back alleys with a can of gasoline in my hand smashing block after block of basement windows and tossing lit rags inside. Running, running, running. Tossing lit pieces of trash, children’s toys, my flaming mitts, toque, jacket, stockings . . .. All the discards. All returned to sender.
And I could see the beautiful glow of embers, smell the smoke billow from a thousand windows and could almost hear the commradery between neighbors as they helped each other escape.
And we could all get together and shake and scream and ramble about what means the most to us.
“Have you seen a little girl about this tall?”
“Where am I going to sleep tonight?”
“Everything was in there. EVERYTHING!”
“What’s going on? What’s going? One minute I’m sleeping and the next . . .”
“I can’t find my dog. Peanut! Peanut!”
And I could just keep on going. Who would stop me? Who would notice? Everyone would have their own problems to tend to.
“Oh my god what are you doing?”
“Me? How about you?” I would whisper. “And then I would scream and scream and scream until they all went away. And they would, every last one of them.
Or . . . I could quietly hand them the flaming projectile in my hand.
“Who would stop you? Who would notice?”
And when my work was through I could find a nice high place to sit and watch the show. It would be glorious and I’d be the only one packed for it.
It’s a nice thought. But, it’s probably for the best if I just go.
Turning the corner to my street I saw a familiar car sitting outside my apartment building, the same rusted piece of shit Volvo I’ve seen Chuck come to work in for about a year and half now. This wasn’t encouraging. And while he certainly wasn’t a threat, a confrontation at this point would only serve as a delay. So, I drove around the block into the alley. Seeing that all was clear I parked and started packing up my car.
With everything almost packed I stopped to look out the building’s hall window. Chuck was still sitting in the driver’s seat of his car pretending to read the newspaper in his hands. I watched him for about half an hour. And, while it was certainly refreshing to be the watcher instead of the watched it was like sitting through a low budget cop movie. Cars would pass by and he’d crouch down in his seat and shield his face with the paper. He even wore a pair of tinted sunglasses and had a box of donuts on the dashboard.
Loser.
I only wish the city had a pier and a stack of empty cardboard boxes he could drive through to make all this worthwhile for him.
When my things were finally packed away I put the car into drive and rolled out of the stall. But, I underestimated Chuck’s detective skills. Before the driver’s side window was even in view I knew that it was Chuck’s car coming up the other side of the ally. I guess he remembered that fictitous police officers also do patrols and when the mob case a joint they check the back of the building too.
I didn’t have the patience for this. I hit the gas and skidded a little on the ice. For as long as I’ve lived in this country, for every winter I’ve trudged through I still didn’t have it lodged in my head, that you can’t gun it on ice. My car crept ahead and his was coming up quick from behind. I was as far as the main drag when I looked in my rearview mirror and there he was - right behind me. But, instead of jumping out with a knife or leaping on the hood of my car he just leaned over his steering wheel and tapped on his windshield mouthing “I have to talk to you,” from the powder white hole in his face.
Loser.
As soon as the traffic let me in I turned onto the street, leaving him behind. And I couldn’t help laughing. Wouldn’t you? I laughed down Hansen Street, down Brown, down Willis and all the way up to Norton Avenue when I saw him in my rearview mirror again. But, I was almost at the city’s perimeter. I could see the back of the city’s welcome sign from here. What did he think he was going to do? What did he think I was going to do?
And while I watched him in my mirror for an answer all I saw was a panicky mess pointing to the side of the road telling me to pull over, telling me to stop, telling me we needed to talk. It was all there. But pretty soon I didn’t have to look at Chuck in my rearview mirror any more because there he was right in front of me with the same expression the truck driver in the next lane surely had on his. And around and around I went. And before I could blink, or think of a lead for a scathing article about the city’s dwindling road maintenance budget I was rolling down an embankment, with everything whirling around the inside of my car like a washing machine. Bags went flying, objects smashed into the side windows. And while I realize it probably only took a few seconds for me to stop rolling it felt like days. It was so slow I could have reapplied my makeup, sorted the CDs in the console and still had enough time to grab the boxes in mid flight and arrange them back in their place. But I didn’t. I just sat and watched. Because I knew everything would speed back up. There would be urgency. That was crystal clear when the roof crunched inches from my head and the boxes violently wedged themselves between the passenger seat and my cheek.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this – not this.
There were no sirens, no smoke, and no flashes. There wasn’t a sound.
Taking the key out of the ignition I let gravity pull them to the roof.
What was this?
I just dangled there by my seatbelt, letting it squeeze my ribs and dig into my hip. Reaching over to click myself free I remember feeling broken and stung. Everything hurt. It was like every organ and every bone wanted to ooze its way through the pours of my skin. And a part of me wanted them to while the other clenched the muscles tight to keep everything inside. I remember a scrawny left arm trying to brace me for the violent decent to the roof. Falling from the floor to the sky, from the sky to the floor, lying there in my Bizarro World, where up was down and down was up, I groped for the door handle and rolled my way out into the snow.
At least now I could hear traffic, birds and the snow under my knees as I tried to crawl away from the car. I could watch the blood drain from my cuts and trail behind me. It was all there. I was just meat, a revelation that was reinforced when I rolled my eyes to the highway above me. There was Chuck’s car slowing down. There was Chuck’s car turning around. There was Chuck’s piece of shit car finishing a U-turn and speeding off into the city.
The next time I would open my eyes would be at the Regional Health Center and I wouldn’t be nestled in a blanket of snow I would be wrapped tight in a pea green hospital blanket with an assortment of tubes. One for air, one for piss, one for drugs, and one for, I’m guessing, sunshine and glucose. But I’m not a doctor.
“Well hello, I heard a voice say. “See I told you she was coming out of it. It looks like Margery wins the pool. Yup, there it is plain as day, January 15. Crap.”
Above me I saw the fuzzy outline of three nurses huddled around a clipboard. Two more were in the doorway peering in.
“What . . .” And before I could even get the thought out of my head they were strangling me with banter.
“Oh you gave us quite the scare. But we fixed you up.”
“How many bags did she suck back”
“Four when she came in. And Margery won that one too.”
“How do you do it Marg?”
“I have a system,” she said.
“Oh bull.”
“It’s true, I... ”
“Christ, you’ve been just a little cash cow for her you know,” the first nurse said to me as the whole gaggle of them started to giggle.
Not like this.
“You made the newspaper,” a dark haired nurse to her left chimed. “Most don’t but, you, you landed on the front page. Almost died. You’re pretty banged up now but, but, but you’re very lucky, you know, imagine what would have happened if that crazy man with the chains was still out running around? Can you imagine?”
And the nurses all nodded.
“And it’s not everyday you make the newspaper,” she continued. “They didn’t put your name in Miss. Female Aged 22 but we know who you are. We all do. It’s a pretty small town . . . I just thought you might want to keep it, as a souvenir,” she said unfolding a clipping from her pocket.
A souvenir?
“Don’t worry dear you’ll be up and writing stories again before you know it,” said the blond on the right. “Just get some rest. Don’t think about these things right now. You’re probably tired,” she said draining a syringe into one of the tubes.
“Have a sleep.”
“But.”
“Later dear, later.”
“But”
“Sleep dear. It’s okay now.”
But it’s not okay. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It wasn’t supposed to . . . not this way.
Try the workshop. Chapter per chapter.
I have a novel sample going up there soon so hopefully some more people will read it. Yeah, sorry about having to post it "chapter per chapter" here. But other sites can't seem to take one massive post so . . . it's a habit I'm trying to break.
So. . . You're the first one to actually respond to this on the site. Have you read any of it? What did you think?
[B]Chapter 2[/B]
Today’s exercise in humiliation is something my editor refers to as a streeter. Now the object of this game is to grab approximately 10 people who look semi-capable of forming complete sentences and ask them a question pertaining to a local issue.
“Get out there and talk to some real people,” he barks. “ Find out what they think.”
Now a few years ago I would have been on board with this idea. The Everyman has had their voice quashed by the powers that be for too long. We should give them a forum to express how they would like their world to be. After all they’re paying for it.
Unfortunately after having done a number of streeters in this place I’ve quickly learned that no one really bothers to think anymore. They spew out the first regurgitated answer that sounds good, something they heard on TV the other night, something non-threatening and unoriginal. Sometimes they don’t say anything at all. They look back at you with a constipated look on their face while they bear down and try to push the air pass their lips.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
If they were in robes cross-legged on a mountainside somewhere I might have a greater appreciation for this response. I might be able to fool myself into believing that this mantra sets them free of false thoughts, that through emptiness they are establishing form, turning ignorance into light, transforming their impure bodies and speech into a state inseparable with the integrity of wisdom.
Right.
It’s too bad the sound can’t be controlled. If that was the case I’d put these empty vessels to better use. I’d pack them all up in a bus, a short bus, and take them to the nearest under-funded elementary school. Every music loving little one would have the opportunity to play my invention, the “useless-sack-pipe”. By standing on the chests of these good citizens, at various pressures, the little tikes could produce a range of melodious sounds. Instead we waste. We let these fleshy instruments spend their mornings walking freely among us, unattended. Unplayed might be a bit of a stretch.
“Find out what they think,” he tells me.
“Streeters are interesting and people like seeing them in the paper. More importantly our publisher does. And Lindsay should be back from court by now.”
Not that you really need two reporters. It’s just always been that way. One takes the picture and the other asks the question. It’s a lot easier to snatch the person’s image if the other one is keeping them distracted. It’s a little like pick pocketing, but more respectable.