I head into the kitchen and get a couple of slices of pizza, I can hear Jordy flipping through the channels to try to find something that'll hold his interest. The channel surfing stops as I enter the room. He's decided on an infomercial for something called a Super Cleavage Maximizer Bra, I hear the TV claim that this will increase your visible bust size by up to two cups, I roll my eyes. Jordy doesn't look away from the TV. “Any show about boobs and I'm there!” he exclaims. “Really, this?” I ask.
“Look at all the cleavage!”
“We have the internet, you can look at all the tits you want.”
“None of these women do porn, I don't think.”
“They could've.” I tell him, more wanting him to go use the internet so I don't have to hear the infomercial than anything else. Tonight for some reason he's not budging on this one. “Nope, I wanna see if they show the brunette in just the bra.” he tells. Why do I bother I ask myself silently. I know that once he's locked on to something he won't give it up, he has the tenacity of a pit-bull when he wants something, hence the holes in the would be neighbors yard.
“Look at that redhead!” he exclaims.
“Kylie Something or other, Porn Goddess.” I state.
“She does porn?”
Yeah, a lot of it and she doesn't need that Bra thingy, she has an amazing rack, even has implants that look good on her.”
“You hate implants.” he reminds me.
“I know, but hers work really well on her.”
“Musta had a good Doctor then.”
“A fucking artist is more like it.” I inform.
“Ireland! That's her name.” he says as it flashes across the Tv screen. With that he's up and over to the computer. I admit that I hunt and peck, but from years of surfing the net I have a system that works pretty well and I can knock off about forty five words a minute. Jordy, on the other hand, hunts and pecks, with just one finger, always searching for the letter or number he wants. So anything he happens to be doing on the computer takes him longer than it would take the average five year old. This is where I step in and type over his shoulder for him. I type in a porn tube website address and then do a search for Miss Ireland, the small squares, thirty per page fill the screen, many of them of her in various positions with male and sometimes female appendages penetrating every orifice they'll fit into. Some of the objects and appendages so large as to defy logic, some might be considered scary or possibly dangerous.
“She can fit that in her ass?” he asks pointing at one video in which she has inserted a very large semi phallic object into her anal cavity.
“She's a professional, I'm sure she knows what she's doing.”
“But how?” he exclaims.
“Practice I guess.”
“Where do you even find something that big?”
“The internet.”
“Touche`” he says as the video starts to load. I hear Miss Ireland's voice as she instructs her female partner to “Relax and take it!”
What amazes me about Jordy is this, he'll sit and watch almost every video he can find involving this woman and never once touch himself. I'm not sure if he doesn't know how to masturbate, of if he just files the images away to memory until he takes a shower then handles his business. Throughout the years that he's been living with me I've never once walked in on him jerking off. He's walked in on me plenty of times, he just rolls his eyes and tells me he wants to talk when I'm done. I go back to my pizza and pick up a book by Clive Barker that I've been working on for a while. From time to time I hear a “Wow”, or an “Oh man” drift over from Jordy's direction, I also know that this is one of those times where I can light a cigarette and he won't pester me about it. He's enthralled by Miss Ireland, for now, last week it was Sinn Sage and next week I'll introduce him to Elexis Monroe. As long as I keep the porn starlets and goddesses coming, I can have a few hours of peace from him every week. It's not easy living with him, but he's here and despite several attempts, I've given up on trying to get him to leave.
I went so far as to lock him out of the house once. He sat outside on the folding chairs I have and slept under the picnic table when it rained. Finally I felt sorry for him and let him back in. He never even got mad about it. If anything he was sad, I could see it in his eyes. He's never brought it up and I've not kicked him out since then. He's told me on a number of occasions that he has nowhere to go and that he likes it here. I make it a point to remind him once in a while, especially when he pisses me off which he seems to have a talent for that he doesn't pay bills, nor does he contribute to the amount of food in the house. He insists that he provides a service to me by being a sounding board and that if he were being payed he'd make as much as a Psychiatrist. Then I remind him that he has no Phd.
About this time Helen walks into the room, I didn't hear her come in the house, but here she is and she's looking at me very angrily.
“Will she be back?” she asks.
“Yes, I still need her here for one night.” I reply. Jordy now turns away from his porn viewing to watch the drama, he only occasionally gets involved in the arguments between Helen and myself.
“Why?” she demands to know.
“I already told you, I need someone reliable.”
“I am reliable!” she insists.
“No you're not.” Jordy chimes in.
“And you are?”
“He never said that.” I defend.
“Nope, I'm not reliable, not at all, that's why he called Lynda.” Jordy admits.
“You like her?” she asks.
“Duh!” Jordy mocks.
“Not the point whatsoever.” I say.
“Then what is the point?” she asks.
“I need someone who will wake me every hour, to make sure that I'm still responsive and alive, you won't do that.” I tell her.
“I would too, I love you and I'd do anything for you.” she says.
“Except wake me up.” I say. Jordy opens his mouth to say something and she shushes him with a finger pointed in his direction, giving him a look that tells him she doesn't want to hear it.
“Get rid of her, give me a chance, you'll see, I'll wake you.” she pleads.
“Like that time his alarm clock was broken and you didn't wake him for work because he was sleeping peacefully for once?” Jordy says sarcastically.
“Or how about the time you were supposed to set the alarm clock if he fell asleep and didn't?” he asks her. Her eyes narrow and I can tell that this will become violent if I don't stop the two of them. “Ok, enough, Lynda will be back in a couple of hours, in case you didn't notice Helen, this is my house and I can have anyone here that I want. If you don't like it then leave.” I tell her. She looks at me, sadness filling her face, and the tears begin. She sobs silently and turns to leave the room.
“I knew this would happen, it always does with you. Every woman who stays here for any length of time, you send them away, sooner or later. I knew it wouldn't last.” she says, her voice becoming almost a whisper as she leaves the room.
Jordy says nothing, he only looks at me. It dawns on me that he's never been here, or at least never been in the room during one of these break ups. He only looks at me, somewhat shocked, somewhat saddened. He tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, so I almost always know how he feels. I finish my pizza, Jordy turns back to his porn. Within moments it's as if nothing happened and he's back to his monosyllabic commentary on Miss Ireland's performances.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
My Closest Friends Pt 6.
After the hospital released me I entered my house to find it empty. For a few moments I wished Leah was still here. She had been my wife. We fell in love and courted for a short time and then we were married. It was shortly after the wedding that things went wrong.
I'd left for work one day after we'd been arguing about where to go for vacation. She wanted to go to the Bahamas, I wanted to go to Puerto Vallarta. Neither was willing to budge. So I go to work, different job back then. Had been a manager at a lumber yard, the yard area. You know the part of those home improvement places where you go to pick up your two by fours and plywood? That's what I was in charge of. I liked my job and the guys who worked for me respected me even if they didn't like me. I had a reputation for terminating people though. If I didn't feel you were working at the level I could see you were capable of, you were gone. That's just how it was.
Leah was a really social kind of person and though I'd suspected her of still having contact with some of her ex-boyfriends, I never had any proof she was unfaithful. We had friends, not the real friends who you call in the middle of the night needing help that actually show up, loaded gun in hand ready to help you, whatever you need, but a lot fo acquaintances. We were always having this person or that over for dinner, always being invited to barbecues. So anyways, I go to work after this argument and do my thing all day at work. Nothing really memorable about that shift and then I go home.
I walk in and don't see leah anywhere and there's no note on the dry erase board on the fridge. I go to the bedroom to change and there she is. Her head on the pillow, mouth open, looking at me. The problem with this is just this. All that's there is her head. There's blood everywhere, her eyes, vacant of life, yet so full of accusation. Staring at me, the same look she had when I'd told her that I didn't want to go to the Bahamas on her face. A look of disbelief and horror. No body, at least not in the bedroom where her head was. So I lost it right, I picked it up and cradled it and walked out the front door.
I'm going to interject here and tell you that should you ever find yourself in this situation, a loved ones head on a pillow, removed from the rest of the body, leave it there. I'll explain in a bit.
So wracked with pain and shock am I that I simply walk out into the street in front of my house. Minutes later the neighbors are there, shocked, calling the police. I remember not being able to talk. I was distraught to say the least. Next Officer so and so comes and starts asking questions. This guy has been to my house a hundred times for dinners and such, most of the cops have. They went to school with Leah. I can't answer questions, I don't know anything and I'm in the back of the police car headed to the station. When you're found with your wife's decapitated head in your hands, covered in blood the world is silent and everything changes, one minute everyone's your friend and the next, all they want to know is where the body is, and of course everyone that knows you says “He was so quiet and seemed so nice”. You're guilty before you've even been arrested.
I can't tell them where the body is, because honestly I don't know. Do I know anyone who would do this?
No
Do I have any enemies?
Not that I know of.
Is there anyone who I might have given a reason to do this?
To cut my wife's head off? Is that even a question? I asked him.
Sorry but they need to know he told me. He wanted me to think, think hard, was there anyone?
No, no I didn't think so I told him. So he asks me to stand up and I did and then he's handcuffing me and telling me that I'm now the lead suspect in my wife's murder. Neighbors heard us arguing before I left for work and now the police think I killed her.
“So where's the body?”
“I don't know.” I tell him.
“Tell me what happened?” he says.
“I told you, I came home from work and her head was there on the pillow like that, blood everywhere!” I began to cry.
“Why'd you take her head?”
“I don't know, I just picked it up. I was distressed, I didn't know what to do!”
“Why didn't you call the police?”
“I don't know.” Then he read me my rights and asked if I wanted a lawyer, I asked if I needed one and he told me it would be a good idea.
Later that night they found her body, it was at the lumber yard where I worked. There had been a message carved into her skin. “You fired me and ruined my life, now I've ruined yours.” it said. They found the guy three days later. A man named Robert Shawson, I'd fired him three weeks earlier after he'd been working at the lumber yard for eight years. His attendance was the problem and I'd talked to him about it on several occassions. He felt that by taking his income, I'd destroyed his life and wanted payback. When they found him he'd been masturbating over pictures of Leah's nude body that he'd taken after he beheaded her. I thought my bedroom preversions were bad.
It took me about four years to even be able to date again and that went poorly, in a town this small, you don't ever escape the stigma of being the guy who was in the street holding his wife's dismembered head, or as the courtroom pictures labeled it, People's Exhibit A. Once you die, you're reduced to nothing more than an object
So here I was alone at home, Jordy nowhere around, Helen, I wasn't sure where she was, if she was even here and Hank had left a note saying to call and let him know if he wanted company. This was rare, no one to be home, to be alone, by myself. My head was throbbing and I wanted to lie down. The Doctor had told me that I needed someone to keep an eye on me and wake me every hour for the next day or so when I slept. The swelling of the brain could cause increased intra-cranial pressure, leading to a bleed and I could die in my sleep. I'll never be that lucky.
I picked up my cell and called Lynda, she was a friend from work, she'd been there a few months longer than I and was a friend. She agreed to come over and hang out and keep an eye on me while I slept. She was a good friend and pretty, we flirted endlessly but I knew I was forever trapped in the friendship zone. She'd told me once after I asked her out that she didn't think of me like that, I was more of a brother to her than her own brother. Women say these things to let you off gently, they don't know it makes you want to slap them. After I called her, Helen emerged from the bedroom. Dressed in her long black nightgown, or maybe it was just a slip? Either way it looked sexy on her.
“Having company?” she inquired.
“Yeah, I need someone dependable to keep an eye on me, concussion.” I told, pointing to my head.
“I could keep an eye on you, I usually watch you sleep anyways.”
“I need someone to wake me every hour, you'll just let me sleep.”
“I would wake you.”
“Thanks, but I have someone coming.”
“Fine, I'm leaving then, if you don't want my help, then fuck you!” she was clearly upset as she turned to leave the room. I could hear her banging around in the next room as she gathered some stuff and left. She didn't usually get so angry with me, normally she was cool, even and level headed. For whatever reason today she was none of those.
I had just started cleaning the blood in the bathroom when I heard Lynda knocking on the door. I answered it and greeted her. She had a small gift bag with cookies and candies in it for me, a get well soon gift and a backpack with her. We sat and talked for a couple of hours and then ordered pizza. She asked how I felt and what had happened. I told her about the conversation with Hank, whom she'd never met and wondered where Jordy was. She'd wanted to meet him after hearing about him at work, she thought he'd be fun to hang out with while I was asleep. Being tired and concussed I went off to bed and each time she came to wake me I wondered if I was dreaming. Was she really there? Or was I just imagining it? For once I didn't dream, which was nice.
Morning came and when I saw her in my kitchen wearing only a wife beater and her underwear making breakfast, I lost my breath. I never thought I'd see her this way and she was stunning. Her legs, shapely, her breasts, beautiful and big and the sunlight dancing across her face was made even more beautiful for its lack of make-up. I stood there, mouth open and she noticed me, and the embarrassing erection which accompanies men after waking up in the morning. “Put that thing away, before you poke someone's eye out!” she said playfully.
“You really are so beautiful.” I didn't mean to say it, it just came out, embarrassment over putting your foot in your mouth, plus embarassment over your engorged member equals please let me crawl under a rock and die now.
“You must have hit your head harder than you told me.” she quipped.
“Um, I …...sorry.” was all I could manage.
“So, easy or Hard?” she asked, grinning.
“Huh?”
“Your eggs, over easy, or fried Hard?” she asked emphasizing the word.
“Either, or. I'll be back, I'm going to put something less embarrassing on.” I told her. To which she giggled. She was flirting with me, it was enough to drive a man crazy. I was stuck in the friend zone with her yet she continued to torment me. Not in a malicious way mind you, it's just how she is.
When I returned from the bedroom, wearing jeans this time, she too had put on a pair of jogging pants and the food was on the table. “Hope I didn't disappoint you, just didn't want all the blood to rush down south and cause you to have a headache, speaking of which, how do you feel?” she never stopped flirting.
“I have a headache and the stitches are itchy"
“We'll clean them after we eat. ….Um, who's Helen?” she asked.
“A friend, why?”
“One of the times I woke you up, you said 'Not now Helen'” she told me.
“She's just an old friend, haven't seen her in a while.” I lied. The look on her face told me that she didn't believe me.
“What's twelve forty? Your ATM pin?”
“Talking in my sleep?”
“Pretty much, the last time I woke you, you said, 'It's twelve forty dammit!', so what's twelve forty?”
“Muzzle velocity of a .357 magnum, with hydra-shock ammo.” I informed.
“Why would you memorize that?”
“Dunno” I said between bites of sausage and eggs.
“Oh, how long do you need me here, I only brought enough clothes for three days?” she asked.
“Just two days, after tomorrow I should be okay on my own.”
“Ok, do you mind if I take a shower, I was going to earlier, but I didn't want to wake you before it was time.”
“I need to finish cleaning up the blood in there where I hit my head first.” I said. “I did that for you while you were asleep. Looked like you killed some....”She trailed off, embarrassment flooding her face.
“Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.” she added quickly.
“It's okay, I know you didn't mean anything by it.” I cut her off. “Don't worry about it.” I said.
“Go take your shower, I need to call work and let them know I won't be in.” I told her. She smiled, and got up from the table, stooping to kiss me on the cheek as she walked away.
I called my job to tell them I wouldn't be in, of course there was protest on their end. “Can't you just come in and do what you can?” they asked and I told them no, I couldn't and wouldn't. I heard Lynda singing in the shower and imagined her in there nude, the water cascading down her body, crossing over her breasts and her long hair plastered to her back. I wanted to be in there with her, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. After she'd emerged from the bathroom, towel wrapped around her head in that way that women seem to instinctually know how to do, we sat and talked until it was time for her to get some sleep so she could go to work that night.
Shortly after she'd gone Jordy came home. He was dirty, not his usual dirty, but really dirty, as though he'd been digging a hole somewhere. “Where've you been?” I asked
“Who was here?” was his way to reply, looking confused.
“Lynda, why? And why are you so dirty?”
“Diggin.
” “For?”
“You won't buy me any clay, read on the internet that around here the majority of the soil contains clay, so I thought I'd dig some up.” he explained.
“Not in the yard?” I accused.
“No, two doors down, that house that's for sale, where the Nieblers used to live, before....” he trailed.
“Why there?”
“No one lives there, no one will complain.”
“And if someone asks if I've seen anyone digging holes over there?”
“Hogs, dogs or armadillos?”
“No, don't go over there again. We're not in Texas.” I told him.
“Then buy me some clay.”
“Ok fine.”
How's your head, more messed up than usual?” he asked as I lit a cigarette.
“Oh lord Jesus Christ in Heaven sitting on Mary's throne when he has his own! When will you stop that?” He bitched.
“My head's fine, and I'll quit when I quit.” I responded.
“So, Lynda, the one you work with?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You don't need her, you got Helen, besides with her you're in...” he pauses going into a dramatic pantomime of falling through an invisible portal or vortex before finishing “The friendship zooooone!” he laughs.
“She's only here because I need to be woken up every hour when I'm sleeping because of the head injury, and thank you for cleaning up the blood while I was gone. Why do I let you stay here again?” I asked.
“So you have someone to listen to your bullshit.”
“My bullshit?”
“Your words, not mine.”
“When did I? Never-mind.” I say, Jordy has an almost eidetic memory. He never seems to forget anything I say to him, in a way it's kind of flattering, having someone pay that much attention to you, in another way, kind of sad that he has nothing better in his life than me. Even though I know that we're nothing more than the experiences we have with others, I don't always like that fact.
“You see, to you it's important, feelings, thoughts, ideas, to others it's bullshit. It's, 'this is how I feel', but when it's someone else, It's 'I'm always listening to his bullshit' you know.”
“I suppose”
“Of course I'm right, just like I was right about that other thing that time.” he says, referring to the fact that he's certain he was, at some point in time right about something.
“I listen to your bullshit, you listen to my bullshit, and in the end we're both so full of shit that....Dammit! I lost my train of thought.” he says.
I don't say anything as I snub out my cigarette. Jordy heads into the kitchen, asking if I want a sandwich as he goes, I ask him to bring me a slice of pizza, leave it cold I tell him. Minutes later he returns, no pizza, just his sandwich. “Where's my pizza?” I ask. “In the fridge still.” “You couldn't bring it to me?” “Nope, I'm tired of your bullshit!” he says with a laugh.
Click here for Pt 7
I'd left for work one day after we'd been arguing about where to go for vacation. She wanted to go to the Bahamas, I wanted to go to Puerto Vallarta. Neither was willing to budge. So I go to work, different job back then. Had been a manager at a lumber yard, the yard area. You know the part of those home improvement places where you go to pick up your two by fours and plywood? That's what I was in charge of. I liked my job and the guys who worked for me respected me even if they didn't like me. I had a reputation for terminating people though. If I didn't feel you were working at the level I could see you were capable of, you were gone. That's just how it was.
Leah was a really social kind of person and though I'd suspected her of still having contact with some of her ex-boyfriends, I never had any proof she was unfaithful. We had friends, not the real friends who you call in the middle of the night needing help that actually show up, loaded gun in hand ready to help you, whatever you need, but a lot fo acquaintances. We were always having this person or that over for dinner, always being invited to barbecues. So anyways, I go to work after this argument and do my thing all day at work. Nothing really memorable about that shift and then I go home.
I walk in and don't see leah anywhere and there's no note on the dry erase board on the fridge. I go to the bedroom to change and there she is. Her head on the pillow, mouth open, looking at me. The problem with this is just this. All that's there is her head. There's blood everywhere, her eyes, vacant of life, yet so full of accusation. Staring at me, the same look she had when I'd told her that I didn't want to go to the Bahamas on her face. A look of disbelief and horror. No body, at least not in the bedroom where her head was. So I lost it right, I picked it up and cradled it and walked out the front door.
I'm going to interject here and tell you that should you ever find yourself in this situation, a loved ones head on a pillow, removed from the rest of the body, leave it there. I'll explain in a bit.
So wracked with pain and shock am I that I simply walk out into the street in front of my house. Minutes later the neighbors are there, shocked, calling the police. I remember not being able to talk. I was distraught to say the least. Next Officer so and so comes and starts asking questions. This guy has been to my house a hundred times for dinners and such, most of the cops have. They went to school with Leah. I can't answer questions, I don't know anything and I'm in the back of the police car headed to the station. When you're found with your wife's decapitated head in your hands, covered in blood the world is silent and everything changes, one minute everyone's your friend and the next, all they want to know is where the body is, and of course everyone that knows you says “He was so quiet and seemed so nice”. You're guilty before you've even been arrested.
I can't tell them where the body is, because honestly I don't know. Do I know anyone who would do this?
No
Do I have any enemies?
Not that I know of.
Is there anyone who I might have given a reason to do this?
To cut my wife's head off? Is that even a question? I asked him.
Sorry but they need to know he told me. He wanted me to think, think hard, was there anyone?
No, no I didn't think so I told him. So he asks me to stand up and I did and then he's handcuffing me and telling me that I'm now the lead suspect in my wife's murder. Neighbors heard us arguing before I left for work and now the police think I killed her.
“So where's the body?”
“I don't know.” I tell him.
“Tell me what happened?” he says.
“I told you, I came home from work and her head was there on the pillow like that, blood everywhere!” I began to cry.
“Why'd you take her head?”
“I don't know, I just picked it up. I was distressed, I didn't know what to do!”
“Why didn't you call the police?”
“I don't know.” Then he read me my rights and asked if I wanted a lawyer, I asked if I needed one and he told me it would be a good idea.
Later that night they found her body, it was at the lumber yard where I worked. There had been a message carved into her skin. “You fired me and ruined my life, now I've ruined yours.” it said. They found the guy three days later. A man named Robert Shawson, I'd fired him three weeks earlier after he'd been working at the lumber yard for eight years. His attendance was the problem and I'd talked to him about it on several occassions. He felt that by taking his income, I'd destroyed his life and wanted payback. When they found him he'd been masturbating over pictures of Leah's nude body that he'd taken after he beheaded her. I thought my bedroom preversions were bad.
It took me about four years to even be able to date again and that went poorly, in a town this small, you don't ever escape the stigma of being the guy who was in the street holding his wife's dismembered head, or as the courtroom pictures labeled it, People's Exhibit A. Once you die, you're reduced to nothing more than an object
So here I was alone at home, Jordy nowhere around, Helen, I wasn't sure where she was, if she was even here and Hank had left a note saying to call and let him know if he wanted company. This was rare, no one to be home, to be alone, by myself. My head was throbbing and I wanted to lie down. The Doctor had told me that I needed someone to keep an eye on me and wake me every hour for the next day or so when I slept. The swelling of the brain could cause increased intra-cranial pressure, leading to a bleed and I could die in my sleep. I'll never be that lucky.
I picked up my cell and called Lynda, she was a friend from work, she'd been there a few months longer than I and was a friend. She agreed to come over and hang out and keep an eye on me while I slept. She was a good friend and pretty, we flirted endlessly but I knew I was forever trapped in the friendship zone. She'd told me once after I asked her out that she didn't think of me like that, I was more of a brother to her than her own brother. Women say these things to let you off gently, they don't know it makes you want to slap them. After I called her, Helen emerged from the bedroom. Dressed in her long black nightgown, or maybe it was just a slip? Either way it looked sexy on her.
“Having company?” she inquired.
“Yeah, I need someone dependable to keep an eye on me, concussion.” I told, pointing to my head.
“I could keep an eye on you, I usually watch you sleep anyways.”
“I need someone to wake me every hour, you'll just let me sleep.”
“I would wake you.”
“Thanks, but I have someone coming.”
“Fine, I'm leaving then, if you don't want my help, then fuck you!” she was clearly upset as she turned to leave the room. I could hear her banging around in the next room as she gathered some stuff and left. She didn't usually get so angry with me, normally she was cool, even and level headed. For whatever reason today she was none of those.
I had just started cleaning the blood in the bathroom when I heard Lynda knocking on the door. I answered it and greeted her. She had a small gift bag with cookies and candies in it for me, a get well soon gift and a backpack with her. We sat and talked for a couple of hours and then ordered pizza. She asked how I felt and what had happened. I told her about the conversation with Hank, whom she'd never met and wondered where Jordy was. She'd wanted to meet him after hearing about him at work, she thought he'd be fun to hang out with while I was asleep. Being tired and concussed I went off to bed and each time she came to wake me I wondered if I was dreaming. Was she really there? Or was I just imagining it? For once I didn't dream, which was nice.
Morning came and when I saw her in my kitchen wearing only a wife beater and her underwear making breakfast, I lost my breath. I never thought I'd see her this way and she was stunning. Her legs, shapely, her breasts, beautiful and big and the sunlight dancing across her face was made even more beautiful for its lack of make-up. I stood there, mouth open and she noticed me, and the embarrassing erection which accompanies men after waking up in the morning. “Put that thing away, before you poke someone's eye out!” she said playfully.
“You really are so beautiful.” I didn't mean to say it, it just came out, embarrassment over putting your foot in your mouth, plus embarassment over your engorged member equals please let me crawl under a rock and die now.
“You must have hit your head harder than you told me.” she quipped.
“Um, I …...sorry.” was all I could manage.
“So, easy or Hard?” she asked, grinning.
“Huh?”
“Your eggs, over easy, or fried Hard?” she asked emphasizing the word.
“Either, or. I'll be back, I'm going to put something less embarrassing on.” I told her. To which she giggled. She was flirting with me, it was enough to drive a man crazy. I was stuck in the friend zone with her yet she continued to torment me. Not in a malicious way mind you, it's just how she is.
When I returned from the bedroom, wearing jeans this time, she too had put on a pair of jogging pants and the food was on the table. “Hope I didn't disappoint you, just didn't want all the blood to rush down south and cause you to have a headache, speaking of which, how do you feel?” she never stopped flirting.
“I have a headache and the stitches are itchy"
“We'll clean them after we eat. ….Um, who's Helen?” she asked.
“A friend, why?”
“One of the times I woke you up, you said 'Not now Helen'” she told me.
“She's just an old friend, haven't seen her in a while.” I lied. The look on her face told me that she didn't believe me.
“What's twelve forty? Your ATM pin?”
“Talking in my sleep?”
“Pretty much, the last time I woke you, you said, 'It's twelve forty dammit!', so what's twelve forty?”
“Muzzle velocity of a .357 magnum, with hydra-shock ammo.” I informed.
“Why would you memorize that?”
“Dunno” I said between bites of sausage and eggs.
“Oh, how long do you need me here, I only brought enough clothes for three days?” she asked.
“Just two days, after tomorrow I should be okay on my own.”
“Ok, do you mind if I take a shower, I was going to earlier, but I didn't want to wake you before it was time.”
“I need to finish cleaning up the blood in there where I hit my head first.” I said. “I did that for you while you were asleep. Looked like you killed some....”She trailed off, embarrassment flooding her face.
“Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.” she added quickly.
“It's okay, I know you didn't mean anything by it.” I cut her off. “Don't worry about it.” I said.
“Go take your shower, I need to call work and let them know I won't be in.” I told her. She smiled, and got up from the table, stooping to kiss me on the cheek as she walked away.
I called my job to tell them I wouldn't be in, of course there was protest on their end. “Can't you just come in and do what you can?” they asked and I told them no, I couldn't and wouldn't. I heard Lynda singing in the shower and imagined her in there nude, the water cascading down her body, crossing over her breasts and her long hair plastered to her back. I wanted to be in there with her, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. After she'd emerged from the bathroom, towel wrapped around her head in that way that women seem to instinctually know how to do, we sat and talked until it was time for her to get some sleep so she could go to work that night.
Shortly after she'd gone Jordy came home. He was dirty, not his usual dirty, but really dirty, as though he'd been digging a hole somewhere. “Where've you been?” I asked
“Who was here?” was his way to reply, looking confused.
“Lynda, why? And why are you so dirty?”
“Diggin.
” “For?”
“You won't buy me any clay, read on the internet that around here the majority of the soil contains clay, so I thought I'd dig some up.” he explained.
“Not in the yard?” I accused.
“No, two doors down, that house that's for sale, where the Nieblers used to live, before....” he trailed.
“Why there?”
“No one lives there, no one will complain.”
“And if someone asks if I've seen anyone digging holes over there?”
“Hogs, dogs or armadillos?”
“No, don't go over there again. We're not in Texas.” I told him.
“Then buy me some clay.”
“Ok fine.”
How's your head, more messed up than usual?” he asked as I lit a cigarette.
“Oh lord Jesus Christ in Heaven sitting on Mary's throne when he has his own! When will you stop that?” He bitched.
“My head's fine, and I'll quit when I quit.” I responded.
“So, Lynda, the one you work with?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You don't need her, you got Helen, besides with her you're in...” he pauses going into a dramatic pantomime of falling through an invisible portal or vortex before finishing “The friendship zooooone!” he laughs.
“She's only here because I need to be woken up every hour when I'm sleeping because of the head injury, and thank you for cleaning up the blood while I was gone. Why do I let you stay here again?” I asked.
“So you have someone to listen to your bullshit.”
“My bullshit?”
“Your words, not mine.”
“When did I? Never-mind.” I say, Jordy has an almost eidetic memory. He never seems to forget anything I say to him, in a way it's kind of flattering, having someone pay that much attention to you, in another way, kind of sad that he has nothing better in his life than me. Even though I know that we're nothing more than the experiences we have with others, I don't always like that fact.
“You see, to you it's important, feelings, thoughts, ideas, to others it's bullshit. It's, 'this is how I feel', but when it's someone else, It's 'I'm always listening to his bullshit' you know.”
“I suppose”
“Of course I'm right, just like I was right about that other thing that time.” he says, referring to the fact that he's certain he was, at some point in time right about something.
“I listen to your bullshit, you listen to my bullshit, and in the end we're both so full of shit that....Dammit! I lost my train of thought.” he says.
I don't say anything as I snub out my cigarette. Jordy heads into the kitchen, asking if I want a sandwich as he goes, I ask him to bring me a slice of pizza, leave it cold I tell him. Minutes later he returns, no pizza, just his sandwich. “Where's my pizza?” I ask. “In the fridge still.” “You couldn't bring it to me?” “Nope, I'm tired of your bullshit!” he says with a laugh.
Click here for Pt 7
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
My Closest Friends Pt 5.
I saw myself sitting there on the floor, indian style, a chef's knife in my hand, staring out the window at nothing. Here I was on the dark, dirty wooden floor, tears streaming down my face, alone. I could smell the dust on the floor and the cold winter air, it was snowing outside and some part of me could hear the flakes as the hit the ground. The open window allowed the cold of a north eastern winter to invade the attic living space of the friend I was staying with. He, asleep in the next room, the rest of his family asleep down in the rest of the house, in their rooms, or on the couch. Oblivious to the drama which unfolded in this dark room. I was watching myself, was this a dream? An out of body experience? Acid flashback? Cognitive reconditioning? I wasn't sure. I knew only that I had to let this play out. I watched as the younger me hissed through his tears at the night, “Why? What have I done to deserve this pain? Why have you forsaken me?” he hissed. Was he being quiet so as not to disturb anyone? Trying maybe to keep his current state of despair a secret? No, that wasn't it. I recalled trying not to wake anyone, so not to burden them with my bullshit. That's what I thought it was, bullshit. Others might have classified it as their pain, their suffering, but I thought so poorly of myself, that I just considered it bullshit. Still so considerate of others, that was me. Even in my darkest moments of despair and pain I didn't want to burden those I cared about, considerate. I watched myself crawl across the floor, to the corner and there kneeling something crossed my face, an idea, a thought, what was it? I revealed it to myself as I watched younger me crawl back across the floor and close the window, only pausing to watch a car drive past ruining the untouched look of the snow. I heard a whisper come from my young lips “Make a lot of money shoveling tomorrow.” then a silence, a sigh then “There won't be a tomorrow.” I read the resignation in my young whispers. I felt this apparition that I currently was move, to bar my path back to the corner, but young me passed through whatever I was now. Was this a dream? A memory translated through the eyes of an adult? No, I wouldn't feel pity for this poor misguided creature I was observing, I would feel disgust at what I'd allowed to become of myself at so young an age. Strange then that I didn't feel that, I felt impartial as only an observer of the events of that night. As young me passed through whatever it was I was while viewing this scene, he stopped, for but seconds and scanned the room. “Is someone there?” he asked through hushed sobs. The pain on that young face, my young face touched the empathic side of me but for a moment I felt compassion. I knew what he was feeling. I wanted this to end and now, not his suffering, but my viewing of it.
Back to the corner he went and sat cross legged, there sobbing uncontrollably into his hands, the knife gripped in his right hand. Tears streaming down his face tip-tapping on the floor. Then silence, he sat staring into the darkness of the opposite corner of the room, motionless. I watched as he raised the knife to his wrist, holding the point of it to the inside of the wrist, blade laid across the arm diagonally. It seemed to me that I was indeed quite serious about this. That I could be so serious and committed to killing myself at only seventeen surprised me. “I can't take it anymore!” I heard my young self whisper, barely audible. And standing there, this phantom voyeur I had become spoke “What can't you take anymore?” and something seemed to shift in the mind of the younger version I watched. He steeled himself, and for a moment, I though he'd heard me. Then in the next moment I found that he did. In a blood-curdling scream of rage he screamed at me “You!” and he lunged in the direction where I felt I stood. He slashed at the air and though I'd not felt or seen any evidence of my adult self in the room, neither that night, nor now. I felt the cut. A stinging across my torso told me that I had been cut, deep. “You, who allowed this pain!” slash, this time my hands burned and stung as I raised them to defend against this rage filled seventeen year old version of myself. Slash! “You who killed me!” he raged and his eyes, even in the dark burned red with hate, becoming luminous points in the dark, this time the blade finding the backs of my forearms. Slash! “You'll never be rid of me! Never!” he screamed, drool now coming from my young mouth as the rage filled me cut again and again, until I felt a sting along the side of my neck. I pressed a hand there and felt stickiness as me the younger withdrew cackling as he did so. “Never be rid of me!” he sang at me in a cross between hysterics and hate, lowering his voice with each repetition until he whispered the syllables. He shrunk back into the corner and the darkness.
I felt myself collapse, in a heap on the floor and the blood poured from the wound in my neck, the darkness became darker and part of me wondered why no one had come to the sounds of his screams. Had no one heard it, or had they ignored it? Not wanting to know what was going on. It seemed as if I would never know the answer. Then it occurred to me that somehow this was real, though at the same time merely a dream. The blackness faded into nothingness and I felt still and at peace which abruptly came to an end.
Now startled I awoke again, this I recognized too well. It was only years ago, and this time I was no observer. I was sitting on my bedroom floor, Jordy locked out and Helen, I don't think I'd met her yet. Candles flickered in the room, music, melancholy and poignant played softly. I looked to my left and saw coins standing up on end as I had wedged them into the carpet, dimen, then pennies, then nickles followed by quarters. A small military like formation of coins. A razor-blade grasped firmly between the fingers of my right hand. I raised my left arm and began to work the skin of my forearm with the razor, three inch long, shallow cuts into the skin, again and again I performed this ritual. No one saw, nor knew the pain I felt. I wanted to make myself ugly. I wanted to show the world how ugly I felt by making myself just as ugly on the outside. The shallow cuts letting the blood run in small rivulets down across the skin. The sting, so familiar, like the previous moments when younger me had slashed at me. The pain in my heart so overwhelming than death would not do me justice.
There I was sitting alone and not thinking, only feeling, nude and cross-legged on the floor with my coins and cutting, cutting, cutting. There was a word, a name, a pejorative label for people who did this, what was it? It wouldn't come to me. Where before I had been an observer to the events which had passed in my life, I was now an unwilling participant. I knew only time would show me where this was heading. A song began to play, what it was I don't remember, but I stopped the cutting long enough to sing along with it, the words seeming to be meaningful at that moment “Kiss me and free me, I will feel blessed.” I heard myself sing, weeping. I wiped at the tears and at my nose and saw blood on my hands. I was now quite confounded. I looked to my arm which was still running with blood and saw no smears. I wiped again at my face and returned more blood than the first time anf felt pain, physical pain. I rose now, but this was nothing I remember doing and walked to the adjoining bathroom. Flipping on the light I looked to the mirror and saw my face. Covered in blood which ran from my nose and eyes it looked as though I had been in a serious fight and lost. There were bruises and lumps around my eyes, my nose was clearly broken and teeth were gone. Shocked I stood there observing myself and wondering what manner of madness this was. My reflection contorted and shifted, changing, and became the younger version of me which had assaulted me moments before. I drew closer to the mirror and quickly my reflection reached through the mirror, glass shattering around me as the image grasped me around the neck. It screamed at me “I'm your dream, make you real!”. I felt my hands clutch at its wrists and struggle to free myself from its grip. It was far stronger than I and I felt my world begin to go black once again. I was passing out from being choked, this I knew. The stars, the swirls, my body beginning to twitch and spasm as my brain shut down from lack of oxygen. Again blackness enveloped my existence. I opened my eyes to see the underside of the front of my toilet bowl. That's strange I thought. The tile of the bathroom floor cool on my neck and arms. Everything was blurry and my head was pounding. I sat slowly, each move bringing dizziness and nausea. Placing my right hand on the side of the bath tub I noticed it was covered in dried blood. I reached my hand back to the spot on the back of my head to find a knot and an intense stinging sensation. Jordy rushed into the room. “We tried to call for help, but couldn't find your cell anywhere!” he looked worried, outright scared was more like it. Hank appeared in the doorway, he looked pale. “We couldn't move you, we were worried you might have hurt your neck.” he informed. I sat up and leaned against the wall for a second. Hank reached a hand out to help me up and shakily I stood. Seeing my reflection in the mirror there was vomit on my shirt and blood on my left ear. I told Jordy and Hank to stay there and wait until I got back, I decided to go to the hospital. Hank offered to come along, and drive me but seeing as to how long I had been out I didn't want any questions asked about why they had done nothing. Jordy chimed in, saying that they could be charged with negligence, I agreed.
I arrived at the hospital and after answering the triage nurses questions as best I was able, the doctor ordered X-rays and a C.T. Scan of my head before putting in fourteen stitches and determining that I had a concussion. It seemed that I'd hit my head on the toilet seat as I'd fallen when I passed out. I was sent home with the directions of no work for four days and light duty for another two weeks. That was sure to piss Marty and the rest of the management off.
Click here for Part 6
Back to the corner he went and sat cross legged, there sobbing uncontrollably into his hands, the knife gripped in his right hand. Tears streaming down his face tip-tapping on the floor. Then silence, he sat staring into the darkness of the opposite corner of the room, motionless. I watched as he raised the knife to his wrist, holding the point of it to the inside of the wrist, blade laid across the arm diagonally. It seemed to me that I was indeed quite serious about this. That I could be so serious and committed to killing myself at only seventeen surprised me. “I can't take it anymore!” I heard my young self whisper, barely audible. And standing there, this phantom voyeur I had become spoke “What can't you take anymore?” and something seemed to shift in the mind of the younger version I watched. He steeled himself, and for a moment, I though he'd heard me. Then in the next moment I found that he did. In a blood-curdling scream of rage he screamed at me “You!” and he lunged in the direction where I felt I stood. He slashed at the air and though I'd not felt or seen any evidence of my adult self in the room, neither that night, nor now. I felt the cut. A stinging across my torso told me that I had been cut, deep. “You, who allowed this pain!” slash, this time my hands burned and stung as I raised them to defend against this rage filled seventeen year old version of myself. Slash! “You who killed me!” he raged and his eyes, even in the dark burned red with hate, becoming luminous points in the dark, this time the blade finding the backs of my forearms. Slash! “You'll never be rid of me! Never!” he screamed, drool now coming from my young mouth as the rage filled me cut again and again, until I felt a sting along the side of my neck. I pressed a hand there and felt stickiness as me the younger withdrew cackling as he did so. “Never be rid of me!” he sang at me in a cross between hysterics and hate, lowering his voice with each repetition until he whispered the syllables. He shrunk back into the corner and the darkness.
I felt myself collapse, in a heap on the floor and the blood poured from the wound in my neck, the darkness became darker and part of me wondered why no one had come to the sounds of his screams. Had no one heard it, or had they ignored it? Not wanting to know what was going on. It seemed as if I would never know the answer. Then it occurred to me that somehow this was real, though at the same time merely a dream. The blackness faded into nothingness and I felt still and at peace which abruptly came to an end.
Now startled I awoke again, this I recognized too well. It was only years ago, and this time I was no observer. I was sitting on my bedroom floor, Jordy locked out and Helen, I don't think I'd met her yet. Candles flickered in the room, music, melancholy and poignant played softly. I looked to my left and saw coins standing up on end as I had wedged them into the carpet, dimen, then pennies, then nickles followed by quarters. A small military like formation of coins. A razor-blade grasped firmly between the fingers of my right hand. I raised my left arm and began to work the skin of my forearm with the razor, three inch long, shallow cuts into the skin, again and again I performed this ritual. No one saw, nor knew the pain I felt. I wanted to make myself ugly. I wanted to show the world how ugly I felt by making myself just as ugly on the outside. The shallow cuts letting the blood run in small rivulets down across the skin. The sting, so familiar, like the previous moments when younger me had slashed at me. The pain in my heart so overwhelming than death would not do me justice.
There I was sitting alone and not thinking, only feeling, nude and cross-legged on the floor with my coins and cutting, cutting, cutting. There was a word, a name, a pejorative label for people who did this, what was it? It wouldn't come to me. Where before I had been an observer to the events which had passed in my life, I was now an unwilling participant. I knew only time would show me where this was heading. A song began to play, what it was I don't remember, but I stopped the cutting long enough to sing along with it, the words seeming to be meaningful at that moment “Kiss me and free me, I will feel blessed.” I heard myself sing, weeping. I wiped at the tears and at my nose and saw blood on my hands. I was now quite confounded. I looked to my arm which was still running with blood and saw no smears. I wiped again at my face and returned more blood than the first time anf felt pain, physical pain. I rose now, but this was nothing I remember doing and walked to the adjoining bathroom. Flipping on the light I looked to the mirror and saw my face. Covered in blood which ran from my nose and eyes it looked as though I had been in a serious fight and lost. There were bruises and lumps around my eyes, my nose was clearly broken and teeth were gone. Shocked I stood there observing myself and wondering what manner of madness this was. My reflection contorted and shifted, changing, and became the younger version of me which had assaulted me moments before. I drew closer to the mirror and quickly my reflection reached through the mirror, glass shattering around me as the image grasped me around the neck. It screamed at me “I'm your dream, make you real!”. I felt my hands clutch at its wrists and struggle to free myself from its grip. It was far stronger than I and I felt my world begin to go black once again. I was passing out from being choked, this I knew. The stars, the swirls, my body beginning to twitch and spasm as my brain shut down from lack of oxygen. Again blackness enveloped my existence. I opened my eyes to see the underside of the front of my toilet bowl. That's strange I thought. The tile of the bathroom floor cool on my neck and arms. Everything was blurry and my head was pounding. I sat slowly, each move bringing dizziness and nausea. Placing my right hand on the side of the bath tub I noticed it was covered in dried blood. I reached my hand back to the spot on the back of my head to find a knot and an intense stinging sensation. Jordy rushed into the room. “We tried to call for help, but couldn't find your cell anywhere!” he looked worried, outright scared was more like it. Hank appeared in the doorway, he looked pale. “We couldn't move you, we were worried you might have hurt your neck.” he informed. I sat up and leaned against the wall for a second. Hank reached a hand out to help me up and shakily I stood. Seeing my reflection in the mirror there was vomit on my shirt and blood on my left ear. I told Jordy and Hank to stay there and wait until I got back, I decided to go to the hospital. Hank offered to come along, and drive me but seeing as to how long I had been out I didn't want any questions asked about why they had done nothing. Jordy chimed in, saying that they could be charged with negligence, I agreed.
I arrived at the hospital and after answering the triage nurses questions as best I was able, the doctor ordered X-rays and a C.T. Scan of my head before putting in fourteen stitches and determining that I had a concussion. It seemed that I'd hit my head on the toilet seat as I'd fallen when I passed out. I was sent home with the directions of no work for four days and light duty for another two weeks. That was sure to piss Marty and the rest of the management off.
Click here for Part 6
My Closest Friends Pt 4
Upon arriving home I found my friend Hank sitting on my couch and Jordy attempting to entertain him to no avail. “What're you doing here?” I asked. “Ah, bored, figured you might be up so I came over, Helen let me in then mumbled something about being tired then went to bed.” he told. I flashed an accusatory glance at him, which made him instantly defensive. “Hey! You know she's only into you, and I'd never encroach like that. Besides that woman sleeps way too much for me. I like to get out and do stuff, she's always in bed.” he defended. I only rolled my eyes at this, and sat in my recliner. “So how was the club?” he asked.
“Nothing special, two new girls, really new, they just kind of wiggled their asses, walked slowly around the pole and took off their clothes, nothing special.” I informed.
“Sad” he replied.
“Yeah.” I intoned.
“So how you been? It's been in a few weeks.” he asked.
“Good, just been thinking a lot.” I replied.
“About?” he queried.
Now I should say a few things about Hank. He's been my friend longer than I can remember. Always around when I needed an ear to beat. Unlike Jordy, he listens. He has an uncanny ability to know when I need to talk. He also has this unique ability to let me to talk through whatever it may be that's on my mind or what might be bothering me until I somehow resolve it myself. I'm always grateful for this. Oddly enough, I have no idea what he does for a living, nor where he spends most of his free time. Anytime I ask he remains vague. It seems he knows far more about me than I know of him and several years ago I just stopped trying to figure him out and accepted him as he is. Since then our conversations and my monologues seem to be much richer than they were before, when I was always inquiring about him.
"Nothing, just something that Helen had said a couple of days ago.” I told him.
“So what's the Lethargy Queen got you puzzling now?” he inquired as he leaned towards me intently listening.
“She said that everything's disposable, and it got me thinking.” I said.
“Yeah, disposable, that's deep, especially for her.” he quipped.
“But I was thinking about this and for once she's right, but that's not all of it.”
“Ok, so what then?”
“Everything's subject to change, and that's what makes it disposable.” I explained.
“Huh, meaning?”
“Ok, it's like this, when I was younger, I wanted to be the TV ads, I wanted to be like all those people on TV shows, they always knew the right things to say, they always had the right facial expression and everyone liked them, not necessarily on the show, but the people watching the show.” I spoke.
“Are we talking 90210?” he asked, with a sincerity which surprised me.
“That or any TV show from my youth.” I said before continuing “I wanted to be like that, I wanted people to like me, I wanted to be popular, I wanted to be known. Not famous, but maybe someone that people liked to be around, wanted, no needed, to be around.” I explained.
“Doesn't everyone feel that way?” he asked.
“I did, past tense, the problem was that I wasn't any of that, but I tried so hard to be. I was odd, spent a lot of time alone. Just different from other people. Things others caught easily, I struggled with. I was socially awkward too.”
“Abused children and teens do tend to be loners.” he stated.
“That's part of it, what I didn't see, didn't know was that I was disposable to others, I fed their needs, trying to be whatever they needed me to be, not knowing who I was.” I told him.
“Kids never know who they are, it's something we form throughout our lives, our collective experiences make us who we are.” he informed.
“But what if we find that we don't like who we've become?” my question.
“Change.” he said.
“See? There it is, everything is subject to change! Even us!” I became a bit excited at this thought.
“But did you change, or did how you relate to others change, do you think?” he asked.
“Both, definitely.”
“How so?” his face had a knowing look on it, as though he had been leading me to this all along, perhaps he had and I was all too eager to indulge him on the subject. “I began to hate myself, I blamed myself somehow for the abuse, the physical, the emotional. I even blamed myself for how others treated me. Then something happened, I realized that the people who I'd felt hurt me, had done so, because I was being who, or what they needed me to be, and that lent itself to being hurt. I was asking them to hurt me without knowing I'd done so.” I informed. He took a long moment to consider this as I lit a cigarette. Jordy, meanwhile, had been sitting on the floor listening intently to the conversation. His head moving back and forth between Hank and I as if he were watching a tennis match. Now stood and stomped out of the room with the lighting of the offensive tobacco product. “The fuck's wrong with him?” Hank asked. I told him how Jordy had been riding my ass for months about quitting and that in a drunken stupor I had promised to quit. I just kept using the old “I never said when.” excuse and it pissed Jordy off to no end. “Funny” Hank chuckled. Jordy came back into the room long enough to tell Hank that it wasn't funny and to send a string of obscenities long enough to make Andrew Dice Clay blush, at Hank. Hank waved Jordy off and told him to go play with himself, the adults were talking. “So was it something that happened that made you realize that everyone else wasn't necessarily the problem?” he asked returning to the conversation.
“Yeah, one thing in particular.” my response.
“Explain” he said.
“I felt empty, you know like there was no, no, me. Like I didn't have a clue who was in here.” I said pointing to my chest. To which he replied by nodding. “I was staying at a friends house, and one night I got low, real low. Not sure if I hit bottom or not, but I was close. I remember sitting there, in the dark on this dirty wooden floor, with a chef's knife in my hand, in one corner of the room, crying my eyes out. I was going to do it. I held the knife to my wrist and thought 'This is it, it's over, I'm done'.” I said, now fighting back tears. I don't think I'd ever told anyone about this before. Hank being wiser than his years said nothing, he sat there looking at me. Doing the one thing I desperately needed someone to do at that moment. He listened, like he always did. “I remember thinking 'I can't take it anymore and no one will notice if I'm gone anyways.'.” I continued.
“What stopped you?” he interrupted.
“So funny.” I chuckled then continued. “This little voice in my head asked me what I was tired of, I, I didn't have an answer. I sat there and thought about that. I didn't know what I was tired of. Then somehow I realized that all the pain, all the sadness. Was somehow my fault. I let people treat me like shit. I let myself care, too much, about everyone else. I didn't care about myself.”
“Then?”
“Then I put the knife down, I swore to myself on that day that I'd never go there again, to never let myself got to the point where I was on that dark dirty wooden floor.”
“We both know how that turned out.” he said sarcastically.
“Let's not bring that up.” I said.
“Okay.” he replied.
“Thinking about it now, I realize that I changed that night. I was subject to change, still am.”
“What's changing now?” he asked, eyebrow raised. “Something, deep down, I don't know,... just that,..... something. I'm not sure.” I said, not quite able to grasp what I meant. Like trying to catch smoke, I could see it, I knew what it was, but I couldn't grasp it. He smiled, a knowing smile, as if he knew what I was saying, but wouldn't say it for me. I had to say it. I had to find it on my own and he knew it. He always knew. “So what about this disposability thing?” he asked, seeming genuinely interested.
“It's all disposable, things, people, feelings, thoughts even me.” I said.
“Why do I feel Helen's planted this idea?” he quipped at me.
“She had something to do with it, introduced me to the thought.” I told.
“Knew it.” he said shaking his head.
“Why do you have such a problem with her?” I asked.
“She just puts ideas in your head, some of them unhealthy. Why do you keep her around? I think Jenny was much better for you than she is.” he told.
“You hated Jenny.” I reminded.
“I hated how obsessed with her you were.”
“She was new, once the newness wore off.”
“Hello Helen.” he said in disgust.
“Jenny was...” I trailed.
“Disposable?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“And Helen isn't?”
“She says she is.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that these women, specifically these types of women, the ones that you.” as he said this my head started to spin, and things became blurry. I didn't hear the rest of what he was saying, only pairs of words here and there “Come and go” I heard. “Stay around.” he said. “Grow bored” he was saying. I felt that I might pass out, which I considered strange as I hadn't been drinking. “Disposable” he said as I got up and ran to the bathroom and vomited violently. Jordy was sitting in the bathtub looking innocently at me. “Problem?” he asked. “I...uh.” was all I managed. I noticed that there was no water in the tub and Jordy was fully clothed. The dizziness was starting to subside as Hank appeared in the doorway. “You ok?” he asked.
“I'm fine.”
“You just threw up, you never throw up, not even when you're drunk.” Jordy chimed in. “You got pale and started to sway in your seat, than ran in here, just wanted to make sure you were ok.” Hank told me. “I dunno,” I slurred and noted to myself that my speech was slurred before continuing. “You were saying?”
Once again Hank started to speak, my head became fuzzy once more, black and white spots alternatingly filled my field of view, colors began to swirl around me. My vision began to fade and I heard Jordy yell “Oh no, catch him!”. I felt myself go limp, then a moment later I felt a throbbing at the back of my head. I reached my hand to my head and felt something warm and slick. Opening my eyes I examined my fingers and saw blood, a lot of it. I told myself that I had to get up, I couldn't see Hank or Jordy in the room. They must have gone for help. I tried to pull myself up into a sitting position, with no luck. The world swirled again, colors blending, like a kaleidoscope twisting and turning. Reality faded away to blackness.
Click Here for Part 5
“Sad” he replied.
“Yeah.” I intoned.
“So how you been? It's been in a few weeks.” he asked.
“Good, just been thinking a lot.” I replied.
“About?” he queried.
Now I should say a few things about Hank. He's been my friend longer than I can remember. Always around when I needed an ear to beat. Unlike Jordy, he listens. He has an uncanny ability to know when I need to talk. He also has this unique ability to let me to talk through whatever it may be that's on my mind or what might be bothering me until I somehow resolve it myself. I'm always grateful for this. Oddly enough, I have no idea what he does for a living, nor where he spends most of his free time. Anytime I ask he remains vague. It seems he knows far more about me than I know of him and several years ago I just stopped trying to figure him out and accepted him as he is. Since then our conversations and my monologues seem to be much richer than they were before, when I was always inquiring about him.
"Nothing, just something that Helen had said a couple of days ago.” I told him.
“So what's the Lethargy Queen got you puzzling now?” he inquired as he leaned towards me intently listening.
“She said that everything's disposable, and it got me thinking.” I said.
“Yeah, disposable, that's deep, especially for her.” he quipped.
“But I was thinking about this and for once she's right, but that's not all of it.”
“Ok, so what then?”
“Everything's subject to change, and that's what makes it disposable.” I explained.
“Huh, meaning?”
“Ok, it's like this, when I was younger, I wanted to be the TV ads, I wanted to be like all those people on TV shows, they always knew the right things to say, they always had the right facial expression and everyone liked them, not necessarily on the show, but the people watching the show.” I spoke.
“Are we talking 90210?” he asked, with a sincerity which surprised me.
“That or any TV show from my youth.” I said before continuing “I wanted to be like that, I wanted people to like me, I wanted to be popular, I wanted to be known. Not famous, but maybe someone that people liked to be around, wanted, no needed, to be around.” I explained.
“Doesn't everyone feel that way?” he asked.
“I did, past tense, the problem was that I wasn't any of that, but I tried so hard to be. I was odd, spent a lot of time alone. Just different from other people. Things others caught easily, I struggled with. I was socially awkward too.”
“Abused children and teens do tend to be loners.” he stated.
“That's part of it, what I didn't see, didn't know was that I was disposable to others, I fed their needs, trying to be whatever they needed me to be, not knowing who I was.” I told him.
“Kids never know who they are, it's something we form throughout our lives, our collective experiences make us who we are.” he informed.
“But what if we find that we don't like who we've become?” my question.
“Change.” he said.
“See? There it is, everything is subject to change! Even us!” I became a bit excited at this thought.
“But did you change, or did how you relate to others change, do you think?” he asked.
“Both, definitely.”
“How so?” his face had a knowing look on it, as though he had been leading me to this all along, perhaps he had and I was all too eager to indulge him on the subject. “I began to hate myself, I blamed myself somehow for the abuse, the physical, the emotional. I even blamed myself for how others treated me. Then something happened, I realized that the people who I'd felt hurt me, had done so, because I was being who, or what they needed me to be, and that lent itself to being hurt. I was asking them to hurt me without knowing I'd done so.” I informed. He took a long moment to consider this as I lit a cigarette. Jordy, meanwhile, had been sitting on the floor listening intently to the conversation. His head moving back and forth between Hank and I as if he were watching a tennis match. Now stood and stomped out of the room with the lighting of the offensive tobacco product. “The fuck's wrong with him?” Hank asked. I told him how Jordy had been riding my ass for months about quitting and that in a drunken stupor I had promised to quit. I just kept using the old “I never said when.” excuse and it pissed Jordy off to no end. “Funny” Hank chuckled. Jordy came back into the room long enough to tell Hank that it wasn't funny and to send a string of obscenities long enough to make Andrew Dice Clay blush, at Hank. Hank waved Jordy off and told him to go play with himself, the adults were talking. “So was it something that happened that made you realize that everyone else wasn't necessarily the problem?” he asked returning to the conversation.
“Yeah, one thing in particular.” my response.
“Explain” he said.
“I felt empty, you know like there was no, no, me. Like I didn't have a clue who was in here.” I said pointing to my chest. To which he replied by nodding. “I was staying at a friends house, and one night I got low, real low. Not sure if I hit bottom or not, but I was close. I remember sitting there, in the dark on this dirty wooden floor, with a chef's knife in my hand, in one corner of the room, crying my eyes out. I was going to do it. I held the knife to my wrist and thought 'This is it, it's over, I'm done'.” I said, now fighting back tears. I don't think I'd ever told anyone about this before. Hank being wiser than his years said nothing, he sat there looking at me. Doing the one thing I desperately needed someone to do at that moment. He listened, like he always did. “I remember thinking 'I can't take it anymore and no one will notice if I'm gone anyways.'.” I continued.
“What stopped you?” he interrupted.
“So funny.” I chuckled then continued. “This little voice in my head asked me what I was tired of, I, I didn't have an answer. I sat there and thought about that. I didn't know what I was tired of. Then somehow I realized that all the pain, all the sadness. Was somehow my fault. I let people treat me like shit. I let myself care, too much, about everyone else. I didn't care about myself.”
“Then?”
“Then I put the knife down, I swore to myself on that day that I'd never go there again, to never let myself got to the point where I was on that dark dirty wooden floor.”
“We both know how that turned out.” he said sarcastically.
“Let's not bring that up.” I said.
“Okay.” he replied.
“Thinking about it now, I realize that I changed that night. I was subject to change, still am.”
“What's changing now?” he asked, eyebrow raised. “Something, deep down, I don't know,... just that,..... something. I'm not sure.” I said, not quite able to grasp what I meant. Like trying to catch smoke, I could see it, I knew what it was, but I couldn't grasp it. He smiled, a knowing smile, as if he knew what I was saying, but wouldn't say it for me. I had to say it. I had to find it on my own and he knew it. He always knew. “So what about this disposability thing?” he asked, seeming genuinely interested.
“It's all disposable, things, people, feelings, thoughts even me.” I said.
“Why do I feel Helen's planted this idea?” he quipped at me.
“She had something to do with it, introduced me to the thought.” I told.
“Knew it.” he said shaking his head.
“Why do you have such a problem with her?” I asked.
“She just puts ideas in your head, some of them unhealthy. Why do you keep her around? I think Jenny was much better for you than she is.” he told.
“You hated Jenny.” I reminded.
“I hated how obsessed with her you were.”
“She was new, once the newness wore off.”
“Hello Helen.” he said in disgust.
“Jenny was...” I trailed.
“Disposable?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“And Helen isn't?”
“She says she is.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that these women, specifically these types of women, the ones that you.” as he said this my head started to spin, and things became blurry. I didn't hear the rest of what he was saying, only pairs of words here and there “Come and go” I heard. “Stay around.” he said. “Grow bored” he was saying. I felt that I might pass out, which I considered strange as I hadn't been drinking. “Disposable” he said as I got up and ran to the bathroom and vomited violently. Jordy was sitting in the bathtub looking innocently at me. “Problem?” he asked. “I...uh.” was all I managed. I noticed that there was no water in the tub and Jordy was fully clothed. The dizziness was starting to subside as Hank appeared in the doorway. “You ok?” he asked.
“I'm fine.”
“You just threw up, you never throw up, not even when you're drunk.” Jordy chimed in. “You got pale and started to sway in your seat, than ran in here, just wanted to make sure you were ok.” Hank told me. “I dunno,” I slurred and noted to myself that my speech was slurred before continuing. “You were saying?”
Once again Hank started to speak, my head became fuzzy once more, black and white spots alternatingly filled my field of view, colors began to swirl around me. My vision began to fade and I heard Jordy yell “Oh no, catch him!”. I felt myself go limp, then a moment later I felt a throbbing at the back of my head. I reached my hand to my head and felt something warm and slick. Opening my eyes I examined my fingers and saw blood, a lot of it. I told myself that I had to get up, I couldn't see Hank or Jordy in the room. They must have gone for help. I tried to pull myself up into a sitting position, with no luck. The world swirled again, colors blending, like a kaleidoscope twisting and turning. Reality faded away to blackness.
Click Here for Part 5
My Closest Friends Pt. 3
I told him that a week isn't all that long and that I wasn't too thrilled to be throwing good money away on clay so that he could learn to sculpt. Meaning that he was just going to make a mess and I'd end up throwing away the clay that wasn't stuck in the carpet. He, of course, protested that he just needed an outlet for his creativity and that I should support him on that. I lit a cigarette which he complained about, his usual whine about me quitting. I told him that I didn't want to hear it and left the room for a nap.
When I walked in the room, Helen was there, lying on the bed nude, apparently waiting for me. “I was thinking that the dinosaurs went extinct because they decided that they just didn't wanna fuck anymore.” she said with a smirk.
“Come again?” I said.
“The dinosaurs, you know, like, Pandas decided they don't wanna fuck anymore and now they're almost extinct. I think the same thing happened with the dinosaurs.”
“You're so sublime sometimes.” I told her.
“Maybe you shouldn't leave me alone for such long periods of time. Then I wouldn't spend so much of that wasted time thinking of these things” she retorted.
“Interesting concept though.” I said.
“It's possible.”
“Anything's possible.”
“Like you loving me and me not loving you?” she asked.
“No, not that.” I reminded. To which she made no reply, she only grimaced at the thought. She rolled on her side, sensing somehow that I wasn't interested in sex. “You're going out tonight?” she asked.
“For a bit, why?”
“With who?”
“Why do you care?” I asked.
“Because you want me to care.” she responded.
“Do I?”
“We both know better than that.”
“I guess we do.” I agreed.
“So with who?” she asked.
“Just a friend from work, strip club, nothing fancy or important.”
“A male or female friend?” she inquired.
“Male, why?”
“Just wondering if I'd be seeing you tonight, or if you'd be bringing someone home with you.” she stated.
“Yeah, because that happens all the time, how long has it been?” I asked.
“A little over a year, I guess, that's how long I've been here, before that? I wouldn't know.” her matter of fact-ness only too obvious to me. “I'll be alone when I get home.” I told her.
“Except for me an Jordy.” she reminded.
“How could I forget? When was the last time Jordy left the house?” I asked.
“I don't keep tabs on him, just you.”
“That's comforting.” I said with more sarcasm than I meant. If she noticed it, she didn't comment. I undressed and lie down behind her and curled my body up to hers. “Are you very tired?” she asked. “No, but I need to get some sleep so I can get up to go out later.” I informed. She said nothing more and I drifted off into a fitful sleep. When I woke I was only thankful for not dreaming, not for the sleep. I felt sluggish and exhausted.
The strip club was nothing special, my company was the norm. Bill, one of the few people that I worked with that I could actually get along with outside of work met me with a beer and pointed out a couple of new dancers. I wasn't impressed by them and we spent the next two hours waxing philosophic on subjects ranging from the Gods of Olympus to the possibility of nanotechnology all while demonstrating just how terrible we both were at billiards.
Click Here for Part 4
“Come again?” I said.
“The dinosaurs, you know, like, Pandas decided they don't wanna fuck anymore and now they're almost extinct. I think the same thing happened with the dinosaurs.”
“You're so sublime sometimes.” I told her.
“Maybe you shouldn't leave me alone for such long periods of time. Then I wouldn't spend so much of that wasted time thinking of these things” she retorted.
“Interesting concept though.” I said.
“It's possible.”
“Anything's possible.”
“Like you loving me and me not loving you?” she asked.
“No, not that.” I reminded. To which she made no reply, she only grimaced at the thought. She rolled on her side, sensing somehow that I wasn't interested in sex. “You're going out tonight?” she asked.
“For a bit, why?”
“With who?”
“Why do you care?” I asked.
“Because you want me to care.” she responded.
“Do I?”
“We both know better than that.”
“I guess we do.” I agreed.
“So with who?” she asked.
“Just a friend from work, strip club, nothing fancy or important.”
“A male or female friend?” she inquired.
“Male, why?”
“Just wondering if I'd be seeing you tonight, or if you'd be bringing someone home with you.” she stated.
“Yeah, because that happens all the time, how long has it been?” I asked.
“A little over a year, I guess, that's how long I've been here, before that? I wouldn't know.” her matter of fact-ness only too obvious to me. “I'll be alone when I get home.” I told her.
“Except for me an Jordy.” she reminded.
“How could I forget? When was the last time Jordy left the house?” I asked.
“I don't keep tabs on him, just you.”
“That's comforting.” I said with more sarcasm than I meant. If she noticed it, she didn't comment. I undressed and lie down behind her and curled my body up to hers. “Are you very tired?” she asked. “No, but I need to get some sleep so I can get up to go out later.” I informed. She said nothing more and I drifted off into a fitful sleep. When I woke I was only thankful for not dreaming, not for the sleep. I felt sluggish and exhausted.
The strip club was nothing special, my company was the norm. Bill, one of the few people that I worked with that I could actually get along with outside of work met me with a beer and pointed out a couple of new dancers. I wasn't impressed by them and we spent the next two hours waxing philosophic on subjects ranging from the Gods of Olympus to the possibility of nanotechnology all while demonstrating just how terrible we both were at billiards.
Click Here for Part 4
Saturday, November 17, 2012
My Closest Friends Pt. 2
PT 2.
Jordy leaves the room and I get out of bed and use the bathroom, looks like Jordy was in here last, he never flushes. I don't know how many times I've discussed this with him. Once I've finished that business, I head into the kitchen and make coffee. Bruce is sitting at my computer. I wasn't aware that he was here. “Bruce is here, needed on your computer, Photoshop!” Jordy tells me as I light my first cigarette of the day. “When are you going to quit that?” He asks me. I don't answer. “So what is it this time?” I ask Bruce, who is so focused on what he's doing he doesn't even seem to notice that I'm there. I look over his shoulder and he's working on replacing the background of a picture of a nude woman whom I don't recognize. “Girl's paying me $100 to take her out of the picture and put her on the plains of Africa with a Lion in the background!” he tells me. I admit to him that the girl is pretty enough and well built too, but the way he's doing the background replacement is not going to work right, that she'll stand out and it'll be obvious. He tells me that he doesn't care about that, and neither will she. She's just a dumb blonde who he's hustling for some cash. I ask him how he knows her and he tells me an elaborate story about shooting pool, dollars for clothing at a party he met her at. He had to pay her a dollar for every ball she sunk, she had to remove an article of clothing for every ball he sunk. Needless to say he took the picture after the game was over. She'd been a terrible pool player. “You don't think it's bad form to take advantage of the stupid?” I ask him. “No, it's why god created them.” his response.
“Elaborate.” I say.
“See, God made regular people and stupid people, so that regular people would know that they were regular, also so that the semi intelligent to the really intelligent would have someone around to make them feel better about themselves.” he says.
“To feed our narcissism?” I ask.
“No, not really, well yes kind of. You see if there weren't any stupid people, then who would do menial jobs? Who would wait tables? Wash cars? Sweep floors and clean toilets? No one, so maybe god made them to feed us, and keep the planet from becoming a shithole?” he says.
“The planet's already a shithole.” I tell him.
“People are getting better educations these days there're less high school drop outs too.”
“I'm not sure one has anything to do with the other.”
“How many strippers have you met that are high school graduates?”
“I've never asked any. Not something that really comes up at a strip club.” I tell him.
“See! You don't know any, so we can extrapolate that to mean there aren't any!”
“I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that assessment.” I retort.
“Ok, but for the sake of argument, let's hypothesize that I'm right about this.” he says turning away from the computer monitor to face me. “If there were more high school drop outs there would logically be more strippers, and janitors and waitresses. Since there are more people with well paying jobs, we have to assume, for the sake of argument, that there are less, than say twenty years ago, because people are getting better educations. So if people are better educated but there are still idiots out there, most of them dumber than ever. It must be Gods way of evening things out for the rest of us. I don't want to piss off God by not taking advantage of a gift he's given me.” Bruce informs me.
We continue to banter over this for a few minutes until I realize my coffee's done. Not through some beep signifying it, but Jordy has been standing and watching it drip since it started. He has an odd habit of doing that, somehow he finds pleasure in watching coffee drip. I've never understood it and don't want to. But he always exclaims “It's done!” whenever it's done. I go into the kitchen to get a cup of joe when he begins with his inane questions anew. “When are you going to give up the smoking? And can we go out and get some clay? I'd really like to learn to sculpt.” he asks me. I say nothing I only look at him. “Where's Helen?” I ask him. “Sleeping, she said you kept her up after all the hot steaminess last night and was talking to her about love or some such shit. Why would you talk to her about love?” he wanted to know. “She asked me if I love her.” I say.
“Do you? Do you love her?” his eyes glinting and a huge smile on his face.
“Just about every night.” I say smiling at him.
“Oh, I think you love her more than just that. She's been around longer than any of the others have ever been. There's something to that I think.”
“If that's what you want to think, go ahead and believe it.” I tell him.
“If you didn't love her more than you let on, then you'd have sent her away by now, gotten tired of her. You've said it before, they're all the same, all of them, how's she different?”
“She's not.”
I think she is, special to you somehow.” he sang this to me as I walked out of the room. Bruce asked why I put up with him, I told him that Jordy had been there for me when I was at an all time low, and despite being a pain in the ass, he's a really good listener. Every once in a while, everybody needs someone they can talk to. Bruce told me that I could always talk to him, but the truth being that Bruce did most of the talking when he was around. Bruce's philosophy of life was that no matter who pissed you off, as long as they couldn't get you pregnant or take away your birthday, then it didn't really matter and you should let it slide. Thinking about it, I'd never even seen him upset about anything. Either he didn't care about anything, or he just practiced what he preached.
“They tore down the Burger Barn, did you know that? It's been there since 1954! And they just tore it to the ground. Nothing lasts forever, seems to me that everything's disposable!” he said, echoing Helen's sentiment from the night before. I gave it some thought but said nothing about it. After I'd gotten ready for work I told Bruce to shut down the computer when he was done, knowing full well he wouldn't. He never did.
Work was a retail chain, you know the one always offering the lowest prices with stupid slogans that changed every year or two like, “Best prices anywhere! Guaranteed!” I worked as an electronics sales specialist. Loose translation: Someone not paid well enough for all of the collective consumer electronics knowledge I have. It sucked, especially knowing that there were people out there who knew less about the products that they sold making twice what I was making. But that was one of the ways this retail chain kept prices so low. Don't pay anyone what their skills, work or service is actually worth so they can pass the savings on to the customer and pad the company's bottom line. Sure they offered quarterly bonuses, but they also made it more difficult to get one. If, say for instance there were accidents, by customers, or employees and they had to go to an Emergency room, that money came out of the profit which would reduce the bonus. Just so long as the company itself didn't have to pay for it. It sure wasn't coming out of the CEO's, the VP's or anyone in the company with letters as their job titles bonus. An accident by its very nature is some unforeseen occurrence, some are avoidable sure, but it didn't matter to the higher echelon of management. Get those consumer dollars and to hell with the people who keep the company running. Big business, that's how they do things. I was talking to a co-worker about things being disposable, he agreed, that just about everything is disposable. It bothered me a little. During the conversation one of our managers, Marty came by to remind us that we weren't being paid to socialize. This same prick called me into the office an hour later to tell me that he felt I'd spent too much time with a customer earlier.
He told me that and so I asked just how much time should a customer get? One minute? Seven minutes? I wanted to know just how much time, so that I could check my watch and at the pre-designated time limit I could tell the customer “Sorry sir, but I've been informed that I can only spend 'X' amount of minutes with each customer, if you like I'll call a manager for you and they can give you another 'X' number of minutes of their time. It was ridiculous! “That's not what I'm saying!” he exclaimed.
“Sounds that way to me.” I replied.
“No, I just think that there were other things you could have been doing, and that the amount of time spent with that customer was excessive.”
“He's bought everything from us, from me! Flat Screen, Blu-Ray player, Laptop, Surround Sound system and now he wants to buy a gaming console, he always comes back to me, because he's happy with the service I've provided him. Are we not to try to develop customer loyalty?” I argued.
Then there was silence. His lips were moving, so were his hands and arms as he spoke. I heard nothing. I could read his lips “Do you understand?” he was asking. I reached behind me and pulled the gun from my under my belt and pants. I could feel myself smiling. He looked terrified as I leveled it at his face. More lip reading “What are you doing?!” he seemed to be screaming, but still I heard nothing. The gun went off, I saw the flash from the muzzle, and the back of his head splattered against the wall behind him. The look of shock and fear faded from his face as his body capitulated to the floor in a heap.
Then I snapped out of it. He was still talking. Just a fantasy. Too bad for me, but good for him I guess. “Just try to limit it in the future, take care of the customer and move on.” he said. I didn't reply I walked out of the office and went back to work. The rest of the day was uneventful, but every time I saw Marty, I felt a little satisfaction at the thought of blowing his goddamned head off. He thought I was just smiling to be polite.
See the problem I had with the management team was the same with all of them. Customer service meant get them what they want, take their money and get them out the door. All but one of them had gone to college, associates degree, and straight into management. They didn't have any experience with customer service. They'd never been on the bottom rung of the ladder and the one who did, hadn't been on that rung in so long, she was out of touch with the people she was supposed to be supervising. I left at the end of my shift, tired and aggravated. I'm always aggravated when I leave that place.
Once I'd gotten home I found the computer still on. Thank you Bruce! Jordy was sitting on the couch pouting in his usual way. “What's wrong with you?” I asked. “You aren't carrying any clay.” he retorted. “Payday, I'll get some.” I informed him. He looked at me, tilting his head sideways, the way a dog would. “That's a whole week away.” he complained.
Click Here for Part 3
Jordy leaves the room and I get out of bed and use the bathroom, looks like Jordy was in here last, he never flushes. I don't know how many times I've discussed this with him. Once I've finished that business, I head into the kitchen and make coffee. Bruce is sitting at my computer. I wasn't aware that he was here. “Bruce is here, needed on your computer, Photoshop!” Jordy tells me as I light my first cigarette of the day. “When are you going to quit that?” He asks me. I don't answer. “So what is it this time?” I ask Bruce, who is so focused on what he's doing he doesn't even seem to notice that I'm there. I look over his shoulder and he's working on replacing the background of a picture of a nude woman whom I don't recognize. “Girl's paying me $100 to take her out of the picture and put her on the plains of Africa with a Lion in the background!” he tells me. I admit to him that the girl is pretty enough and well built too, but the way he's doing the background replacement is not going to work right, that she'll stand out and it'll be obvious. He tells me that he doesn't care about that, and neither will she. She's just a dumb blonde who he's hustling for some cash. I ask him how he knows her and he tells me an elaborate story about shooting pool, dollars for clothing at a party he met her at. He had to pay her a dollar for every ball she sunk, she had to remove an article of clothing for every ball he sunk. Needless to say he took the picture after the game was over. She'd been a terrible pool player. “You don't think it's bad form to take advantage of the stupid?” I ask him. “No, it's why god created them.” his response.
“Elaborate.” I say.
“See, God made regular people and stupid people, so that regular people would know that they were regular, also so that the semi intelligent to the really intelligent would have someone around to make them feel better about themselves.” he says.
“To feed our narcissism?” I ask.
“No, not really, well yes kind of. You see if there weren't any stupid people, then who would do menial jobs? Who would wait tables? Wash cars? Sweep floors and clean toilets? No one, so maybe god made them to feed us, and keep the planet from becoming a shithole?” he says.
“The planet's already a shithole.” I tell him.
“People are getting better educations these days there're less high school drop outs too.”
“I'm not sure one has anything to do with the other.”
“How many strippers have you met that are high school graduates?”
“I've never asked any. Not something that really comes up at a strip club.” I tell him.
“See! You don't know any, so we can extrapolate that to mean there aren't any!”
“I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that assessment.” I retort.
“Ok, but for the sake of argument, let's hypothesize that I'm right about this.” he says turning away from the computer monitor to face me. “If there were more high school drop outs there would logically be more strippers, and janitors and waitresses. Since there are more people with well paying jobs, we have to assume, for the sake of argument, that there are less, than say twenty years ago, because people are getting better educations. So if people are better educated but there are still idiots out there, most of them dumber than ever. It must be Gods way of evening things out for the rest of us. I don't want to piss off God by not taking advantage of a gift he's given me.” Bruce informs me.
We continue to banter over this for a few minutes until I realize my coffee's done. Not through some beep signifying it, but Jordy has been standing and watching it drip since it started. He has an odd habit of doing that, somehow he finds pleasure in watching coffee drip. I've never understood it and don't want to. But he always exclaims “It's done!” whenever it's done. I go into the kitchen to get a cup of joe when he begins with his inane questions anew. “When are you going to give up the smoking? And can we go out and get some clay? I'd really like to learn to sculpt.” he asks me. I say nothing I only look at him. “Where's Helen?” I ask him. “Sleeping, she said you kept her up after all the hot steaminess last night and was talking to her about love or some such shit. Why would you talk to her about love?” he wanted to know. “She asked me if I love her.” I say.
“Do you? Do you love her?” his eyes glinting and a huge smile on his face.
“Just about every night.” I say smiling at him.
“Oh, I think you love her more than just that. She's been around longer than any of the others have ever been. There's something to that I think.”
“If that's what you want to think, go ahead and believe it.” I tell him.
“If you didn't love her more than you let on, then you'd have sent her away by now, gotten tired of her. You've said it before, they're all the same, all of them, how's she different?”
“She's not.”
I think she is, special to you somehow.” he sang this to me as I walked out of the room. Bruce asked why I put up with him, I told him that Jordy had been there for me when I was at an all time low, and despite being a pain in the ass, he's a really good listener. Every once in a while, everybody needs someone they can talk to. Bruce told me that I could always talk to him, but the truth being that Bruce did most of the talking when he was around. Bruce's philosophy of life was that no matter who pissed you off, as long as they couldn't get you pregnant or take away your birthday, then it didn't really matter and you should let it slide. Thinking about it, I'd never even seen him upset about anything. Either he didn't care about anything, or he just practiced what he preached.
“They tore down the Burger Barn, did you know that? It's been there since 1954! And they just tore it to the ground. Nothing lasts forever, seems to me that everything's disposable!” he said, echoing Helen's sentiment from the night before. I gave it some thought but said nothing about it. After I'd gotten ready for work I told Bruce to shut down the computer when he was done, knowing full well he wouldn't. He never did.
Work was a retail chain, you know the one always offering the lowest prices with stupid slogans that changed every year or two like, “Best prices anywhere! Guaranteed!” I worked as an electronics sales specialist. Loose translation: Someone not paid well enough for all of the collective consumer electronics knowledge I have. It sucked, especially knowing that there were people out there who knew less about the products that they sold making twice what I was making. But that was one of the ways this retail chain kept prices so low. Don't pay anyone what their skills, work or service is actually worth so they can pass the savings on to the customer and pad the company's bottom line. Sure they offered quarterly bonuses, but they also made it more difficult to get one. If, say for instance there were accidents, by customers, or employees and they had to go to an Emergency room, that money came out of the profit which would reduce the bonus. Just so long as the company itself didn't have to pay for it. It sure wasn't coming out of the CEO's, the VP's or anyone in the company with letters as their job titles bonus. An accident by its very nature is some unforeseen occurrence, some are avoidable sure, but it didn't matter to the higher echelon of management. Get those consumer dollars and to hell with the people who keep the company running. Big business, that's how they do things. I was talking to a co-worker about things being disposable, he agreed, that just about everything is disposable. It bothered me a little. During the conversation one of our managers, Marty came by to remind us that we weren't being paid to socialize. This same prick called me into the office an hour later to tell me that he felt I'd spent too much time with a customer earlier.
He told me that and so I asked just how much time should a customer get? One minute? Seven minutes? I wanted to know just how much time, so that I could check my watch and at the pre-designated time limit I could tell the customer “Sorry sir, but I've been informed that I can only spend 'X' amount of minutes with each customer, if you like I'll call a manager for you and they can give you another 'X' number of minutes of their time. It was ridiculous! “That's not what I'm saying!” he exclaimed.
“Sounds that way to me.” I replied.
“No, I just think that there were other things you could have been doing, and that the amount of time spent with that customer was excessive.”
“He's bought everything from us, from me! Flat Screen, Blu-Ray player, Laptop, Surround Sound system and now he wants to buy a gaming console, he always comes back to me, because he's happy with the service I've provided him. Are we not to try to develop customer loyalty?” I argued.
Then there was silence. His lips were moving, so were his hands and arms as he spoke. I heard nothing. I could read his lips “Do you understand?” he was asking. I reached behind me and pulled the gun from my under my belt and pants. I could feel myself smiling. He looked terrified as I leveled it at his face. More lip reading “What are you doing?!” he seemed to be screaming, but still I heard nothing. The gun went off, I saw the flash from the muzzle, and the back of his head splattered against the wall behind him. The look of shock and fear faded from his face as his body capitulated to the floor in a heap.
Then I snapped out of it. He was still talking. Just a fantasy. Too bad for me, but good for him I guess. “Just try to limit it in the future, take care of the customer and move on.” he said. I didn't reply I walked out of the office and went back to work. The rest of the day was uneventful, but every time I saw Marty, I felt a little satisfaction at the thought of blowing his goddamned head off. He thought I was just smiling to be polite.
See the problem I had with the management team was the same with all of them. Customer service meant get them what they want, take their money and get them out the door. All but one of them had gone to college, associates degree, and straight into management. They didn't have any experience with customer service. They'd never been on the bottom rung of the ladder and the one who did, hadn't been on that rung in so long, she was out of touch with the people she was supposed to be supervising. I left at the end of my shift, tired and aggravated. I'm always aggravated when I leave that place.
Once I'd gotten home I found the computer still on. Thank you Bruce! Jordy was sitting on the couch pouting in his usual way. “What's wrong with you?” I asked. “You aren't carrying any clay.” he retorted. “Payday, I'll get some.” I informed him. He looked at me, tilting his head sideways, the way a dog would. “That's a whole week away.” he complained.
Click Here for Part 3
My Closest Friends
I'm sitting on my bed, smoking a cigarette, watching an old movie that I don't even know the name of. Jordy is sitting on the floor, indian style and staring at me.
“What is this? And when will you quit smoking?” he asks. I don't answer him, I've made a habit of ignoring the questions he asks all the time, he'll ask again, regardless of whether or not I answer him, at least two more times. “Where's Helen?” I inquire. He tells me she's sleeping and says that's how she deals with her frustrations, she sleeps. “It's 3am, why aren't you sleeping?” he asks. He already knows why I'm awake, again I ignore his question. Jordy's short, not a midget or a dwarf, just short, five foot even and ugly. He's so ugly that people don't even look at him, never seem to notice him. Occasionally they'll look down at him when we're in public and I'm talking to him. They always then look at me with repulsion, as if to say “How can someone who looks like you, be around something like him?” at least that's how I perceive the look. Jordy will cuss them, even going to the extreme of physically barring their path and verbally accosting them. They usually don't say anything, they look shocked and find a way to go about their business. “Every one in this movie is dead already, all gone, old age cancer and STD's” he says looking to the TV. I take the last drag off of my cigarette before snubbing it out. I ask about the STD's, is he joking I ask him. He explains that the movie was made in the early forties, people didn't know much about STD's back then, they didn't discuss them out of fear and so they died never having been treated. Even Chlamydia can kill you if you let it go long enough, it even causes blindness he tells me. “I don't think it can kill you.” I say. He frowns at me as he stands up, “It's a bacteria, bacteria kills people, it can kill you.” he states in his matter of fact way as he turns and leaves the room. Minutes later he returns and returns to his seat on the floor. “Had to go wash my hands.” he says as I watch him. I ask why. “Bacteria.” he tells me, I laugh at him. He reminds me of the time I had a staph infection and lost 25 pounds only able to eat vanilla pudding and painkillers. I had a large abscess packed with gauze in the back of my leg. It was miserable, fever, lethargy, and euphoria from the OxyContin. Some people might have enjoyed it. I didn't. Helen didn't leave my side very often, every time I'd wake up in my stupor, there she was. Sometimes Jordy was there too, asking me inane questions, why, if I was so sick, was I smoking? When was I going to get out of bed and do something? Why did I turn off the TV? He was always concerned with the things most people don't think about in the moment. “Isn't there something you should be doing?” I ask him. “Sure, drawing, coloring, playing video games, watching porn, surfing the net or maybe I could learn to sculpt? Is there any clay in the house?” he replies. I tell him that we don't have clay and he should go find some way to busy himself. He pouts his way out of the room at this, leaving me with the thought “If no one ever told you that something was wrong, would it still be wrong?” I shake my head, not entertaining his musings tonight.
Helen comes in and sits next to me on the bed as I turn off the light. “Lonely honey?” she asks. I tell her that I'm not in the mood, which does no good, she lies down next to me and puts her head on my chest. A big sigh escapes her mouth to which I respond "I told you I'm not in the mood, I'm tired.” she doesn't listen, never does, she begins to caress my chest and then down across my stomach, until she reaches it, the part of my anatomy she's been obsessed with for years now. I hear Jordy from the next room saying that I should just give in, let her have what she wants. He's right, she won't let me sleep otherwise. I'd hoped that she'd have stayed asleep, but I really should have known better. Finally I relent and grudgingly make love to her. Once it's over, she tells me that she loves me. I say nothing. “It's okay, I don't love you, but I need you, you give me what I need.” she tells me. I ask what it is that I give her, indulging her desire for conversation. “Attention, physical comfort, orgasms.” she whispers,I don't say anything to this and she continues, “Eventually you'll get rid of me, when you don't need me anymore, don't want me anymore, happens every day.” I ask what she means by that last part, she explains, “People want what they want until they don't want it anymore, everyone's disposable, even me.”. I give this last bit some thought. “So you're saying everything's disposable?” I ask. “Everything.” she replies.
“Everything” I parrot.
“It's a disposable world, disposable, lighters, disposable diapers, disposable cups, plates, forks knives, disposable cars, pets and even people. Nothing is permanent, fixed or forever.”
“Me?” I ask.
“No, me, definitely, but not you, you can reinvent me though, make me someone else, Heather? Elaine? Dominique? Whoever you want me to be. You'll always be you, that's how this works. How it always works.” she tells me.
“I thought nothing was permanent?”
“It's your life, your house, your bed, that'll only change if you want it to, you have control. You don't need me, I need you. Without you, I'm just...” she trailed off.
“You're what?” I inquire.
“Sleeping in another room until you want me again.” she giggled followed by a kiss. She sighs again, rolling on her side, I curl up behind her. “Do you love me?” I ask. “Do you want me to love you?” she asks by way of reply.
“Does it matter?”
“Of course, If I love you and you don't want me to, then it doesn't mean anything. It has to be mutual, if one person loves someone who doesn't want their love, that's masochism.” she says.
“And if I do want you to love me, but I don't love you?” I ask.
“Sadism.” she says.
“What if I love you and you don't love me?”
“Is that even possible?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me.
“Maybe.” I say.
“Then I'd leave and you can find your Barbara, or Pamela or Selina, and they'd love you and you them. For a time anyways.”
“For a time?” I ask.
“Love's just a chemical reaction in the brain anyways, it's not real, not like you're real. Serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin and neuroepinephrine secreted by the brain and called love. It always wears off sooner or later.” she tells me.
“So nothing's permanent?” I ask.
“Nope, everything's disposable, even love.” is her answer. I say nothing to this, and she lays her head back down. I hear her breathing slow down as she drifts off to sleep. For some reason her words resonate in me, everything's disposable. I'll have to ask Jordy what he thinks about that in the morning if he's awake. His response should be entertaining, if nothing else it'll force him to stop asking me redundant questions for a while.
I drift off to sleep and I'm walking in a field. I'm dreaming, I know it but can't control this one. Lucid dreaming is a gift I get only from time to time and I always turn them sexual, and they always end as nightmares. With me waking in a cold sweat, blankets soaked, heart pounding as if I've just had an orgasm, only the terror of the dream haunts the rest of my day. I seem to be walking a long time and I see Jordy, sitting on a rock, whittling a piece of wood into the shape of a phallus. I ask him what he's doing and he doesn't seem to register my presence. There's music playing, a tinkling sound, like a child's music box. I know the tune, but cannot place it. The sky is blazingly bright and it starts to rain, with no clouds in the sky. I leave Jordy to his work and continue to walk, in the distance I see a house, small, too small. It looks like it must only be one room. I approach the door feeling sickened as I grasp the door knob and open it. As I enter I see Helen sitting there on a bed, covered in blood and viscera, she's nude and her breasts are smeared with the blood of whatever has been slaughtered here. She looks up at me and smiles, her teeth stained brown and smeared with blood as though she hasn't just been playing with this poor creature that has been slaughtered. I see her reach behind her and she produces a glass filled with clear liquid. “Drink” she hisses at me. I take the glass from her and look at it. “What is it?” I hear my voice ask. “Love” she hisses in return. I drink, guzzling the liquid, it tastes the way rubbing alcohol smells. Despite being a dream, this is amazingly vivid and somehow I actually taste it. My head begins to spin, and I'm filled with a rush of warmth, my heart starts to pound and I feel a stirring in my groin. I look to her again and she smiles at me. I feel the slimy floor with my hands as I fall to my knees, slick with blood and gore. The skin of my feet begins to split open as does the skin on my arms and hands. Tendons, ligaments and musculature exposed and burning, a white blinding pain shoots through me. Everything begins to unravel, muscle falls away from bone, until I am a puddle of my parts, of all that has made up my physical body. Helen moves from the bed over to where my remains lie and she swirls them around with her hand. Scooping a small bit of me to her lips and gargling with it. She spits it out and laughs. She then looks down at what I am guessing is the remains of my skull, at me, or at least what I'm viewing her through. Until now the few words she's spoken have been hisses, now she enunciates clearly “Disposable!” she says with fierce malice on her face.
I bolt upright in bed. I'm sweating, panting, I hear nothing and in the dark of the room, the only light is from my alarm clock. I look to my right to see Helen and realize she's not there. A pillow rests where she lie when we fell asleep. She must have woke up and went off to be about her business of the day and put the pillow there. I know that I won't see her until tonight. That's how it always works. The door opens and Jordy walks in “Everything alright? You yelled.” he asks. I tell him that I'm fine, just another nightmare. He quietly stares at me, he knows my day will be a rough one, the dream will haunt me. I notice something in his hand and ask what he has. “I couldn't find any clay, but I did find some old wood scraps from the shelves you made. I carved this!” he exclaims proudly as he holds up something resembling the shape of a human penis.
Click Here for Part 2
Helen comes in and sits next to me on the bed as I turn off the light. “Lonely honey?” she asks. I tell her that I'm not in the mood, which does no good, she lies down next to me and puts her head on my chest. A big sigh escapes her mouth to which I respond "I told you I'm not in the mood, I'm tired.” she doesn't listen, never does, she begins to caress my chest and then down across my stomach, until she reaches it, the part of my anatomy she's been obsessed with for years now. I hear Jordy from the next room saying that I should just give in, let her have what she wants. He's right, she won't let me sleep otherwise. I'd hoped that she'd have stayed asleep, but I really should have known better. Finally I relent and grudgingly make love to her. Once it's over, she tells me that she loves me. I say nothing. “It's okay, I don't love you, but I need you, you give me what I need.” she tells me. I ask what it is that I give her, indulging her desire for conversation. “Attention, physical comfort, orgasms.” she whispers,I don't say anything to this and she continues, “Eventually you'll get rid of me, when you don't need me anymore, don't want me anymore, happens every day.” I ask what she means by that last part, she explains, “People want what they want until they don't want it anymore, everyone's disposable, even me.”. I give this last bit some thought. “So you're saying everything's disposable?” I ask. “Everything.” she replies.
“Everything” I parrot.
“It's a disposable world, disposable, lighters, disposable diapers, disposable cups, plates, forks knives, disposable cars, pets and even people. Nothing is permanent, fixed or forever.”
“Me?” I ask.
“No, me, definitely, but not you, you can reinvent me though, make me someone else, Heather? Elaine? Dominique? Whoever you want me to be. You'll always be you, that's how this works. How it always works.” she tells me.
“I thought nothing was permanent?”
“It's your life, your house, your bed, that'll only change if you want it to, you have control. You don't need me, I need you. Without you, I'm just...” she trailed off.
“You're what?” I inquire.
“Sleeping in another room until you want me again.” she giggled followed by a kiss. She sighs again, rolling on her side, I curl up behind her. “Do you love me?” I ask. “Do you want me to love you?” she asks by way of reply.
“Does it matter?”
“Of course, If I love you and you don't want me to, then it doesn't mean anything. It has to be mutual, if one person loves someone who doesn't want their love, that's masochism.” she says.
“And if I do want you to love me, but I don't love you?” I ask.
“Sadism.” she says.
“What if I love you and you don't love me?”
“Is that even possible?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me.
“Maybe.” I say.
“Then I'd leave and you can find your Barbara, or Pamela or Selina, and they'd love you and you them. For a time anyways.”
“For a time?” I ask.
“Love's just a chemical reaction in the brain anyways, it's not real, not like you're real. Serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin and neuroepinephrine secreted by the brain and called love. It always wears off sooner or later.” she tells me.
“So nothing's permanent?” I ask.
“Nope, everything's disposable, even love.” is her answer. I say nothing to this, and she lays her head back down. I hear her breathing slow down as she drifts off to sleep. For some reason her words resonate in me, everything's disposable. I'll have to ask Jordy what he thinks about that in the morning if he's awake. His response should be entertaining, if nothing else it'll force him to stop asking me redundant questions for a while.
I drift off to sleep and I'm walking in a field. I'm dreaming, I know it but can't control this one. Lucid dreaming is a gift I get only from time to time and I always turn them sexual, and they always end as nightmares. With me waking in a cold sweat, blankets soaked, heart pounding as if I've just had an orgasm, only the terror of the dream haunts the rest of my day. I seem to be walking a long time and I see Jordy, sitting on a rock, whittling a piece of wood into the shape of a phallus. I ask him what he's doing and he doesn't seem to register my presence. There's music playing, a tinkling sound, like a child's music box. I know the tune, but cannot place it. The sky is blazingly bright and it starts to rain, with no clouds in the sky. I leave Jordy to his work and continue to walk, in the distance I see a house, small, too small. It looks like it must only be one room. I approach the door feeling sickened as I grasp the door knob and open it. As I enter I see Helen sitting there on a bed, covered in blood and viscera, she's nude and her breasts are smeared with the blood of whatever has been slaughtered here. She looks up at me and smiles, her teeth stained brown and smeared with blood as though she hasn't just been playing with this poor creature that has been slaughtered. I see her reach behind her and she produces a glass filled with clear liquid. “Drink” she hisses at me. I take the glass from her and look at it. “What is it?” I hear my voice ask. “Love” she hisses in return. I drink, guzzling the liquid, it tastes the way rubbing alcohol smells. Despite being a dream, this is amazingly vivid and somehow I actually taste it. My head begins to spin, and I'm filled with a rush of warmth, my heart starts to pound and I feel a stirring in my groin. I look to her again and she smiles at me. I feel the slimy floor with my hands as I fall to my knees, slick with blood and gore. The skin of my feet begins to split open as does the skin on my arms and hands. Tendons, ligaments and musculature exposed and burning, a white blinding pain shoots through me. Everything begins to unravel, muscle falls away from bone, until I am a puddle of my parts, of all that has made up my physical body. Helen moves from the bed over to where my remains lie and she swirls them around with her hand. Scooping a small bit of me to her lips and gargling with it. She spits it out and laughs. She then looks down at what I am guessing is the remains of my skull, at me, or at least what I'm viewing her through. Until now the few words she's spoken have been hisses, now she enunciates clearly “Disposable!” she says with fierce malice on her face.
I bolt upright in bed. I'm sweating, panting, I hear nothing and in the dark of the room, the only light is from my alarm clock. I look to my right to see Helen and realize she's not there. A pillow rests where she lie when we fell asleep. She must have woke up and went off to be about her business of the day and put the pillow there. I know that I won't see her until tonight. That's how it always works. The door opens and Jordy walks in “Everything alright? You yelled.” he asks. I tell him that I'm fine, just another nightmare. He quietly stares at me, he knows my day will be a rough one, the dream will haunt me. I notice something in his hand and ask what he has. “I couldn't find any clay, but I did find some old wood scraps from the shelves you made. I carved this!” he exclaims proudly as he holds up something resembling the shape of a human penis.
Click Here for Part 2
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