Chapter 7

Chapter 7

            Back home. Pinky is there before me and wants to tell me about the great movie she saw for free. That’s one of the perks of her job: she gets to watch movies without paying. I don’t feel like talking, and let her know this.

            I also mention to her, in passing as if it is the most mundane thing, that I'm thinking about blowing my fuckin head off while she's asleep. She reminds me that I don't own a gun. Maybe I hate her a little for that. Oh well. She's right anyway.

            She suggests that we have sex and I tell her that I have a headache. Maybe she thinks this is weird. I just want to lie down, I tell her; I want to rest my head in the dark and see if I feel better. She acquiesces and I retire to the bedroom (look at me now, all Nick and Nora Charles and shit- don’t you fall for it; I’m as ghetto as I ever was).

            I slip off my pants and fall back on the bed. Eyes closed I can see Bambi Woods sucking her bosses cock in her faux Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader uniform and I’m instantly hard. Bambi morphs into Sindee as I start to squeeze my engorged cock in my left hand. Sindee gives way to Tori Amos and I can almost hear her asking me to hand her her leather. I’m working my glans in a fist slicked with spit when, without any precursor Tori is replaced by Carol. This isn’t sexy, flirty, breathing Carol. No, this is dead, soon to be feasted upon by politic worms Carol. And I ejaculate without any pleasure just as Pinky walks in.

            Oh. She says, obviously disappointed.

            Yeah.

            I stand and pull on my pants. Pinky has a look. Quisitive doesn’t seem like the right word, but it’s the one I want to use.

            I gotta go.

            I can’t think of anything else to say. She is watching as I swoop out of the apartment. In the night I don’t take the car. I just walk without any destination in mind.

            I really like cheese. Truly I do.

            There is a cool breeze coming from the north and it pushes back my hair as I walk into it. A girl passes me. She is all smooth edges and round bits and as she moves by me I get a whiff of secret sweat hidden under vanilla body lotion. This is an odor that causes instant arousal, but I just let her go and keep walking. I used to walk a lot. I'd go out at night and just move through the streets aimlessly for hours to enjoy the sights and smells. I never do that anymore. Those days are gone.

            It occurs to me that you must be bored. I mean really, how long can you read about a man fishing for shit in a toilet? I'm thinking this when something happens.

            There are a few literary plot devices that I hate. For instance, you ever read a book or see a TV show where you find out at the end that it was all a dream? That pisses me off. I despise that.

            Another one I don't like is when a character is introduced just to serve a specific plot purpose and then just forgotten about. Dickens used to do that. It would always piss me right the fuck off.

            The worst though is when the narrator says something along the lines of: this is where the story starts to get weird.

            Now that I've said that, let me just say that truly this is where the story starts to get weird.

            Just up the block I see Santa Clause rummaging in a trash can. He's pulling out the remains of sandwiches and stale pizza crusts and bits of left over Chinese food and stuffing this filth buffet into his dirty gaping mouth. There is a thick black liquid dripping from his mouth in stringy tendrils that stretch as they fall getting thinner at the center and bulging at their tip until the saliva tensile strength reached and exceeded. Then the viscous ebony liquid strands snap and plop on the pavement around his feet.

            As I pass he looks up and snarls at me with broken teeth and red rimmed eyes. His finger nails are thick, yellow and long and his jolly red suit is caked with stains that look very nasty. His knuckles are red and raw as if he’s been punching something very hard and rough. His stench washes over me and I look him right in the eyes.

            It’s okay buddy, I say thinking that it may calm him.

            She hasn’t forgiven you.

            What? I’m a little shocked that he speaks so clearly. I expected word salad at best.

            Carol.

            What did you say?

            Carol. She hasn’t forgiven you.

            Who the fuck are you? I’m starting to get seriously creeped out.

            She wont ever forgive you.

            Get fucked I say and try not to let my voice break. I start to run and somehow it starts to rain. Looking back would be a very bad idea. If I look back I might see that he’s really there, that I didn’t imagine him. Even worse I could see that he isn’t there.

            For just a minute I think that I can hear him behind me; his feet pounding out echoes on the wettening pavement. He must be gaining on me. I round the corner and finally look back. He isn’t following me. Not now. So I start walking again.

            I pass whores and homeless men and a talking stop sign. That last one is a lie. I just wanted to fuck with you for a  minute.

            There’s a bar up ahead and I think that it must be my destination after all. My head hurts.

            This is a regular guy bar. It's filled with people I could fight. The problem is I don't wanna fight anybody. I don't want anything at all, really. Where do you think art comes from? Is it inspiration? You know, like the muses and shit. Or does it come from the desire for political action? Or could it just be fucked up brain chemistry. That one seems most likely to me.

            I take a bar stool and try to get the bartender’s attention. It isn’t hard. 

            Whatchya want buddy?

            A scotch, I say, and another scotch. 

            I hold up some wrinkled bills and he pours my liquor from a bottle with a non-descript label. I take the scotch slowly at first, sipping, then gulp. On my third I start wondering if it would freak the guys here out if I worked up some stigmata. It’s an old trick, sure, but I still get a kick out of it.

            Three or four glasses of scotch in and I start to feel the pulse warmth of well being. It makes my skin crawl. I can't take this shit anymore. Desire. 

            So there was this Indian prince named Siddhartha. This dude was rich; I mean like Bill Gates rich. He had everything anyone could want. A wife. A string of lovers. Gold and jewels. Elephants and shit. Seriously, for the day and age he had it all. Trouble was, he felt like shit all the damn time. One day he wandered out away from his home and collapsed under a little tree to think.  After a while something came to him. What he figured out was this:

            Life is filled with suffering. Suffering is caused by desire. If you could stop desiring, you could stop suffering. 

            Then he had some Ponzi scheme to help peeps stop all that nasty desiring, but that isn't important.

            What feels important right now is that I need to stop wanting so fucking much. Then maybe I could settle down and get right to the business of rotting. 

            Desiccated is the word I’m stretching for without any real context to place it in.

            Let’s have another drink, huh?

            Yes. Let’s.

            Stumble back home and find that Pinky is already asleep. Fall in bed next to her warm, naked form and pass out. 

            Waves rushing and eroding the edges of a beach that stretches on into a dead night that will never end. Out in the black surf something moves; something tenebrous and ancient and powerful; something a little like me.

            I awake with my fists clenched in tight balls pulling at the sheet which is soaked around me in sweat that is well below the temperature of the room and sinking quickly. 

            After death body temp drops two degrees in the first hour and one degree each hour after that. Carol went through that same process. The invasion of cold is always followed by the growth of bacteria and of a certain species of politic worm, as someone once said.

            After some time I sleep.

please?