Fuckin' Fiction

It’s odd, that when you are at your most vulnerable, the thing that you want. Maybe you want someone to defend you. Maybe you want someone to be with you, to share in the experience of not knowing what is going on. That is not what I wanted at all. I didn’t want a strong woman to be with me. To help me. To defend me. To seek out care for me.

I wanted a girl I had some time ago. The one that had made me feel strong. Made me feel like the protector. It didn’t matter that I was the one that was suffering. I felt that I needed someone to protect. To take my mind off my own problems. Fuck me. I just want to protect someone else, not myself.

Your hands went numb at first only temporarily. You couldn’t quite tell if your mental processes were effected the first time. Oh but you could when it wouldn’t go away. When you couldn’t sleep it off anymore. You’re confused all the time now. You have limited feelings in your hands and legs. Working has become more difficult, it’s hard to remember things people just said to you.

“Someone help, Someone please help me.” It’s what you want to paste in your facebook status, or your twitter client. When you are staring at unexplained symptoms, when you are staring at the potential of a disease that will be with you with the rest of your life, and you’ve burnt all the bridges of the people who physically manifest your life. You just need someone to come see you. Someone to help you get motivated to clean up the house. Someone to help you do something besides drink…Because that’s why you’re here. You drank so much, for so long. You may actually have something fatal, and no not something so classic as liver damage. Life like’s to make ironies. It always has. So you’re going to the doctor, to see if you have alcoholic neuropathy. The thing that makes you unique, your one admirable quality…It’s dieing. Your nervous system no longer cares what you do. It’s just going to be failing for the rest of your life. Or is it. It could be something more simple like a lack of thiamine, dry beriberi. But you don’t know, and you don’t know what seems more likely. You tried to cure yourself but the doctor’s visit looms in the future, altogether at once a source of dread and a source of hope.

I know I’ve said it before but it needs to be said again. All the education on drug and alcohol abuse I had to go through as a child, was not a deterrent. It really would have to try harder. The thing is they tell you, you’ll get brain damage. That the chemicals will physically hurt you. That they will possibly even kill you. But what they should explain about alcoholism, isn’t the blood on the brain, it isn’t the constant degradation of intelligence, the eventual collapse into Korsakoff’s syndrome, no not any of these. They should mention the constant diarrhea. From having a diet based exclusively on smoke and beer. The constant and ever flowing liquid shit. Then the blood. The first time you see the blood you think, well my poops a funny color today. And you can deny it for a while. That it’s not blood. Until one day you walk a couple miles, and your ass fills real sweaty. So you go to the bathroom, just to wipe the sweat off your ass…but it’s not sweat at all, it’s a primarily blood mixture. I’ll let you stipulate on the other ingredients.
So you’ve been smoking and drinking every day for 10 years or more, and 5 of those you have constant diarrhea which has mildly interfered with your life, and caused agitation to your inner asshole, so much the veins break and you get the occasional blood. And your walking into the liquor store, and you got the urge, for a toilet break. Normally you could deal with this, but it’s not normally. Because you accidentally took a big breath, and here comes that smokers cough. One of those, blows a bit of liquidy goodness right out your ass. As an alcoholic of 10 years or more though you have a system. You were already wearing a buffer pair of pj’s or longjohns in between your underwear and pants. So it’s just going to go down your leg, most likely no one will notice….well it depends on how much you got running down your leg. The smell might reveal yourself. So that’s when you enter the liquor store. You grab a couple of cheap bottles of wine, or a bottle of scotch. You pay the man, all the while your wondering…
does he know…that there’s shit on my leg. That actuall human feces is on me at this moment, while I’m handing him this twenty dollar bill. Does he know. Once you get your change back though, that’s something. You just fucking one. You have more alcohol, nothings really going to stop you. You don’t think about the drip down your leg anymore, you just waddle home. Happy as a clam. Knowing you won.
Until you make it home and you put the key in the door, and right at that moment, at that second, plop, it just made it in your shoe. Goddamnit. But you go to the bathroom you clean yourself thoroughly with toliet paper and soap. Then take a shower for good measure.(Probably take a poop first though). It’s over. Now crack the wine, and tommorrow is another day.

It’s interesting going to a rave. A party where everyone is guaranteed for everybody to be on drugs. And mostly happy drugs like extacsy, or “molly” a powdered version of MDMA that doesn’t last as long, and doesn’t leave you feeling as rough. Others choose acid, or xanax, or whatever, but usualy that’s because they couldn’t get a hold of the “club” drugs. I went thinking, that I would have some beer, maybe pop a klonopin(a benzodiazapam, simialr to valium or xanax). I took one and pre-gamed a few beers, I figured I would be asking my partner in crime.

I told him we needed baby sitters. We used to do that, have baby sitters when we knew we were getting totally wasted, he was going to be rolling.

However once I arrived, I realized we were the baby sitters, the drug vetrans(marines in the field), a couple 25 year olds who have been eating various psychotropics since we were 16. The average age at the club, was probably 16 until 12 anyway.  My buddy scored me some molly, and after scoping the place out I realized that I was in no danger. I was more in charge of myself fucked up, more than these kids could ever be.

Not to say I didn’t violate a few faux pas, like bringing my prescription bottle out in public to give people k’s. It’s not bad to give people k’s just bad to flash the bottle when the police are around, and they were. One person left in handcuffs, it was suspected he was the molly distributor. I didn’t get a good look.

For the most part I had a euphoric time and behaved myself and everyone was friendly. I treated it as a conference and would introduce myself to people and they would introduce themselves. I would ask them what they do, meaning occupation, but usually got resposnses like “Sitting here”, “Enjoying myself”, or “uhhh”. I should have taken the hint that this was not the way to behave at a rave. It wasn’t until one answer, that I became disheartened and start trying different methods. I introduced myself, and asked what someone did, he said “I work at Wendy’s”. I felt bad, I mean sure he was probably only 16 or something, and that’s respectable, but again, it made me realize I was the old man. I’m the wolf in sheep’s clothing, trying to be a vegetarian.

All the girls were friendly and I even propositioned dates, and got turned down….a lot. but it was a really positive experience for the most part. This one girl approached me, and she was like, I like the look of you guys, referring to myself and my partner in crime. She then asked what I thought her age was and I said “22″, she laughed her ass off. She said “I’m 14″. I got a kiss or two on the four head…when you’re on ex that doesn’t really mean anything except maybe you have a bumpy forehead and the girl wants to know what that feel slike on her lips.

So at 11 the crackdown began, which means they kicked out the supremely underaged….and kept the semi-underaged he looked good. The started to sell beer at this point, so I bought a sparks at sat down. This girl who had been hanging out with me an my partner and was a good companion was pretty fun. My buddy said she kept saying she likes geeky guys and maybe I should ask for a date or something. Having a little molly left in my system I did, I did it as eloquently as I could. I was rejected. It was nice. But the molly pretty much dried up then. I began chugging sparks and eating k’s like there was no tommorrow. I convinced my buddy it was time to go. He brought two girls home with us. When I got home I drank a beer, took another k and passed out. I don’t know what they did, but apparently the girls left at 6am.

Some people are Islands.

She had never been quite right. But her mental stability ebbed and flowed. She was molested and beaten as a child. Forced to do strange things, not even of a sexual nature. Just weird acts that seemed unnatural. But that wasn’t the only thing that was wrong with her. That wasn’t the root cause. She clearly had other mental issues, not stemming from child hood trauma.

As a teen she acted out occasionally in outbursts but for the most part was calm. She kept herself together the best she could. When she was totally falling apart she internalized it, as much as could be done. After graduating high school she got a job working at a fast food chain and put her self through a community college, again off and on seeing various psychologists and psychiatrists. After that she took out loans for college. She graduated with a degree in Literature.

After that she started seeing doctors pretty regularly. As stable as she could.

He had come into her life two months earlier. At that time, she was just pulling her life back together. She had found some medication that was finally keeping her stable. She was able to hold a job, editing letters and other paperwork for a local lawyer’s office. Things were still tough and she was still a wreck, but she was finally getting things together.

He was weird and perfect. He never graduated from any school but was incredibly knowledgeable, he knew how to hold her. He couldn’t comfort her perfectly, but he could comfort her in such a way that, she though maybe no one else could.

She cried everyday, and he didn’t care. When she rolled over the thought of the myriad of prescriptions she took, there was always a duality there. Are these things destroying me? Are they taking my personality away. Can I live without them? What do they really do to me? She fought these thoughts off mostly with how well she was doing, at this moment. That it had in fact been the medication that was keeping her “stable” and alive.

On several occasions he expressed he understood the nature of her, back and forth hatred of the medicine’s she took. He would even try to organize side effect charts and possible effects, and suggestions for the doctors. He only did this when he thought she might actually be receptive to these sorts of conversations, which was rarely.

They would talk deeply about Kerouac deeply, something they both enjoyed. Sometimes Faulkner and Plath, more of her favorites. Middle of the road, were things like J D Salinger. But when it was his turn it always turned to Burroughs or Bukowski, though she didn’t like the lowbrow styles, she enjoyed his passion.

Most of the time she didn’t want to talk. But she did want to hear, and not just background noise from a tv or a radio, but something real. He picked up this early on in their relationship(?). He would talk about Aristotle, and his criticism’s thereof, never once siting his sexism or political incorrectness. He spoke about Socrates as a crazy schizophrenic. When they were both feeling particularly morbid he would talk about Mengele’s attempts to change the eye color’s of “patients” by injecting chemical’s into them. He spoke about Hadrian’s wall, and the appalachian trail. About how Estonia was full of hacker children

She knew he had never left the country, and detested hiking. She had never seen him read a book. He worked at a local grocery store stocking shelves.

As far as he knew her only living relative she kept in contact was her sister. They rarely talked and when he overheard the conversations, they sounded more like check ups.

“Are you taking your medication”

“Of Course”

“Are you ok”

“You know how I am”

“I just want you to be ok.”

A few days after that phone call they were walking down the sidewalk. A mangy but somewhat adorable puppy approached them, he looked down at it and said, “Hey little guy, where are you from?”

She responded, “Don’t end a sentence in a preposition.”

He chuckled “So what do you have a copy of Strunk and White under your bed?”

“Quit it, quit it, quit it” she screamed.

“What?”

“You never went to college, you shouldn’t say things like that.”

“…I’m sorry, I uh…”

“Nevermind, just nevermind” she screamed and ran off.

He was confused, but decided the best action was to let her cool off, he would call her later tonight.

Later that night he made the phone call…She didn’t answer, he was concerned.

He hadn’t heard from her by the next day, after completing his shift he headed over to her apartment. He knocked, no answer. He slipped his debit card in the door, jiggled the handle until he could open it. There was no sign of her. He went to the bathroom to wash his face, and that’s where she was. Wrists and throat slit by a double edged razor. He called 911 as though it would do any good.

He and her sister, were the only attendees at the funeral. Her sister asked who he was. He said “I think I a..was her boyfriend.”

“Why did she do it?”

“I don’t know, there was a note”

He handed it to her, it said:

“He’s not real.

I’m crazy.”

“Really I’m never happy I’m just surving” I said.

“Well yeah”

“So you’re always happy?”

“I guess”

“I mean I’m crawling up this steep mountain and I’m fighting it tooth and nail…I’m misreable”

“Well I guess I’m not happy, I just hope for happy”

“Like one day, after your done with school, everything will just change, you will hit some sort of happy plateau”‘

“Wow, really?”

“Yeah”

“Man that’s life changing let me write that down”

Writing it down I showed it to her, it said
“Strive…no, hope..the plateau is coming”

“Yeah it will be there”

“Wow that’s life changing, I’m going to try that.”

Corporation

I was sitting comfortably at home, doing something I considered particularly manly, like watching Dirty Jobs, and taking shots of Jameson. I was getting settled in, still not fully comfortable in my new half of a duplex. My over technologically burdened phone rang, it was a friend. With a plea.

Taken to an art show. Kidnapped even. A friends date had abandoned him, and he requested I go. I didn’t want to go, I even said no. But he begged, promising he would pay, there would be wine and, I would get one of whatever the benzodiazepine flavor of the month was.

The trip began, after we had pulled out of my driveway, my friend informs me this is a formal event. I am wearing a hoodie and jeans. I hated going to these things. They were all the same, just differing amounts of people. “Art” that either no one could afford, or would want. This one was a particular brand of unorganized. Though the venue was atypical. It was an alley that was rented for the evening, enclosed by pull down garage style gates. It was even more unique in that, there were two floors, and a roof semi encapsulated it, leaving a space in the middle. The Logo of some giant oppressive corporation, being able to be seen in the gap in the roof.

We walked through the cold alley, up the stairs, to the show room, which was only two rooms, and neither were filled. We would later learn, many artists had flaked out, we learned from one artist, when asking where the rest of the show was being displayed. We decided to get in line for the wine. As I approached the female server, she asked what I would like,

“Pinot Grigio” I said. She quickly sorted through bottles of red wine,if you can even call White Zinfandel red wine. Then after making it to the whites she found a bottle. She was having difficulty using the corkscrew. I began explaining how to correctly open the bottle, when a blonde woman behind me began giving her, incorrect instructions. I just quit talking at that point and decided to let it play out. The organizer of the even came over to sort out what was going on, and opened the bottle for her, and poured my wine. Less than a shot…into a red dixie cup. There were assorted cheddar and sharp cheeses.

We wandered onto the “balcony” area. I leaned against the poles trying to find something interesting to take a picture of.

He said, “It’s time”, and handed me the pill.

“Well that wasn’t fucking obvious.”

“It’s Excedrin.”

“Well I do have a headache.”

We returned into the gallery rooms examining the art. Most of it was paintings on seemingly unique surfaces, sometimes peaking an interest, a spark of creativity, but mostly leaving the gazer filled with his awkwardness about being in the crowd.

One of the female artists was checking my friend out. As he approached her, I pretended to be interested in the features of my phone. Randomly hitting buttons to make new menus pop up and old ones go away. Not doing much. As soon as I noticed they had moved a safe distance away I went to go get another glass of wine, and when the server, the female one who had returned, asked me what I wanted, I said, “that one” pointing to the one in her hand, this one was more full than the last.

After my friend quit talking to the artist. I approached him, I believe we went back for wine two more times…but really, who can remember. We leaned on the balcony. What appeared to be a couple, two women, passed us.

“See that’s what gets me, that’s what turns me on” I said.

“Who these guys or those”

“The two women who want to be boys…They don’t, want to be men, they want to be boys.”

“You should invite them home”

“I think they’re a couple”

“I fail to see the problem”

“Something’s wrong with me”

We stood on the balcony for a few minutes.

“I thought there would be prettier people here.” He said.

“Why would you think that?”

There was a pause.

“These people do things, they create, pretty people don’t do that, they don’t have to.” I said.

“Yeah, but usually pretty people are easily impressed, and hang out with the people that are smart.” he responded.

“Real subtle, asshole.” I said.

The artist he had been talking to was coming out of the gallery with two other attractive females. They were taking a smoke break. We mentioned we were leaving and would join them on their smoke break. While they smoked we invited them to a cafe but their were no takers, the artist had to stay at the show anyway. We went to the cafe, it was primarily uneventful.

After returning to my half of a duplex, we drank Jameson, and watched cartoons. When the bottle was empty, he bitched about wanting more booze. I went to bed.

I hate art shows.

The next day Marion wasn’t at work. He searched for her on the schedule but she must have been listed under her last name or something. The next day she wasn’t there either. He wondered if it was a dream. Marion was there the next day. As he was walking by her in the kitchen he waved and mumbled “hi”. Marion didn’t acknowledge him. This continued for the evening shift. He began to feel not only rejected, but just like a shit head, violating someone else’s privacy, someone else’s life. He served his shift, make less than meager tips, most likely because of his morose attitude…oh who the fuck was he kidding he always felt like serving her was like working at a shit hole, maybe just tonight it shined through more. At the end of his shift he went into a closet, it had racks of coke syrup boxes on shelves like the one’s Marion had been setting on the night that he met her, except these went to the ceiling, other than these racks and the ice machine, and himself, nothing else fit in this closet. He locked the door. He through his mandatory vest against ice machine then punched on of the syrup boxes hard…to hard, syrup spurted all over his shirt, he was stick and gross and full of hate for himself. He sat there with syrup squirting, then finally just dripping all over him. After he felt sorry for himself long enough he left the closet, calmly grabbed a new syrup box to replace the broken one. A cook asked “What the hell happened!!”, “It just exploded on me, I don’t know”. He replaced the syrup box, and through the old one away. He walked out the back employee exit covered in syrup caring his relatively clean vest. And Marion was standing there smoking a cigarette. He stopped stunned. “What you think just because you let me sleep at your place once, I owe you something” she paused, took a drag and continued “Cause that’s not the way it is”, “No I just, that’s..”, he sighed and started to walk away. “What the hell are you covered in?”, He stopped, “Oh it’s syrup, the syrup exploded.”. “That’s rough”, “Yeah, you know shit happens”.”Hey look, my roomies are at again, you mind if I stay at your place again….I’ll help you get the syrup out of that shirt, I know those tuxedo shirts we have to wear are expensive”. “Actually, I’d like that very much”. They took his car to his apartment. The car ride was awkwardly silent. Like awful awkwardly silent. When they got there he asked if she wanted something to change into, and she said she wanted a baggie t-shirt. So when he came back he had changed into an old black tee with a few holes in it. And through here a large T-shirt with a Bukowski print he had gotten from etsy. She pulled her tuxedo shirt off, and embarrassed he quickly turned around. She helped him through his sticky tuxedo shirt and black pants into the dryer. And they set down. He put some yo la tengo on the record player. And something happened. They started to talk. They talked about similar bands they liked. They talked about goals and the future. They talked about their parents….they both got upset. He shared about how his mom was delusional from drinking to much and taking pills prescribed from multiple doctors she had tricked. She talked about her abusive father. He started to tear up…..Then it happened. She told him about how, she didn’t feel like a woman at all, that she felt like she should be a boy, man. They both cried.

That night, they made love. Everything changed. Everything was different. Everything was odd. Everything was uncomfortable, but everything was better. And he loved Marion.

We lived in the city. I had lived there since graduating from a private University, the option was to go back home to the folks, or to get an immediate job and work towards something better. I became a server at a semi upscale restaurant, where the business people rolled on in a lil before five, to stuff themselves with fourteen dollar appetizers, martinis and imported beers. I had a nasty attitude about them with the other servers. I was polite to them of course, but as soon as I was in the kitchen I would make jokes about how they were getting plastered so laying down with their wives tonight wouldn’t be so bad. I really thought I was a witty guy. One night a lot of that changed. I was finishing up my shift I can’t passing someone who was sitting on the racks of soft drink boxes that feed into the carbonation machine. Their face in their hands. I asked one of the servers, “What’s his deal”.”I think she just got dumped or something, she’s been crying like that for an hour, someone’s covering her tables for an hour.” I approached …Marion, and I asked what was up. And could then here gentle sobbing. “I just want to be alone, just LEAVE”, “Woah, hey now  What’s up do you need anything?”. She quit crying, and she looked up at my face. her eyes were a little swollen from crying, but she was gorgeous, despite it. “Look, I can start doing my closing duties in a minute, and I’m outta here”. I suddently became aware that I was a “shift leader”, or some imaginary title that supposedly gave me power but no raise. “Oh no don’t worry about it, I’ll get those taken care of you, you have a car or a ride home”, she let out a single sob or a sign, I’m not sure which. “I..I walk.”, “Alright I’ll give you a ride home, you stay here, I’ll get everything taken care of”. I walked away into the dining area, and found my buddy Jimmy, he was from Boston, but you could only tell when he said “car”. “Hey Jimmy, you need some extra cash”, “Hell yea…err”, he paused realizing customers were around. “You do my closing and the new girls I’ll give you ten bucks”. “Dude, ten bucks?”, “Alright, 20″. “Sounds more like it, you do my closing tomorrow?”, “Don’t push it”,”Alright, Alright”.

I made my way back to the kitchen to find Marion and she wasn’t where she had been sitting I glanced around and didn’t see here, I hollered at a chef “Where’s the new girl”, he pointed towards the back employee exit. I ran out the exit. She was walking away from the restaurant through the massive parking lot. “Hey I yelled”, she didn’t respond. I ran after her. “Hey what’s up, I’ll give you a ride home, no big deal.”, “I don’t want to go home.”, “Oh where are you going?”, “I don’t know”, “Well why not go home?”, “I hate my room mates”, “Well you need a place to sleep, or somewhere to be”, “Just leave me alone” tears started to stream down her cheeks, though her facial expression was as stoic as I had ever seen. “Look this is weird I know, but you could sleep at my place”, “What are you some kind of creep”, “No it’s just that turnovers bad, and before you…quit serving tables, you were doing well, and I’ll sleep on the couch, I sleep on the couch anyway”. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU”, she screamed then slid to her knees bowing her head. At first he thought she was crying but she wasn’t. Apprehensively he bent down, grabbed one of her arms and slid it over his shoulder.He assisted her to his car, a beat up, 1987 Grand Marquis.He placed her gently. In the passengers side. He closed the door, and drove them to his apartment, he would glance over now and again, and just be calmed by her beauty. It was on the third floor and it was difficult to assist her walking to his apartment. As promised on entry she noticed the couch had full bed coverings including a sheet, a quilt, and several pillows. He walked her through the hallway to the bedroom in the back of the apartment, the room was totally sparse except and elegant wrought iron bed frame, and mattresses on top of it. He laid her on the bed, and left the room, He came back with covers and said, “My name is Tyler”, she responded “I’m Marion……Are you going to rape me?”, Tyler chuckled, and he said, “No, I’m going to love you, and that’s much worse.” Little did he know that statement very well might apply to both of them. He put the blankets at the foot of her bed and left the room.

He turned on some light music from a little stereo he owned, he  played something from the band “Low”. He couldn’t sleep for a bit, but eventually faded to slumber. A few hours later he awoke to Marion squeezing on the couch with him. He pretended to sleep, and once she was settled he put her arm over Marion’s stomach.

He awoke to Marion leaving, he had so much he wanted to say. He felt that someone had just disemboweled his emotions. He said nothing, because he had no idea how she felt. He hoped that she would be working tomorrow his next shift.

I’ve been dating her for about 7 months…maybe him, I don’t know. Hmm…You’re probably going to need an explanation on that. She was..he was… man this stuff makes me a little uncomfortable. Anyway Marion, feels that though she was born a woman, that her gender, her role, is that of a man. I don’t talk to my friends about this, I don’t know how Marion would feel about it, I don’t know how I would talk to them about it anyway. She has short hair, and wears t-shirts and shirts that button up. What you might imagine, I know. I have always been attracted to skinny women with short hair. I don’t know. Anyway today is worse than others. Sh…Marion is crying, she is confused, torn up that she doesn’t know herself , that she doesn’t know what to do or how to be…I guess, I’m inferring a lot, she tells me what she can, when she’s ready, I have to extrapolate a lot. It’s hard, it must be worse for her of course. I love Marion. It’s the only thing I know for sure anymore.
Sometimes after sex, s..Marion cries. Sometimes she just rolls over and doesn’t look at me. When she cries, sometimes I hold her because that’s what I think she wants, and sometimes I don’t because I think that’s what she wants. And sometimes I hold her, even though I think, I know, she doesn’t want it, but I need it.