9. Call Girls and Chess




• Cardboard boxes threaten Marty Patrilla, surrounding him on all sides. They are stacked everywhere in haphazard rows, reaching six feet high in some places.
  
  But he is oblivious to everything except the ceiling fan’s thin brass chain. It mesmerizes him as it twirls and twirls in endless circles, providing a backdrop for the montage of images that swirl through his head, namely his ex-wife. If an earthquake shook the foundation of his Tudor home, he would continue to sink into the dusty recliner and brood about her.
  
  He finally rises off the recliner with labored movements, like a stubborn pile of dough that clings to the rolling pin. The maze of cardboard boxes makes it difficult for him to navigate his round frame through the house.
  
  The pungent odor of ammonia from a litter box permeates the air. The walls are plastered with faded rectangular shapes. He walks to one of the faded, yellowish spots, and imagines the framed photo of Bobby Fischer that once hung there. In the photo Fischer wore a gray beret and played chess with a young man in Central Park.
  
  He looks to the boxes behind him. Their flaps hang clumsily open, revealing stuffed pillows in the shape of chess pieces. Souvenirs and rolled posters poke through another box. The boxes are labeled with various room names and one is labeled Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator. Aside from the mangy recliner, the only remaining piece of furniture in the house is a lacquered coffee table. A crystal chessboard stands proudly on the center of it.
  
  He walks toward the chess board, but stumbles and coughs. He catches himself on the coffee table. It creaks beneath his weight, threatening to split and collapse at any moment.
  
  Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
  
  Marty’s eyes flash to the door. He pushes himself off of the coffee table. A leg of the table shoots out from underneath it. It continues standing on the remaining three legs, but is tilted in the corner with the missing leg. The chess board slides down the coffee table, spilling the chess pieces. He plants his stomach like a barricade on the coffee table and lets the pieces slide into it, scooping them into his shirt. He catches the board with his free hand and sets it down on the floor. A solitary chess piece-a Queen- escapes him and falls to the floor, a tiny shard splinters from its diadem. He walks to the recliner and kneels, carefully dumping the pieces onto it.
  
  Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
  
  He hurries to the bathroom and runs a comb through the dark tufts that line his head in a horseshoe-patterned ring. The gray-green grime coating the inside of the sink is more becoming than he is.
  
  Thump, thump.
  
  “Just a second!”
  
  A young woman of barely twenty is standing outside with her arms crossed. Her eyes are olive-green. He scans her full lips and thin face and she looks away from him. He is momentarily lost in her.
  
  Her shiny, dark hair is coiled in tight perfect curls and hangs over her shoulders. She wears a short, black skirt and a tight, turquoise halter-top. Finally, he waves her in. Her black heels click and scrape the cement. His head turns and follows her as she walks past him and into the house.
  
  She scans the room and eyes the stacked boxes. Her pointy nose crinkles. She coughs lightly, covering her mouth.
  
  “Oh, sorry, sorry. The cat,” Marty says.
  
  “Oh?”
  
  “Yeah, Ginger. She’s at the vet. Poor thing.”
  
  Marty pulls out a spray bottle of cinnamon air freshener and sprays the room.
  
  “Ging-air, cute name. So where are you moving to?” she says, slowly enunciating each word with a thick, Baltic accent.
  
  “Don’t know yet. Anyway, can I get you a drink? I’ve got gin and tonic.”
  
  Her eyes continue to scan the mess. She notices the chess pillows. Through the boxes, she sees a shaft of light gleaming off of the Queen.
  
  “I have to go now,” she says.
  
  “Why?”
  
  “I am late.”
  
  He walks closer to her. She turns away and begins walking to the door.
  
  “Late? I already paid Tye. You owe me a half hour.”
  
  He walks in front of the door, blocking her. Her face creases in a medley of something between fright and anger. She pulls out a cell phone, daring him to come any closer.
  
  “You are the one. The other girls told me about you. Chess-guy-creep.”
  
  “Creep? They bitch about getting $250 to make small talk and play a little chess?”
  
  “They say you don’t have sex, you only want to complain about your life. I don't mind chess, but they say you drone on and on and won't let them leave. We are call girls, not psychiatrists. Maybe you should speak with one instead, it is probably cheaper.”
  
  “I’ve already been fucked by plenty of psychiatrists and lawyers. It isn’t any cheaper, trust me.”
  
  She shoves him aside and walks to the door. Her hand is on the knob.
  
  “Good bye, chess-guy-creep.”
  
  “Wait,” he says, pulling out his wallet, “I won’t bitch, just give me a chance. We can watch a movie or something. We don’t even have to talk.”
  
  He opens his wallet and hands her a stack of crisp bills. She fans them out in a spread. She smiles for a moment, but a serious look floods her face.
  
  “Okay, but if you start complaining and depressing me, I go. Just like the other girls.”
  
  Marty holds up his hands in defense and says, “No, no. Don’t worry. I won’t. I’m Marty by the way.”
  
  He extends his hand. She reluctantly shakes it.
  
  “I’m Jordan.”
  
  “Jordan from Latvia?” he says.
  
  She shrugs and says, “My mother liked The Great Gatsby, what can I say?”
  
  ***
  
  Marty snores on his recliner. A few trickles of dried blood cake his nostrils and upper lip. A condominium guide from Costa Rica flutters on his chest with each exhale. A golden-purple ray from the morning sun casts a glint on an empty bottle of Gin next to him. Birds chirp in the disused chimney and gutters.
  
  The phone rings. He lets the answering machine pick it up.
  
  Beep.
  
  “Hi, you’ve reached Marty Patrilla. I am unavailable at the moment, please leave a message.”
  
  “Hello Mr. Patrilla, this is Trudy from Dr. Banaszack’s office. We wanted to let you know that we’re going to have to do the surgery. We’ll have to keep Ginger over night again. If you have any questions please call us back at…”
  
  Marty stirs. The sun shines more brightly through the curtains, revealing the rising dust that swirls in columns. A shaft of light illuminates his face. He balances the apartment guide on his face to shield it from the sunlight.
  
  The phone rings again. When he hears Jordan’s voice, he flinches. He squirms off the recliner and runs to the phone. He picks it up while the answering machine is still running.
  
  “Hi Jordan, how are you? Good, good thanks. At seven? Sure. See you later.”
  
  He hangs up the phone. The corners of his mouth rise into the best smile he can muster. He walks to the bathroom and takes a shower.
  
  ***
  
  Thump, thump.
  
  Marty rushes to the door. He is dressed in a black suit. His hair is greasy and shiny. The setting sunlight casts a golden glint in Jordan’s olive-green eyes. He breathes her in, the lavender sun dress and the perfectly coiled hair. The scent of honeysuckle rolls through the door and he savors it, not knowing or caring if it is from her or the winter, finally giving way to spring air.
  
  She smiles as he gestures for her to come in. She scans the room. A soft violin orchestra evaporates from a stereo, which was not there yesterday. The floor is haphazardly swept; splotches left here and there make it look worse than before. A fondue set sits on a table next to a bottle of Verdi Spumante. But the stacked boxes remain in the same place and nothing else has been altered.
  
  “I really like what you’ve done with the place.”
  
  Marty chuckles, and says, “Very funny.”
  
  She walks over to the table and pokes a cube of dried bread with a fork. She dips it into the sauce and nibbles it.
  
  “Mmm, tasty. Oh, and I love Ilya, such a great composer.”
  
  “Yeah, she’s great. Nothing like the Latvian composers. You still talk to any of your family there?”
  
  She chuckles.
  
  “Ilya Grubert was a man, but nice try. And no, I don’t keep in touch. My brother lives here though.”
  
  “You look beautiful tonight.”
  
  She smiles. He walks over to the table and grabs the bottle. He winds the bottle opener around until it finally twists out. He pours a drink for her.
  
  “So what is on the agenda tonight?” she says.
  
  “Would you like to play some chess?”
  
  “Well, it has been years since I’ve played. In my former years I was pretty good.”
  
  Marty raises an eyebrow and says, “Really?”
  
  “Well, chess is a big thing for us there. We have Mikhail Tal you know.”
  
  “Misha? I thought he was Russian.”
  
  “Born in Latvia. You like him?”
  
  “Like him? The Master of Sacrifice? He’s almost a god!”
  
  “Umm, okay.”
  
  “I want to show you something,” he says.
  
  He beckons for her to follow. She rolls her eyes when he turns away but follows him through the corridor of boxes to his bedroom. The bedroom is littered with more stacked boxes. Above a bare metal bed frame, a black and white poster of Mikhail Tal is pinned on the wall. He is at a table playing chess with another pensive man, who rests his chin on his hand.
  
  Marty crouches on his knees. He rips the tape from a box in one corner and pulls out several books about Mikhail Tal.
  
  “You know, people used to think he would hypnotize them?” Marty says.
  
  “Yes, Benko wore sunglasses because of it. What if I told you that my uncle watched him play Botvinnik for the world championship? And he has real photos of him, autographed.”
  
  Marty looks up at her. His mouth sags open.
  
  “You know, you’re the weirdest man I have ever met. A poster of Mikhail Tal above your bed? What did your wife think?”
  
  Marty ignores her and walks out of the room.
  
  She follows him through the boxes until they reach the coffee table with the chessboard. The leg of the broken coffee table has been repaired; splotches of dried glue have hardened on the leg like drippings of candle wax. He leaves for a moment and returns with two wood chairs. He walks back to the stereo and raises the volume; the violins echo through the house.
  
  He pulls her chair back and waits for her to sit. He grabs two of the crystal chess pieces, one black and one white, and closes his hands in a tight fist over each of them. He extends both hands in front of Jordan.
  
  She chooses the left hand, a black crystal pawn. He opens his other hand to reveal a white pawn. They set up the board. He quickly moves his Queen’s pawn forward. She opens conservatively with her King’s Knight. He pushes the c pawn forward two squares. She plays a fianchetto-sliding her Bishop in front of her Knight.
  
  “This real crystal?” she says.
  
  He nods slowly, not looking up from the board.
  
  “You’re playing the King’s Indian Defense,” he says.
  
  He brings out his other Knight. She castles, slowly looping the Rook and King around each other. She takes a sip of her wine. He plays a fianchetto. She brings her Knight in front of the Queen, guarding the other Knight. He castles. She pushes her King’s pawn two spaces forward, threatening his c pawn. He brings another pawn next to it. Suddenly, the board becomes complicated and alive with action with Knight sacrifices and a flurry of exchanges; pieces are being captured and scooped off of the board left and right.
  
  He looks up at her and notices her eyes are closed. She is enraptured from the violin piece, half opening and closing her eyes and only glancing at the board. He makes another move and watches her, realizing then that she has been playing like this the entire time.
  
  “Ahem. I just realized something,” he says.
  
  Her eyes flutter open. She says, “Oh?”
  
  “We’re playing a Tal game. I can’t remember the name of it, but I’ve played it before and we’re doing it right now, almost move for move.”
  
  “I know. And do you know who played black?”
  
  “What?”
  
  “Play,” she says.
  
  They make another flurry of exchanges: Knight for Knight, Bishop for Knight, until they are suddenly at a Mexican standoff with two Queens and two Bishops each. They exchange them. Twenty-one moves from the beginning and he has lost by board position and piece value; there are over five ways to checkmate him. He tips his King over with an index finger. Its crown splinters on the board. He gasps.
  
  “Gradus versus Tal,” she says, “1950’s I think.”
  
  He shakes his head and stares off into space.
  
  “Who the hell is Gradus?”
  
  A wry smile surfaces on her face. She shrugs.
  
  “Another one?” he says.
  
  “Okay, but only one more. And should I actually look at the board this time?”
  
  “Very funny.”
  
  This time, she plays white. They play for only a few minutes, some fifteen moves. She slaughters him, his pieces dropping like dead soldiers.
  
  He looks up at her, lost in her eyes and says, “Come to Costa Rica with me.”
  
  She chuckles coyly.
  
  “What?”
  
  “Come with me.”
  
  “You are eccentric.”
  
  “Just for a week, to get a feel for the area.”
  
  “Thank you, but I can’t.”
  
  “Tye?”
  
  She nods.
  
  “Yeah, I didn’t think of that. He acts like some big-city pimp. It’s a call girl service for god’s sake.”
  
  He stares off. He walks to his kitchen and comes back with a newspaper. He unfolds the classified section and points to it.
  
  “There’s a chess tournament tomorrow, at the Civic Center. You should sign up. They are starting a chess program this summer. They’re even hiring an office administrator.”
  
  She sighs softly and takes another sip of wine.
  
  “I already have a job and I don’t have time to play chess.”
  
  “Well, I’m just saying. If you wanted a change of pace…”
  
  “Says the man who makes a living taking photos of peas and corn for canned good labels.”
  
  She looks down at the ground and mutters something. She grabs her purse and stands up.
  
  “I have to go now, good bye.”
  
  “Wait.”
  
  He stands in silence as she walks out.
  
  ***
  
  The next day he invites her to come over for lunch. She teaches him how to make borscht and Latvian smörgåsbord. He has her fetch the ingredients because he will never leave the house except to check his mail.
  
  She tells him about life in Latvia and in Europe-the politics and the lifestyle differences. He introduces her to classic American films that she has never seen such as Casablanca and Singin' in the Rain. One night he asks her to rent Taxi Driver. Near the end of the film she walks out without saying goodbye. She never returns his calls.
  
  ***
  
  Marty lifts himself from the recliner and rubs his eyes. Several pints of empty gin litter the floor. An open liter of club soda lies on a newspaper. An article smudged with purple ink reads Jerry Foster wins chess tournament, Civic Auditorium.
  
  He looks at the digital clock. It is 2:34 PM. He starts hacking quietly. He flops back down on the recliner and doubles over, coughing his lungs out.
  
  Thump, thump.
  
  He gives himself a cursory glance. His belly hangs out of his white tank top, which is stained with spots of dried blood. He answers the door.
  
  Jordan is wearing a cream-colored business skirt with a black blouse. Her tangled hair is tied back. She carries a purse and wears wide sunglasses. She doesn’t smile. He motions her in.
  
  “Something is different,” she says.
  
  “I’m sorry. I know it’s a mess.”
  
  “No, it is always a mess, it’s something else… where is your cat?”
  
  “In the backyard. She-”
  
  “She’s dead, I know. I’m sorry, Marty.”
  
  He follows her to the window. A squirrel leaps from a branch, chasing another squirrel. It clumsily lands on the branch only to slip off and land on Ginger’s fresh dirt mound in the yard. The other squirrel climbs the length of the branch, and leaps into another tree. It hops from branch to branch until it is far away and disappears from view. Jordan stares down at the mound.
  
  “So, what then, you can sniff out death or something?” he says.
  
  “I can smell it on you, too,” she says.
  
  “Jeez, don’t act so happy to see me, it’s only been three weeks since you’ve called.”
  
  “I’ve been a little busy lately,” she says, taking off her sunglasses.
  
  Her eye is bruised black, purple, and yellow.
  
  Marty begins coughing, and loses his balance. He leans on a box for support. She leaves her purse and runs over to him. She helps him sit on a box and runs to the kitchen. She looks in the sink and then through the cabinets. There is one glass in a far corner. She grabs it and fills it with water. She brings the glass to him.
  
  “Why didn’t you go to that tournament?” he says.
  
  “I did,” she replies.
  
  “You didn’t win?”
  
  “I didn’t play, I was too late. But I met the club president.”
  
  “Chambers?”
  
  “Yeah, and I think he is smitten with me.”
  
  “That’s nice.”
  
  He looks away and takes a sip of water.
  
  “You played him?” he says.
  
  “Blindfolded.”
  
  He spits up a stream of water and coughs. She rushes to him and pats his back.
  
  “I can’t believe it. You beat him, didn’t you? You fucking beat him.”
  
  “I’m worried about you,” she says.
  
  “Worried about me?”
  
  He stands up and moves away from her. His eyebrows crease.
  
  “You beat a state champion blindfolded and you let that bastard pimp beat you around? Let’s get the hell out of here. I can get you a job tutoring kids at chess! Hell, anything, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got talent, Jordan. You’re worth a whole hell of a lot more than you realize, don’t you get it?”
  
  He walks over to the stereo and pulls an envelope down.
  
  “I already bought you a ticket.”
  
  He hands it to her. She sits down and opens it. She skims it.
  
  “I can’t leave.”
  
  “What… Oh my god. I can’t believe you. You’d rather stay here and be a whore for the rest of your life? We could have a condo in Costa Rica. Are you crazy?”
  
  She begins crying. He walks over to her but she shoves him away. She finally composes herself.
  
  “You know what the best part of my day used to be? I couldn’t wait to come into your disgusting, stinking house and drink your cheap wine. Because I knew once I was here, once I was inside, I didn’t have to pretend to be alive. Even for five minutes I would have come, just to feel that.”
  
  She grabs a tissue from her purse and dabs her eyes.
  
  She says, “I've spent my whole life feeling like a maggot crawling on my own skin, watching myself but unable to experience anything valid. And I tried to give you a chance but all you do is remind me of that.”
  
  He stares off, looking away from her. She walks closer, her face creased in a scowl.
  Only inches away from his face, she says, “I’m sorry that I can’t be your little trophy-whore you saved through a game of chess.”
  
  “You know that’s not true,” he says.
  
  “It is true! And I’m not the one that needs saving. You want to sacrifice everything and run off to some island like a little boy with your daddy’s inheritance. You won’t even admit to yourself that you are dying. You need to save yourself, not me. You need to look in the mirror. No wonder your wife left-”
  
  “Get out of my house!” he says, and throws the empty glass. Shards explode off the wall. A red bird flutters, bouncing off of the window. It flies off, soaring out of view.
  
  She cries. She tosses the envelope and grabs her purse. She walks out and doesn’t look back.
  
  ***
  
  Marty walks up to his house, holding a red, leather suitcase. He is clean and tan, and slightly thinner, but carries a heavy face. He wears dark shades. He opens his mailbox, letters fall out. He sets down his suitcase and scoops them up. He flips through them like photographs and stops when he sees one from Jordan. A smile plays at the corners of his mouth. The other letters fall to the ground as he opens Jordan’s as fast as he can.
  
  It reads:
  
  Marty,
  
  I’ve thought a lot about you over the weeks. I feel really bad about our last argument and I just want you to know that you are one of the greatest people I have ever met. You unearthed feelings and emotions that I had buried so long ago… so long that I thought they were gone.
  
  I’m visiting my grandmother in Riga, Latvia at the moment. There is still no word on the whereabouts of my parents, but that doesn’t matter anymore. My grandmother is so happy to see me, it has been almost ten years. We picked bilberries yesterday and we are planning a trip to the Baltic Sea for the weekend. I love it during the spring, when the snow starts melting from the spruce trees.
  
  Lots of things have changed here, the city has grown even bigger. Lots of things have changed also at home. My brother Andris took care of Tye. Let’s just say he probably will not be walking for a while. Unfortunately, Tye has many associates so I will probably always have to look over my shoulder.
  
  Chambers proposed to me last week, but I don’t want to be with anyone right now. He is sweet and understands this, and I know you do as well. It took me twenty-one years to find myself and I need to spend this time now getting to know me, if that makes any sense to you.
  
  I am coming back in two weeks and thanks to help from Chambers I will be working at the Civic Center as a secretary, but only for the spring and summer. My chances are slim to get a work visa so I am keeping my fingers crossed. I think that is another reason Chambers proposed to me, but I have too much integrity for that. But if all works out with the visa though I might even be able to tutor kids at chess! There will be a tournament very soon, you should come! You are probably smiling now, it is always what you wanted. Most of all I thank you, who knows where I would be without you, the master of sacrifice!
  
  With Love,
  Jordan
  
  Ps. In this envelope I have included the name of the very best doctor I know. Please see him. Also, I have a surprise for you. Open your door.
  
  
  He smiles and looks through the envelope. He finds the business card of Dr. Hapburn, oncologist.
  
  He picks up his suitcase and walks to the door. Two squirrels banter each other in the gutter but stop once they notice him. They bob their tails like pompoms. As he nears one squirrel ushers the other along the length of the gutter and over the gabled dormer. They dodge around a corner. A red bird flutters down at the edge of his roof and turns its head mechanically.
  
  The door is locked. He sighs and digs through his pocket, finally producing keys. The aroma of lemons engulfs his nose as the door slowly swings open.
  
  An orange cat darts behind a box, leaving behind a chewed piece of paper. His house is immaculate. The first thing he notices is the framed Bobby Fischer photo. The parquet floors shine. His azure blue, leather sofas, love seat and ottomans welcome him. The china cabinet sits in the den once more. He picks the chewed piece of paper from the floor and reads it; it is a receipt from Portland Storage, paid in full. The cat darts through the house; he follows it to the bedroom.
  
  The cat leaps on his bed and begins purring. The cat’s orange, watery nose probes a large manila envelope on his bed. He breathes in the fresh air of the room and looks around. His oak chest of drawers and nightstand are polished. His mirror has been cleaned.
  
  Marty walks to the envelope and pulls together the prongs. He unwinds the thread and opens it. Inside are several black and white autographed photos of Mikhail Tal. A sticky note on the back of one photo reads:I thought you would like these. Please stay in touch.

8. Autobiography of a Nobody




• I've often wondered what the outside world looks like to a fish in an aquarium. Or better yet, what if fish were intelligent creatures that could speak their own native language? With what prose would they express their dilemma, being forever trapped in the glass prison of fake ocean flora and dollar-store knick-knacks?
  
  It's not hard to imagine them peering out through the glass with their sad eyes, perpetually darting around with fish tank fever. Or to imagine seeing them trapped, weaving through plastic rocks in the cell of a twenty-gallon tank with the same cellmates and the same pitter-patter sound of the bubble jet until they died. It would be cruel and bitter loneliness.
  
  But, if we didn't know how to speak "fish" we would never know how they really felt; they could only commiserate amongst themselves. Without a way to communicate with us, they would have to abandon all hope of ever leaving behind their legacy. We would never realize their hopes and dreams.
  
  My life has felt just like that, one big aquarium since my birth in 1952. My native language is "fish". And like the fish, it seems no bipedal speaks my language.
  
  I was born a prodigy, however. Most people couldn't accomplish what I had done at the age of eight in their entire lives. At the precocious age of eight, I was partially responsible for Kennedy's election in 1960. The Civil Rights Movement, the Apollo Program, even The Doors, none of this could have happened without me. And the tragedy is that I didn't get even a smidgen of acknowledgment for it, not even a pat on back.
  
  All I've ever wanted out of life is a little recognition, plain and simple. I'm simply not credited for any of my work, and when I complain to anyone about it I'm completely ignored. I'm not saying that I want wealth; hell, I'm made of money. The child prodigy Mozart was never wealthy either; everyone knows he died in a pauper's grave. What I'm saying is that they at least recognized him for who he was. They realized he had talent at an early age. His father even carted him around before emperors and kings to toot his little clarinet, at the age of thirteen. As the old saying goes, you'd have to live under a rock not to know who Mozart is, even if you hate his music.
  
  But not me. I'll be the Unknown Soldier. My name will never go down in the archives of history.
  
  My life has been just one big, paradoxical extreme to the next. Even since my birth people have used me, discarded me like a bedpan, then begged for me to come back the next day. It seems that my friendship with them is only ephemeral, changing hands like a game of speed rummy. I feel like some drug they use to make themselves feel happy, only to be quickly let down and forgotten with the same fervor as when they first sought me. Then, next week they're dragging me back to their houses for drinks again.
  
  I've never even been called by my real name; no one's ever even asked me for it. They only have nicknames for me and it's never the same. That's the paradox; everyone knows me but no one knows me. People need me, but they hate me. I'm unique, but I'm also like the Xeroxed copy of a hundred million anonymous faces. I'm just a phantom helper, a ghost without a title, a nobody. And this is my dilemma.
  
  My life has never gotten any better. In fact, life paid me back for all of my philanthropy like this: I was held hostage on my twentieth birthday in a cockroach-infested motel in Indianapolis with a Vietnam vet named Jeff. This was one of the worst moments in my life I can recall.
  
  He was a proper thug, living off of prostitutes, whiskey and coke. Jeff would keep me prisoner until he died. There was no escape. He had a gun. The only thing I could do was think of all of the other terrible things that had happened that year, to make myself feel better about my own circumstance. John Lennon was shot and killed; the Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham choked on his own puke cocktail and Ronald Reagan was elected president. But this kind of therapy never worked for me before, and I thought at that time, why should it work now? You can't wallow in someone else's misery to forget about your own. And there was no Zen meditation that was going to save me. I was Jeff's prisoner and there was nothing I could do about it.
  
  That is, until he was eighty-sixed by a massive heart attack, clutching his chest and falling beneath the burning pink, neon motel sign, lying there motionless, as if he were painted there. Next thing I know the cops were raiding the room and escorting me to the county precinct.
  
  I wasn't there very long. Officer Lockwood held me for a few hours then turned me loose. They didn't even listen to my story, about how the psycho abducted me from the 7-11 down the road at gunpoint. They didn't even take me in for questioning. Officer Lockwood gave me a silent tour of the facility and then dismissed me as if he'd never seen me before, without even so much as a word. I felt like the phantom again. But I wanted to leave that cement and steel dungeon as soon as I could anyway. That was the only time in my life in which it was an asset to be a nobody. In spite of all I had done throughout my life, no one knew me. That day was the only time I cherished my anonymity.
  
  As I mentioned earlier, my life has always seemed oscillate between completely opposite extremes. My circle of friends has always changed from day to day. One day I could be hanging out with the most notorious gangsters (I once spent the weekend with Erminio Capone in Chicago), and the next day I would be at a gala dinner laughing with senators drunk with double entendre jokes. It was a catholic church and the Eucharist one week, and the occasional prostitute the next. My life couldn't be anymore double-sided. And what made it worse is that everyone pretended not to know me, brushing me aside and stuffing me in corners after they'd used me like a cheap hooker for whatever they could get out of me.
  
  On my fortieth birthday I wanted to commit suicide. I grew tired of swimming in circles and peering out of the tank at the world, knowing I could never be a part of it. If I couldn't find acceptance or even a modicum of affirmation, then I reasoned it just wasn't worth it anymore. You can only give so much charity. You can only help so many students produce their films and become famous. You can only help so many presidents get elected and do so much for humanity until you hit a solid wall.
  
  Year after year of dealing with unthankful crowds gnawed at my heart. I would have even been happy if they showed the utmost disdain for me and for my work, instead of just ignoring me. At least then I would have actually felt real. But I would never be graced with such kindness as animosity. Everyone has their limits and on January 9th, 1992, I had reached mine.
  
  The fact is I could never hurt myself. Not because I'm afraid, but because I'm crippled in a way. I would have ended it a long time ago if I had the capacity to do it. I've eavesdropped on a thousand conversations that have centered on unspeakable crimes of murder, drugs, molestation, and the dirtiest secrets ever told, simply because I was crippled. They never acknowledged my presence, as if I were invisible. They even referred to me in third person, as if I were an ottoman or some other random piece of furniture in the room. If they knew I had been listening and understood everything, they would have done the job for me. Then I wouldn't have to search for a Kervorkian to finish me off.
  
  I'm not sure exactly how many of you have been in my position. The overwhelming desire to end it all without the capacity to do it is the same as living in your own personal hell. But I've finally accepted it. You can eventually learn to accept even hell if you know it's your only option. But the truth is I haven't really come to terms with my predicament. I'm only bidding my time, longing for that day to come when I'll be snuffed out, burned, ripped up and gone for good.
  
  But recently, I've had an epiphany of sorts, a self-realization. Not that I don't want to die; I do indeed. But I've come to realize that humanity is not perfect and neither am I. What I have been doing my entire life is blaming other people for my personal problems. Most of the problems I have had stem from the pure naivety of humanity. After pondering this for quite some time I've decided that I can almost forgive them. Presently, I can offer no more than an "almost", but at least it's a step in the right direction.
  
  Also, I've been comparing myself to other people in a display of childlike one-upmanship, inflating my ego by bragging about my accomplishments, my super nova résumé. Maybe I have done this to compensate for my secret low self-esteem caused by lack of recognition? But no one wants to sit and listen to someone toot his own horn and so I will cease with the conceited ranting. I can't expect people to acknowledge my every achievement. And to my defense I can only add this: I admit that I'm the most irritating and pretentious one-hundred-dollar bill you will ever meet, so please be easy on me. I'm not the root of evil.

7. Eternal Scapegoat




• Harvey, A jaded and apathetic young man, who always seems to be life's doormat is convinced by his so-called friend to start a business, capitalizing on society's all to often need to find a scapegoat.



• Harvey Rodriguez doesn’t frown or protest as the manager fires him, her bleach-blond hair bouncing as she defines and gesticulates the reasons for his termination.
  
  He casually unties his blue frock and throws it into the hamper behind the convenience store’s grimy counter. The counter is etched deep with doodles, and initials and whatnots, long abandoned and forgotten by their owners.
  
  “I’m sorry, but this is the third time this month that the drop’s been short,” Marissa says, tonguing the remains of a dark green vegetable stuck between her teeth.
  
  She looks away from him, counting money from an envelope. She finally looks up and says, “Someone has to go, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be me.”
  
  Harvey doesn’t mention his perfect attendance record for the last six months here at Barker’s Stop-N-Go. More importantly, he doesn’t mention that he didn’t steal the money and that the bank drop for his last shift was actually a few dollars over. There were plenty of other likely culprits who should have been fired instead of him. Her boyfriend Brian, the felon with a mile-long track record of theft and aggravated larceny, just for one example.
  
  “It’s okay,” he says, walking toward the clock with his manila timecard.
  
  She snatches the timecard from his hand and says, “I’ll take care of it, good luck.”
  
  A brief, cool silence wells between them. He begins to open his mouth, but instead smiles and walks out of the door. The doorbell chimes with his departure. He shoves his hands in his pockets and buries his chin in his gray hoodie, as if it were cold. The wind rustles his shiny-black shoulder-length hair, as the sidewalk seems to propel him down the street to his apartment.
  
  ***
  
  “You’re joking…right?” says Carlos.
  
  “No.”
  
  Carlos leans back in the tan, leather sofa and stubs out his cigarillo. His hair is dark and long like Harveys and they are often mistaken for brothers. He props up his feet on Harvey’s shiny, mahogany coffee table. Little flakes of dried mud thread the lining of his boot soles and fall out intact, on the surface of the coffee table.
  
  “Of course you’re not,” Carlos says, shaking his head.
  
  “It was bound to happen,” Harvey says.
  
  Harvey rolls over and curls up on his black, metal futon and clicks on the television. His eyes glaze over.
  
  “Oh my god. You always say that. How many jobs have did this to you in the past two years?”
  
  “Hmm, don’t know. You heard back from that diner?” says Harvey.
  
  “Don’t change the subject on me.”
  
  “Okay.”
  
  Carlos sighs and lets his feet drop, littering the polished, wood floor with more clumps of crud from his boots. He sighs at Harvey and lights another cigarillo.
  
  “No,” Carlos says, as he exhales a big cloud of blue-gray smoke toward Harvey.
  
  “What?”
  
  “I want you to change the subject,” says Carlos.
  
  “Huh?”
  
  “I want you to haggle me about my jobs.”
  
  Harvey clicks off the television. He rolls over to Carlos and says, “Okay, how is your job going? And have you heard back from that diner yet?”
  
  “Harvey, you’re really something.”
  
  “What?”
  
  “I haven’t had a job for two years dude. I haven’t had a job since I’ve lived with you.”
  
  “Oh.”
  
  “Don’t say oh.”
  
  “Okay.”
  
  “Jesus, say whatever you want,” Carlos says, lighting the edge of the cigarillo box with his Zippo. Green-bluish flames slowly rise from one of its corners.
  
  “But you just said not to say it.”
  
  The flames rise higher, engulfing the entire cigarillo box. Carlos gasps and lets it drop on the seat of the leather couch. Harvey and Carlos watch the box for a time until it finally smolders out, leaving a charred square mark on the nice leather.
  
  “I should have had it upholstered with that stain resistant stuff,” says Harvey.
  
  Carlos laughs. Harvey rolls back over and faces the television. He clicks it on again.
  
  “Dude,” says Carlos.
  
  “What?”
  
  “I just told you that I’ve basically been sponging off of you for the last two years and I just burned a hole in your fifteen-hundred-dollar leather sofa.”
  
  “Ah, don’t worry. You’ll find a job.” Harvey says.
  
  “No, I won’t. I don’t like to work and I want to sponge off you for the rest of my life.”
  
  “Oh yeah?”
  
  “For fuck sake, grow some fucking balls will you!”
  
  Harvey clicks off the television, but continues staring away from Carlos, watching the blank screen.
  
  “What are you getting at,” Harvey says, still staring at the blank screen.
  
  “I just burned a hole in your sofa and you blame yourself for not getting a stain resistant one, like it would matter anyway. My point is dude, you never take initiative. And you let people walk all over you and then you blame yourself. You’re like some kind of eternal scapegoat.”
  
  “Hmm, you think so?”
  
  “When you worked for that oil change place and your boss’s wife got mad because he spent every weekend at the bar, he blamed it on you. And you just sat there and took the rap for it, and didn’t even stand up for yourself when he fired you just to make her happy. And this is just one of the many examples.”
  
  “She didn’t believe him.”
  
  “Of course she didn’t, but that’s not the point. She wanted to believe him. People don’t want to believe it’s their fault and they’ll look for anyone or anything to blame for their misery. And for some strange reason you always seem to show up in the nick of time. You’ve been like this since I’ve known you.”
  
  Harvey rolls over and faces Carlos.
  
  Carlos continues, “My dad always said society has always been built on two classes of people, the oppressors and the downtrodden. It’s been keeping the earth spinning since Cain and Abel.”
  
  Harvey says, “It’s the only thing I'm good at.”
  
  Carlos picks up an empty cigarillo box from underneath the coffee table, and lights a corner of it. He says, “No, you’re not good at it. With all due respect, even Jesus got something out of it.”
  
  Blue-green flames engulf the box, filling the air with its pungent odor. Harvey strains a soft sigh from his lungs. Carlos drops the box on the coffee table. They watch it burn.
  
  “So burning down my apartment will make me more assertive?”
  
  “You should start a business,” says Carlos.
  
  The box finally smolders out, gray and black flakes of ash litter the table.
  
  Carlos continues, “You should put an ad in the paper and say something like this, is your wife haggling you about a drug problem, did you screw up at work? Don’t take the rap, call me. No problem is too large for me to become a patsy. Reasonable rates, call me at…”
  
  “You were always creative, Carlos.”
  
  Carlos’s eyes widen, a smile plays at the corner of his lips.
  
  “Dude, no, this would be cool! I mean some people might think it's a joke. But who knows, maybe someone will actually call. Would you be down for it?”
  
  “I guess.”
  
  “Cool, just give me some money so I can put the ad in the paper.”
  
  Two weeks go by without a call. One morning the cordless phone rings. Carlos answers it.
  
  “Was your ad a joke?”
  
  “Huh? Oh, the ad. No, no, it’s for real.”
  
  “I don’t want to talk over the phone, can you meet me downtown at the bridge?”
  
  “Sure.”
  
  Carlos puts the phone back on the receiver and nudges Harvey, who is snoring, fast asleep on his futon.
  
  ***
  
  Days turn into weeks, and Harvey slowly gathers clients. One week he was the alleged supplier of Percocets and Oxycontin for the husband of an embittered wife. It didn’t solve his drug addiction but it bought him enough time to find another excuse. The husband told his wife that Harvey had been arrested and that their troubles were over. Harvey was paid to call her and confirm this, and to apologize for turning him on to the pills.
  
  Another week he allegedly, accidentally burned down a coffee shop so the owner could collect insurance on his failed business. Harvey received a hefty chunk of the claim, less Carlos’s cut, of course.
  
  One of the last assignments, before the calls started petering off, was to take the rap for a better who had welched on a horse race outside of Louisville. Days before the actual race he had already planned on running if he lost and made all of the arrangements with Carlos, who furnished the man with a duplicate of Harvey’s driver license.
  
  “Dude, you’re like Jesus, except with a bank account,” Carlos says, arranging a new, red, leather sofa. The old leather sofa is gone.
  
  Harvey lies on the futon and clicks the television on.
  
  “Dude, aren’t you tired of that old rusty futon.”
  
  “No.”
  
  “You should live a little, you’ve got plenty of cheddar now. Who would’ve ever thought you could turn blame and guilt into a business?” says Carlos.
  
  Carlos plants his feet on the new, glass coffee table and continues, “Wait, organized religion has already been doing that for thousands of years. I guess I'm not as original as I thought.”
  
  Carlos pulls out the last cigarillo in the box and lights it. He says, “I thought you were going to pick up some things from Barker’s.”
  
  “Oh, sorry.”
  
  Harvey lifts himself off the futon and grabs his hoodie. He pulls it over his head, tangling his long hair in a heap. He grabs his keys and pats down his pockets. He looks to Carlos.
  
  “Here man,” Carlos says, reaching into his pocket. He throws his own wallet to Harvey.
  
  Carlos says, “I think it’s my turn anyway. But don't lose my wallet, and don't spend too much.”
  
  Marissa looks up from counting money as she hears the bells on the door chime, and stares Harvey down. Brian peeks around the corner from a back room where the safe is kept. Harvey wanders the aisles, looking at everything and nothing.
  
  Finally, he comes to the counter. Marissa rings up his hot chocolate and two boxes of cigarillos and tosses them on the counter. She pulls out a plastic bag and tosses it at Harvey and says, “Bag it yourself, I’m busy.”
  
  Harvey leaves the bag on the counter and walks out. He walks behind Barker’s and unravels the cellophane on the box, and pulls out a cigarillo. He pats his pockets for a lighter and realizes he doesn’t have one. Brian comes out of the metal door next to him, smoking a cigarette.
  
  He looks at Harvey and hands him a lighter.
  
  “Thanks.”
  
  “That’s the least I could do for you,” Brian says, chuckling.
  
  Harvey takes a drag and gags. He coughs, and coughs, his eyes dripping with tears. Brian laughs at him. Suddenly, Brian looks down the road, up to the sky. Billows of black smoke swirl as high as he can see.
  
  “Wow, look.”
  
  Harvey stops coughing and looks up, his eyes watering less now. He drops his coffee and boxes of cigarillos and dashes toward the smoke. Red and orange flames lick the walls, completely engulfing his apartment. Embers pop this way and that way, like shooting stars. Someone screams from inside.
  
  Harvey dashes toward his front door, which creaks and falls forward when he is five feet away. A gust of fire and wind shoot out from behind it. Harvey falls to the ground. He quickly pulls himself up and tries to run in, but the smoke is too thick to see and it is too hot. He coughs and trips on something, stumbling on top of the burning door.
  
  Sirens wail in the distance and a dark car with tinted windows peels off down the road.
  
  Two months later Harvey stands behind a counter and rings up an order, smoking a cigarillo. His hair is cut short and slicked back with a nice sheen.
  
  The customer, a young brunette woman with a Monroe piercing says, “So, are you finally acclimating to the country of California?”
  
  Harvey chuckles, and bags her carton of cigarettes. He hands her the bag and says, “Well, it’s definitely different than Kentucky. I think the women here are prettier too.”
  
  “Wow, you're cute and not a bad liar. You'll be right at home here in LA...” she says, smiling and looking at the nametag pinned to his frock, “...Carlos.”
  
  “You like Shoe Gazer music? Me and some friends are going to hit Hotel Café this weekend,” Harvey says.
  
  She smiles, and scribbles her number on the back of the receipt. She hands it to him.
  
  “Maybe,” she says, still smiling.
  

6. The Mess




• I never wanted Malerie Walters to die. I never wanted her heart to explode like fireworks on New Years. I would have made any provision that day to keep her alive instead of accidentally handing her the wrong prescription.
  
  If God somehow gave me a second chance I’d even be willing to play Bridge or Bingo with her, crochet snow flake patterns, quilt an afghan, bake cookies, or any other thing Grandmas do in their free time, in lieu of that pharmaceutical botch up. Hell, I would have even laid her if it meant I was going to be saving her life. But the facts of life are that you don’t always get a second chance. You can’t just un-murder someone; sometimes you just have to make the best of it.
  
  The specter of Malerie Walters still haunts me to this day. It’s like a small ball, growing rapidly inside me until it grows so large I feel like I could explode. A tight grip crushes my chest, and it feels like the world is stealing my last drop of oxygen. Then her voice echoes in part of my mind like a mantra: “You murderer!”
  
  The other part of my mind knows it was an accident. If I could only convince the other half I’d have some peace of mind. I’ve always felt like I have two brains, separated in one crisp dichotomy.
  
  I’ve always been exactly half of my mother and half of my father. It feels like limbo; New Hampshire upper echelon meets southern, Podunk, mountain boy. I wear my father’s gruff beard and southern draw. My mother bequeathed to me her social repartee, an intelligent, pointy nose, and her frail frame. I’ve never quite felt at ease with either of my parents or any of their genetic traits.
  
  Living with my dad and enduring all of his antics inspired me to leave. There wasn’t a solitary night in which he didn’t come stumbling in drunk after work. We probably had three conversations my entire life, and they only occurred when he realized I was heading off to college. At any given time of the week there would be a greasy transmission or engine block sitting in the middle of the living room floor. The whole little shack smelled like engine grease, gasoline, pinewood, and stale cigarette smoke. You couldn’t walk into the kitchen without stepping on one tool or another. Ball peen hammers, little boxes of nails, glue guns and fragments of dry wall littered the entire trailer. No one can blame my mother for leaving. But when she left it became even worse.
  
  As an excuse to get out of the house I went to work for a friend of father’s at Jared’s Construction. Mostly, I just handed them buckets of cement or tools and swept up after we were finished for the day.
  
  The first day they stood around laughing at everything I said. Chuck, the foreman, looked at me and said, “You ever hang drywall college boy? They teach you stuff like that there?”
  
  I shook my head.
  
  After two weeks I’d had enough. We were building a home for a rich family on Signal Mountain. Dark, lavender thunderclouds were sailing in from the west and we knew the storm would hit before lunch. Fortunately, we were working inside, hanging dry wall and preparing to lay carpet down on the bare wood floor. I was covered in drywall dust and looked like I’d just come out of a vat of flour. My eyes were stinging. I went to the corner to grab a bucket of water and a sponge to clean myself off when Chuck noticed my American History book from the community college. I often brought homework to do during lunch break.
  
  He picked up the book from the unfinished staircase and grinned. It looked so tiny in his hands. Most of the crew looked just like him, large, round heads buzzed short with bodies that looked as if they were hewn directly from the mountainside. Their cheeks were swollen with wads of chewing tobacco, which they indiscriminately spat on the wood floor. He held the book at arms length and peered at it, it was hard to tell if it were mocking him or he were mocking it. He snatched it open and started reading, trying to imitate the medley of my southern draw and Rhode Island accent.
  
  He read the famous line of Kennedy’s inauguration speech out loud, “Also my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country.”
  
  He snapped the book closed with one hand and tossed it over his shoulder.
  
  “Why the fuck they have ta kill Kennedy for? He made a few mistakes, but he wudn’t a bad guy.”
  
  He shook his head and continued, “Why couldn’t they a killed somebody like John Ford instead. He was a nobody. What the hell he do for this country?’
  
  “It’s Gerald Ford, not John Ford,” I said.
  
  He ignored me and continued, “Sure he might have gut us out of the depression but maybe it was his fault to begin with.”
  
  He started pacing the room and bent down to pick a nail gun from the floor.
  
  “That Ford,” he said, “I would a killed that cock sucker with a nail gun!”
  
  He pivoted and swung the gun at my face holding it with both hands. He said, “That little cunt. I’d a shot him just like this, POW!”
  
  I was expecting a nail to pierce my face but instead it was just an empty click. My knees were shaking a little bit as he began walking toward me, the gun still pointed at my face.
  
  “What did you say to me boy? Ford wasn’t president?”
  
  “G-Gerald Ford wuz a president. There wuz no John Ford.” I tried to stretch my words in a twang thinking it would put him more at ease.
  
  “You come down here thinkin’ you’re some kind a’ hotshot. I know about your mother. Your daddy’s an all right feller, but you don’t take after ’em. You sound like that damn high-falootin’, tea-drinking-bitch mother a yours!”
  
  He jabbed the nail gun at my throat and held it there.
  
  “You tellin’ me there ain’t no Ford? I say there is a goddamn Ford!”
  
  He pressed the gun tighter into my neck.
  
  “Y-Y-Yes…you’re right, I must be mistakin’.”
  
  He looked over at the others. They all busied themselves looking down at the floor.
  
  “You hear that boys, he says there is a Ford.”
  
  “Leave him alone Chuck,” someone said.
  
  But he continued, “I think today is gonna be a commerashion. Today will be known here on out as Ford’s Day. You like that boy?”
  
  He prodded me with the nail gun a few more times until I said, “Yes sir.”
  
  It wasn’t any better at mothers. I once overheard a remark my grandmother Nancy made during my monthly custody visit. We were having dinner and I politely excused myself to the restroom. On my way back through the marble foyer I caught a glimpse of her peering down her long nose at my mother.
  
  She said, “You’re never going to be able to hide that little twang of his. His southern roots are going to betray him every time.”
  
  “Mother, can we refrain from being petty, just this once. He doesn’t get to visit very often.”
  
  I stood there listening from the corner of the foyer, peeking in just enough to see one half of Nancy. She took a sip of tea and tossed the cup on the saucer as if it were a rodent. She dabbed her lips with a cloth napkin and looked up at mother through her blush-wine colored bifocals.
  
  She shook her head at mother and said, “What in heaven’s name were you thinking Margaret? I taught you better than that. You didn’t have to go sniffing around the mountain down there in Tennessee for a husband. Thomas had everything you could ever want. I want you to explain something to me, how a two-bit, redneck drunk like him who claims he’s both mechanic and construction worker wins over a handsome accountant with a Yacht and a two summer homes.”
  
  “I don’t have to explain-”
  
  Nancy shoved both palms down flat on the table and said, “You’ve sure got a mess on your hands now don’t you?”
  
  As I walked into the room they froze. Nancy didn’t look up; instead she pretended to be cleaning a stain on the checkered tablecloth. Mother turned to me, hiding behind a feigned smile and pulled out my chair. I took my plate to the kitchen and asked to be excused.
  
  Through trying desperately to be a part of both worlds I inadvertently became the scorn of both. I’m not refined enough to become the socialite my mother’s side of the family expects me to be, but I’m considered too aloof and snooty to be a part of my father’s country culture. Both sides of my family detest me for the same reason; I remind them both of what they hate about each other, and possibly themselves.
  
  After the “John Ford” incident I decided to transfer from the community college to a regular state college. The university helped serve as a refugee camp and a means by which I could forge my own little world where I could finally be whole and complete.
  
  The pre-pharmacy certificate looked appealing because Dalton State College was offering a paid practicum at a private pharmacy upon completion of the first semester. After the first semester I applied at Greg’s Pharmacy and was accepted.
  
  Working there enabled me to pay for most of the college expense. It also served as the milieu where I could meet other people with similar interests and immerse myself in the type of environment where I would eventually be employed.
  
  I finished the semester with honors and began working for Greg’s full time. His wife helped him run the little pharmacy, which was only a ten-minute walk from Dalton College and my apartment.
  
  The training provided by Dalton was good and I already had a penchant for working large calculations in my head. I could convert liters to milliliters and grams of solution to milligrams with just blink of an eye, faster than any other pharmacy tech could, according to Greg. They were enthusiastic about hiring me and did so immediately. But despite my aptitude in math I was sloppy in work.
  
  Sometimes they would have to double or triple-check the prescriptions.
  
  Greg stood over my shoulder; his bushy gray eyebrows seemed to crease as he let out a soft sigh. He shook his head and whispered, “Jacob, I know you can do better than this. We don’t want to kill anyone son. You just filled this prescription with Tylenol instead of Hydrocodone. You need to look at the prescription more carefully. Hydrocodone 7.5/750 means there’s 750 milligrams of Tylenol in it, so you need to concentrate on reading the full prescription. You can’t just read part of it. I can’t let this slide any longer. You’ll have to leave if I catch one more mistake. You should know this by now...”
  
  The problem was I really just using the place. I was just biding my time away from my parents, not taking anything seriously so as long as I wasn’t at home. This was the cause of Malerie Walter’s death.
  
  We were swarmed that day; it was the beginning of the month. This was the time when many customers came in for refills. Greg and his wife didn’t have time to evaluate my work that day.
  
  I was supposed to fill a prescription for Ativan. It’s a medicine for treating anxiety. I read the prescription wrong and filled it with another drug, Aderol.
  
  There's a big difference. Aderol is a reasonably potent amphetamine that is sometimes even sold on the streets. Another problem was that Malerie also had a heart condition and because of that such a medicine would never be prescribed to her.
  
  Around two o' clock I took my break and went to watch the TV in the break room. My mouth dropped down to my ankles.
  
  The reporter said: "Malerie Walters, age 72 dies after fainting at the wheel for unknown reasons."
  
  That was a real nice way to put it. Malerie died all right. She drove right through her living room with that big boat of a Buick and killed her husband. Later that week, when the autopsy report came back, they'd found a lethal amount of the drug Aderol in her system. And that's when it hit me what I had accidentally done.
  
  Apparently, our cute old friend Malerie, granny glasses and all, liked popping pills, lots of them. Ativan and most drugs like it are very addicting, so it's not surprising to see even old, cookie-baking grandmas unknowingly abusing them.
  
  To put it simply, Ativan, like all other drugs in it’s family, turn on that warm Jacuzzi in the back of your mind. And that’s exactly what she expected. But what she got instead of warm tranquility were sirens, acrobats, and airplanes crashing.
  
  I’m assuming she thought they were Ativan or something similar, even though they look different. But she didn’t have a tolerance to Aderol. There's no telling how many she took, but apparently it was enough to make her heart pop like a big, red balloon while at the wheel of the car. She crashed straight through the brick wall of her living room and killed her husband.
  
  When the autopsy report came back Greg knew it had been me. And he knew someone would start asking questions soon. He asked me to leave without so much as looking at me. He handed me the check and that was the last time I ever saw him.
  
  All of my life I’ve tried to distinguish myself from my parents. I yearned to be a separate entity and not some morbid amalgamation, being part of both worlds but neither of them at the same time. Somewhere along the way I became so obsessed with this idea of being different that I forgot to be me. I’ve come to learn that my life isn’t just an excuse to differentiate myself from my roots. The idea of being separate from these worlds has caused more harm than simply being a part of them.
  
  I stayed in a hotel room and camped out for a few months, mourning Malerie. I looked out of the hotel window one morning, and I saw an image. It was a hillbilly and a scholar, wealthy, yet poor.
  
  Then I looked in the mirror, at my face which seemed to show plebian hardship, creased with age. And, strangely, it had a clean, refined look.
  
  Today, I’m a pharmacist living in Maryland with Malerie, halfway between my mother and father.
  

5. Serial Dater Outslicked-Eric (inspired by Adam Buck)




• Gina and I were under the Walking Bridge in downtown Chattanooga sitting next to our homemade Irish coffees, which were a lot more Irish than coffee.
  
  We were sitting on the wooden planks of an empty, outdoor amphitheater, smoking cigarettes. She finally stubbed out her cigarette with her puffy, truck-driver fingers and popped the question.
  
  It wasn’t exactly the question, I would have died right there. Still, for me it was close enough. It was a derivative of that question. The same way a wolf sniffs the air for the scent of blood to find prey, people will hint around to the question of marriage to feel out a potential mate, without actually asking the question directly.
  
  “Ruben, what’s the longest relationship you’ve had,” she said.
  
  “Almost four years."
  
  She took a sip of her Irish coffee.
  
  “Hmm, what was her name?"
  
  I took a sip of my own whiskey-laden coffee to make it a little easier to discuss.
  
  “Netflix.”
  
  “What?”
  
  “I joined Netflix almost four years ago.”
  
  She spit up her coffee.
  
  “Don’t spit up your whiskey, that’s alcohol abuse,” I said.
  
  She smiled at me. Half of her front teeth were missing. If there were a missing link this hairy Neanderthal would have to be it.
  
  “That’s why I always take you with me, you can turn any boring road trip into a feature film,” she said.
  
  She was referring to me traveling along with her in the eighteen-wheeler across the country.
  
  And she thought I was joking about my longest relationship, the poor thing. But my Netflix subscription was really the longest commitment I had ever made, and I didn’t even use my own credit card to subscribe. I used my mother’s check card and home address.
  
  It’s not that I’m afraid of commitment. I’m just in complete awe of why people still actually believe in it.
  
  Given enough time, eventually everything expires or collapses. Even the Universe will eventually collapse some day according to Hawking. It’s the Law of Entropy.
  
  It works the same way on a microcosmic level. Everything has to eventually be replenished, replaced, reapplied for or simply forgotten. It seems pointless to get involved with anything when it never reciprocates and stays committed back. It’s even hard for me to be a good alcoholic because it requires a regular drinking schedule.
  
  People get old and die, flowers wilt, groceries spoil, memberships expire and relationships end. Even a driver’s license doesn’t stay valid for more than six years in most states.
  
  Speaking of a driver license, that’s my main criterion for dating. I won’t date a girl unless she has a valid driver license and a car. If she starts racking up too many points on her license then it’s over. I also won’t date a girl that has more than three front teeth. She has to be ugly enough to stop time because if she’s not, there’s a chance that she’ll eventually get the courage to look for someone else. Then I’d be out of transportation and my life would be over.
  
  Finding Gina was like finding the Holy Grail of girls with no self-esteem because she also has a CDL license. That means we never have to stay in the same state for more than three weeks at a time.
  
  “Seriously, what’s the longest you’ve been with someone,” she said.
  
  I swished the coffee at the bottom of the cup and gulped it down.
  
  “Do Fruit flies count?”
  
  She rolled her eyes.
  
  “Well, we need to get some sleep. LA is a long way,” she said.
  
  We stumbled our way up the winding sidewalk that gradually ascends to the embankment of the Walking Bridge. She started up her big, red Dodge and dropped me off at the closest thing I have to a home, my mother’s house.
  
  My mom gave me a duffel bag and pulled some clothes out of a closet. She handed me some socks, underwear, jeans, and a few T-shirts. I walked to the closet and looked through it.
  
  “How’s your book doing,” she said, her left eye fluttering in spasms like a Hummingbird’s wings. She had a facial tick as long as I can remember.
  
  She was referring to a self-published book I supposedly wrote, which was nothing more than a coil-bound notebook chalk full of sad details I ripped off from my own life.
  
  Everything seems to be a rip-off of a rip-off somewhere down the line but this little journal was the only way for me to still pretend that I had some kind of connection. It was my last-ditch effort to pretend that I still had something solid and tangible to hold on to.
  
  Even I needed to lie to myself every once in a while. And after she reminded me of the journal I scoured that entire closet for it and came up with nothing. I was pissed and tempted to stay until I found it.
  
  “It’s doing good, mom. I just won the Pulitzer prize for fiction last week.”
  
  Her eye fluttered faster, she walked over and gave me a hug.
  
  “That’s my boy. I knew you were going to do something good. How is Jenny?”
  
  “Gina you mean?”
  
  “I’m sorry, they change every week though. I can’t keep up with them in my old age.”
  
  “She’s doing good, we’re heading to LA in a few hours.”
  
  “Bring me back a souvenir?”
  
  I nodded and filled the duffel bag with a few more pairs of socks. When she wasn’t looking I stuffed a hundred dollar bill inside one of her shirt pockets in the closet.
  
  I kissed her and left the house and finally managed to hitch a ride to a random dive bar.
  
  I waded through the blue, smoky room and called Gina to let her know where to pick me up. When I sat back down next to my mangy duffel bag I felt eyes on me. I hadn’t shaved or showered in a while and I was walking around with a duffel bag, so who knows what they thought.
  
  After several shots someone started singing Cat Power’s The Greatest in the karaoke booth. I continued drinking shots for some time, trying to soak up the music.
  
  My stomach was growling. I should have eaten at my mother’s house and got some sleep for the trip instead of drinking here. These thoughts went through my head as the room spun and I crashed down on someone’s table.
  
  The two guys said something and hoisted me up. They carried me out arm in arm and threw me out into an alleyway. The world was blurry around the edges and my throat felt like sandpaper. I leaned on a car to keep my balance and I heaved all over the hood. A few minutes later someone came out.
  
  “Hey, get the fuck off my car you bum,” someone said.
  
  I turned around. It was one of the guys who threw me out, only this time there were three more behind him. They took turns wearing a bulky Class ring, and punching me in the face.
  
  I had never been in a fistfight before, so I underestimated how awkward it would be for four guys trying to keep their balance while they took turns beating the shit out of me. They stumbled over each other, tripped and grunted, trying to land that perfect punch on my face. I contemplated walking into a blow to make it easier on them when someone hit me so hard the bloody ring flew off of his hand. It rolled down the street, clinking down a gutter.
  
  Everything went black for a few seconds and the back of my head hit the pavement. Tires were squealing somewhere nearby. It was all over. As if beating me to a bloody mess wasn’t enough. I braced for the tires that would be rolling over me but instead I heard people yelling and then a crashing sound.
  
  I looked up and there was Gina in her Dodge with that big, toothless grin. Behind her were three men lying around like toppled bowling pins. She jumped out of the truck and scooped me up with her big, grizzly arms. She hoisted me into her truck with ease. We heard sirens. She peeled out, pelting the back of the bar with gravel. We pulled onto the road and drove as far away as we could.
  
  It’s times like these that make you feel bad for using someone. Here I was, hopeless and on the verge of extinction when she appears out of nowhere like some kind of sasquatch angel and saves me.
  
  She handed me an old shirt and I wiped my forehead with it. Blood continued dripping down my face so I grabbed a bottle of Vodka from the floor and doused the shirt with it. I pressed it hard against my face. On the floorboard next to the Vodka bottle I saw my journal. I prayed she hadn’t read it.
  
  She turned to me and smiled.
  
  “Open the glove box,” she said.
  
  With my free hand I twisted the notch and out popped another journal. My handwriting was inside. Funny, I don’t remember having two journals, I thought. Wait a minute.
  
  She smiled at me again.
  
  How could she?
  
  As if she read my mind she said, ”Come on, did you think you were the only one?”
  
  A Neanderthal had just outslicked me.
  
  “What are you talking about,” I said, trying to play it off.
  
  She laughed. She pulled a prescription bottle from her pocket. Percocets, good. I popped a few.
  
  She said, “Who were you trying to kid, Ruben? You’re thirty-two, you smell horrible, you don’t have a job, and you live with your mother. You’re a bum.”
  
  My head throbbed. Shut up. Just shut up, I thought.
  
  “And you're always broke,” she said.
  
  I turned to her, still holding the shirt over half of my face.
  
  She said, “Hey, we all have our criteria, right?”
  
  She put her hand on my shoulder, and at that moment I fell in love for the first time in my life. I tossed our journals out of the window. We kept on driving.
  
  

3. Diary of a Male Prostitute




• I can’t apologize about this. What I saw looked like cottage cheese microwaved over a shriveled slice of ham, and it smelled like it.
  
  It’s hard to apologize about saying something like this once you know what I had to go through earlier this morning. I slept with a woman old enough to be my grandmother. Her name was Evelyn.
  
  She reached over to the oak nightstand and turned over her husband’s ivory-framed photo. She told me she’d put him in a home a month ago. She smacked my head while I was crouched between her legs and told me I was nothing but a cheap whore.
  
  “You’re a dime a dozen,” she yelled. “You’re nothing!”
  
  She threw a glass of wine at my face. I could taste blood on my lips mixed with the Merlot as I flaked away a few tiny shards of broken glass from my cheek. It was probably a 1985 vintage judging by the heavy flavor and the way it flowed down the back of my neck like nasty syrup. Among other things, part of my job description involves researching wine etiquette. I have to research everything-etiquette to please these old women.
  
  For just once I’d like to get a woman below the age of 55 who isn’t drowned in perfume that smells like funeral potpourri. Most of them are saggy and wrinkled like a wet newspaper. Sometimes they even ask me to take out their garbage or feed their little poodles after a session. What’s worse is they force me to listen to stuff like the Everly Brothers or Fats Domino, while I swallow the few grains of pride I have left and make all of their dreams come true.
  
  I would rather be washing dishes for some Sou chef downtown, or cleaning urinals. But cleaning urinals doesn’t pay $350 a pop.
  
  My best friend Kevin spends most of his day serving liquor and manicotti with side dishes of sautéed shrimp down at Ocean Side. He’s really happy. But happiness doesn’t make payments on a 07’ Shellby GT 500 Mustang. And it certainly can’t provide a decent apartment in Manhattan on Broad Street, overlooking Radio City. More importantly, it doesn’t cover the cost of in-home hospice care for my terminally ill mother. Her brain is slowly withering away into jelly. She has Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease.
  
  The doctor dumbed it down for me like this: “This a rare disease. Prions are proteins that live in the tissue of the brain. Think of them as little bugs. They degrade the other proteins in the cells of the brain and cause these degraded proteins to grow rapidly. The brain cells get crowded with these proteins and eventually the normal cells stop functioning.”
  
  He looked down at the floor and rolled his thumb around the silver circle of his stethoscope. He said she didn’t have more than a year, a little over a year if she’s lucky. Her brain will be pudding before I turn twenty-five.
  
  I’m waiting on my next trick, watching each ash of my cigarette flutter away. They float through the dank, peeling, motel window like feathers. If I could only fly away with them on their dusty wings. I bury my head so low it touches my knees and think of how beautiful it would be to join them and leave this all behind.
  
  Evelyn's words nag me. “You’re a dime a dozen…you’re nothing!”
  
  It hurts because it’s true. I’m nothing but a vessel, a scrap to be plucked up and used and tossed away. I only hope this next trick will be safer. I received a call earlier today from a new client. I’m supposed to meet her in ten minutes, but I don’t even know what ten minutes equates to.
  
  There aren’t any clocks in my apartment because time doesn’t really exist for me in the normal sense. For me, time is measured in tricks. After my third or fourth trick my stomach starts growling. Normal people call this noon. Usually, I’ll head to Ocean Side restaurant and talk to Kevin and gorge myself with lobster or garlic shrimp.
  
  Kevin loves listening to my stories because it breaks up the monotony in his normal-Joe life. Kevin’s a good friend and he tries not to lecture me, but by the end of lunch he’ll be shaking his head. He’ll look at me with his round, five o’clock-shadow-face. His blue eyes seem to turn a shade of gray as he wipes the counter and looks up at me.
  
  He pauses, and that serious look floods his face. He repeats a sentiment along these lines: “I have no problem with what you do, Nate. But man, what about when you get older? You won’t be a tall, muscle-bound blonde forever, bud. When you get old you shrink. I’m not even going to get into diseases. And the drugs.”
  
  When he does this routine time itself seems to stand still, because he’s completely focused on me and I know it’s a heartfelt compassion. He’ll sigh just barely enough for me to notice. But afterward he’ll give me a warm smile and bring me a beer, to let me know he’s not judging me and that he cares about me. It’s good to know there are a few Kevins out there in a big city like this. Everything moves so fast it’s easy to get lost.
  
  By my eighth or ninth trick the sun is almost down; most people call this evening. But all this means to me is it’s time to take the subway back to my apartment and do my nightly shot of Anadrol.
  
  Paying the overhead cost of steroids is worth it for the time being, even though it will be cournterproductive in the long run. The nature of this business is that everything is worth it for the time being, whether it is or it isn’t. In this business you quickly learn to stop pretending there’s a future. You don’t even live from day to day, you live from trick to trick.
  
  My job depends on being fit. Steroids keep my tanned biceps and six-pack up to par. It also gives me that boost to be able to hit some nightclub downtown after a long day’s work. After months and months of having sex eight or nine times a day I can barely walk around in my apartment. But after the shot, I’m able spend a couple of hours at the club. After the club I return home and go to sleep. The process starts all over again the next morning.
  
  I’m selling little pieces of my soul for $350 a pop or $700 an hour. If chains, handcuffs, or any other weird fetish is involved the price goes up. Sometimes they’ll want me to roleplay a scene in which the husband catches us. He’ll be hiding in the walk-in closet with a baseball bat or a golf club, watching me have sex with his wife. When I finish, he’ll come barging out wide-eyed, weapon raised in hand. The last time we did that he hit me. I’m not sure if it was intentional but they’re on my blacklist regardless. Evelyn is about to be put on it as well.
  
  The sad truth is, I don’t care about the pain or abuse as much as I do about looking ugly. In this profession I can’t afford to have my face caved in or my teeth knocked out. I have to be a six-foot-three machine of stamina and beauty. I’ve got to be Adonis. I can’t sell my soul to someone with my face caved in or missing teeth. Sometimes I wonder if I even have a soul left.
  
  Sometimes on Sundays, when I’m cruising around in my Shellby, I often think about Kevin walking home or taking the subway to his tiny alcove he calls an apartment. I picture him untying his apron and reaching into his pockets to pull out a wad of money. I almost feel pity for him, seeing that plump grin on his face, and his bright blue eyes opening wider.
  
  I pity him because he’s holding the crumpled wad up to his face with both hands like he’s found a pot of gold. He’s got what ninety, or a hundred dollars? Maybe today was a good day and he made a bill and half, maybe even a little over? Even the Italian marble tile in my apartment is worth more than all of his assets combined. But then I see him taking off his red and orange-stained apron and throwing it into the hamper. At the end of the day my dirty apron is still on. It never comes off.
  
  For the last nine months I’ve constantly lied to myself. I try and convince myself that self-respect and dignity are overrated in a cruel city like this. I have to believe everyone has sold out in some way or another. These lies have served as my armor. After Evelyn, the coat finally seems to be rusting and I can see who I truly am through its tiny holes. I ask myself often if I’m doing this for my mother Lois, or if it’s just because I have not the character to turn away from the road I’ve paved.
  
  Not many people wake up one day and decide to become an alcoholic or a prostitute. The sad truth is, sometimes it’s easier to accept misery than to change.
  
  Sometimes what you think is a one-time event tumbles into a lifestyle, and before you know it, you’re in a dark, underground culture without a warden to release you from its clutches. I’m not saying anyone is necessarily trapped and that they don’t have a free will. I’m only saying that sometimes living in misery is easier than doing something about it. It’s safer. You know what to expect with misery, especially if you’ve lived with it all your life. Change is harder; it’s something that requires work.
  
  My hand is on the cell phone now. I’m going to tell Kevin it’s over.
  
  “Serving food can’t be too hard,” I tell myself out loud.
  
  I’d have to give up the apartment, the car, and move back home. Before I hit the speed-dial there’s a knock on the motel door...
  

2. Interstate Deathwish




• At any given second I could die. I’m parked sideways on I-65 north in the middle of the night, halfway on the actual interstate and halfway on the shoulder of the road. Fog blankets the entire area.
  
  It’s the most dangerous part of the interstate near my apartment because it’s where I-65 curves sharply for a long stretch, almost in a complete circle. I know this because it’s where Gwen died. I park here every time.
  
  Most accidents within a five-mile radius occur at this stretch because there’s a ramp wall blocking the view around the entire curve. It’s impossible to see if anything is ahead of you or behind you. Even on a clear night the only landmark visible is the very tip of a yellow Waffle House sign off the next exit ramp. With my headlights and brake lights turned off I’m a guerilla disaster waiting to happen.
  
  I’m in the back seat masturbating right now, like I do every time I park on the interstate. Sometimes I like to listen to Everly Brothers or Patsy Cline, other times I listen to some of that newer music with more rhythm like Justin Timberlake.
  
  Headlights are blinding me and horns are blaring, their pitch becomes higher the closer the vehicles get, and lower as they pass.
  
  Whhhherrrrrrrr!
  
  Little drops of rain pelt the foggy windshield. The medley of rain and wet pavement wafts through the window and fills my nostrils.
  
  Cars and trucks swerve into the other lanes to avoid me, and the rush I’m getting is inexpressible. I can’t speak from personal experience, but I ‘m sure crack-cocaine can’t deliver this kind of ethereal high, where every five seconds a horn could mean I’m about to have my brains splattered all over the inside of my car. My hair is standing up on the back of my neck, and the inside of my scalp is tingling.
  
  I’m in a little, red 89’ Ford Escort. I could have brought my beat up Oldsmobile, but the Oldsmobile is bigger and safer. If I get hit in this little Escort, the chances are I’m more likely to die.
  
  No one can fault me for a lack of creativity. The Russians have their roulette; the Swiss have their William Tell, and the Japanese have their Kamikazes. Scholars can hyper-analyze these games to death and say they’re Freudian death wishes, or something deep and complex with roots in Greek mythology. But I think the reasons are simple; every society is plagued with boredom and will go to any lengths necessary to alleviate it. I just have my own fresh little spin on these cathartic games, my car parked sideways in the middle of hundreds of miles of dark interstate, waiting for a vehicle.
  
  I’m pretty much the opposite of a Kamikaze pilot. I like to purposely stack the odds against me. I won’t even venture out unless there is at least a ninety percent chance of rain that night. To increase the chance of fog accumulation I try and make sure the humidity is around one hundred percent.
  
  Joan says I’m delusional and psychotic, but in my opinion is she’s just a student working on her college degree, pretending she’s a therapist. I was caught last summer by INDOT (Indiana’s Department of Transportation) and sentenced to six months of inpatient therapy at Greenleaf, and six months of outpatient therapy. That’s where I met Joan.
  ***
  
  That summer, I parked in this same spot at night, with the lights off. I was working away at it, with my eyes closed. I hoped a drunk driver or an eighteen-wheeler would slam into me, or that a cop would walk up and catch me in the act.
  
  I was working away…almost there, thinking of Succubae. They ripped into my back with their talons and seared my flesh, sucking every last drop of life force out of me. Horns blared and the headlights created a laser light show inside my car. The Everly Brothers were dream-dream-dreaming away, when I heard a tap on my window.
  
  An INDOT worker stands outside my window, blinding me with a flashlight. That doesn’t stop me though. A minute later there’s another tap and three more people at my window, this time in police uniform. My back seat looks like someone blew their nose on it.
  
  Judge Polinksi tilted his bifocals and looked at me, shaking his cotton-white head.
  
  “Son, we don’t even have laws for this kind of thing, besides indecent exposure and reckless endangerment...which is a felony you know. Are you suicidal…” he paused to look at my rap sheet and then to me, “Mr. Broker?”
  
  I nodded.
  
  I have Obsessive Compulsive disorder and I’m bipolar; that’s what Gwen told me when she was still alive. I hate admitting that but she always encouraged me to so I could move on and get better. Joan thinks my diagnosis is much worse. We still meet once a week. I recall our first session.
  
  “Mr. Broker, ahem, why do you have this death-wish? You’re putting your life in danger and everyone else on the interstate. Could you explain to me why you’re doing this?”
  
  “I can’t afford Cable,” I say, with a serious look on my face.
  
  She doesn’t say anything; she just stares me down with her look.
  
  She doesn’t turn red; she doesn’t even frown at me. She has two colors, a beautiful honey color when she’s normal, and bleach white when she is angry. I don’t think she’s ever happy. Just then she was white. Another indicator if she’s mad or put off is she squints and points her lazy eye at me like a gun. When she does this I can feel needles under my skin. Right then I could feel the needles.
  
  She says in the calmest voice, almost whispering, “Mr. Broker, may I call you Ted?”
  
  I nod.
  
  “Ted, I drive on that interstate every night. I have a three-year-old daughter.”
  
  Then she does that thing with her eyes again, calm as some Buddhist, but supple as a snake, slithering her way into my psyche. The part of my brain that says, damn, she might be right you stupid shit-for-brains.
  
  Joan looks twenty-two but I think she’s closer to thirty. Her raven hair hangs down placidly at her shoulders. Her nose looks like a crooked beak, jutting out from two, tiny, black pearl eyes. She acts like the type who merely studies people, with as much empathy as the little tropical fish in her fish tank. Well it’s not exactly her fish tank; it’s not even her office. She’s doing her practicum right now. I’m just a college credit for her.
  
  But that voice in the back of my head knows she’s right. She might be a bitch of Arctic grandeur, but she has a point.
  
  And, in some ways she is attractive, especially if you like women with lazy eyes.
  
  I've stopped telling her that I'm doing this to be with Gwen again. She doesn't want to listen to that. She doesn't understand me, nobody did except Gwen. After I lost her to that drunk driver I also lost my mind. It wasn’t as if I was the most stable person to begin with, either.
  
  These neuroses didn’t seem to bother Gwen. She was one of a kind, the only woman who could put up with my antics. Even after she discovered I took fifteen showers a day, no more, no less. The sleepless, manic nights when I’d be up in the kitchen boiling eggs or cooking things I’d never eat, just for something to do.
  
  I baked Pumpkin Pie for her all night, as if it were Thanksgiving. Pumpkin Pie was her favorite, and I made sure she had plenty for breakfast. I’d bake tray, after tray, after tray. Weird I know. Any given week and I’d be up all night, buried in a Stephen King novel. I’ve probably read IT over two hundred hundred times during my life. There’s the time I tried to file a lawsuit against myself for reckless endangerment, but she stood by me through it all.
  
  She had a way that made me feel comfortable. She always reminded me to take my medicine. She always brought me Tiramisu cake at the end of her shift because she was sweet like that. She was a waitress at O’ Charlies.
  
  I could smell her before she came to the door every night from work. She didn’t smell like you would think, like a vat of cooking oil or breading from onion rings or mozzarella sticks. She smelled like she did when she left, like that strawberry scented shampoo and conditioner she used. Her red hair was almost the same color as her button-up shirt she wore to work, not a rusty-red but almost bright orange.
  
  She was supporting us while I went to school to study Radiology. I didn’t feel too bad about this because we were also using my mental disability check to cover the rest of the bills. The last night I saw her was two years ago, October 18th. I can still smell the strawberry scent, and feel her kiss. She covered another waitress’s shift that night.
  
  Six hours later it was all over the news. Her body looked like nothing more than jelly, oozing with red pus. They never caught him either. From the scratches on the roof and from eyewitness testimony they say she was run off the road by a large, red, flatbed truck. Apparently he was drunk or high, weaving in and out of his lane.
  
  That’s partly why I’m sitting here, parked on I-65 in this little shithouse-deathtrap with wheels, jerking away. I’m waiting for that ticket to heaven, hoping the same guy will run into me that killed Gwen. If I die or if I don’t die, it doesn’t make a difference. It still breaks up the monotony of my life and you can’t find a cheaper buzz than this. The only overhead is a couple of dollars in gas. You can’t get off cheaper renting a movie.
  
  My therapist tells me I’m schizophrenic, that Gwen divorced me two years ago because of my crazy behavior. She says she's just waiting for the judge's approval to put me away for good. But Joan is just a hater. I’m not going to let her stop me from being with the only woman who has ever truly loved me. That red truck is speeding towards me now and it looks like Gwen's ghost is next to the driver. I’m working away, almost there…
  

1. Friendly Fire




• In the military, the most tragic war stories sometimes never get told. If nothing else good comes of the war, at least I have the chance to tell of Private Tucker’s tragedy. And mine.
  
  We met here in Baghdad, in 2005. He had already been stationed here two years, broken in from one of the very first invasions in March of 2003. A letter came for me in the mail during one of the troop surges. I was called in, unprepared to fight a war that I didn't even know was happening.
  
  Maybe no one is really ever prepared for war. With all due respect, perhaps even the men of steel, the Marines and Seals only want to be here out of a misguided sense of duty and honor. The other type, the ones that want to be here because they enjoy killing are just plain mad.
  
  Tucker and I were nothing but two ill-equipped, sandy-haired babes from the National Guard who could barely load a gun the right way. He was a bricklayer by trade; I was an aspiring writer, taking care of my mother at home in Vermont. She was slowly withering away with Lou Gehrig’s disease.
  
  Many of us sat idle so long through times of peace that war seemed like some great myth, some Greek epic. But when we were called in, standing under that hot desert sun, time stopped and slowly tipped backwards. With the prospect of dying or becoming maimed every day, death was no longer the myth. Reality was violently flipped on its head. Sitting at home in a warm house watching TV became the fairy tale. We were playing Russian roulette on a daily basis.
  
  Tucker and I gravitated toward one another, the same way lonely drunks in a bar seem to sniff out each other's misery. Three months after I landed, my sister Jenny wrote. Mom was at St. Anthony's on her deathbed and my fiancée Crystal was cheating on me with her high school beau. She said she was sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that it was better to find out now than later.
  
  Coincidentally, Tucker received his Dear-John Letter three days after mine. His brother was "taking care" of his wife while he was here fighting the war. They were living the high life in a Condo near Bradenton Beach for the last two years.
  
  That night we sat in a dusty dive, an old abandoned school that had been remodeled into a place where the soldiers could kill themselves with whiskey.
  
  Tucker looked me in the eye, putting back shot after shot of rum, daring me to keep up. We were drinking not only to spite ourselves, but each other as well. Not a single word was exchanged. We were playing a game of roulette; each shot of whiskey was a bullet. We wanted to see who had the stones to take it the furthest. I didn't think things could get worse, but they did.
  
  A few weeks later, we were sent about fifteen miles north of Baghdad. It was one of the most volatile regions, constantly bombarded by insurgents. We were doing a recon mission to find munitions bunkers, and garnering a rough estimate of how many rebels held the area down.
  
  We were hiding next to what looked like some derelict salvage yard. Metal parts of jeeps and scrap were strewn everywhere. A crooked, sun-faded sign hung above the door for dear life. The wood siding of the building was pocked with bullet holes.
  
  Through binoculars, we were watching some kids play on a schoolyard. Some were making flags, others were tossing a ball back and forth. Sergeant Liskey went around the back to take a leak. Tucker lowered his binoculars and took a swig from his canteen, wiping sweat from his forehead. I was still watching those kids play when I heard a click, and a thump.
  
  Before I had time to turn my head completely around, I heard an explosion. A sharp, burning pain like a red-hot needle spread from my left eye and down my cheek. At the same time this happened, Tucker tackled me, or maybe he was blown into me. We never got the story straight. But when you're the one that gets your leg blown off instead of the other guy, you deserve bragging rights for something. I let him have them.
  
  No one knows how we made it out alive. Gunfire splintered the wood building and hit Corporal Atkins. He flopped over in front of me, holding his gut. Blood poured out of his mouth. He choked for a few seconds and then his eyes closed. Three Privates turned the rest of that wood hut into Swiss cheese. I don't remember this, but Liskey said he gave the signal to fall out. After the building went up in flames we hightailed it back to the base in the Humvee.
  
  I was in severe pain. Every image in my left eye looked like a silhouette eclipsed by the sun. Tucker screamed the whole time. The medic gave him a shot of morphine during the ride back, but the screaming continued. His knee, and everything below it dangled like a kite from his body. It literally hung by threads.
  
  After they flushed the pieces of shrapnel out of my eye and cauterized his leg there wasn’t much left they could do. We were to be shipped back home in three days, me with a blind eye and scarred face and he with a missing leg. A day and a half of lying on a bed in the infirmary felt like two months. Tucker only made it worse.
  
  He shoved a nurse when she was late with his medication. He constantly complained and at night I heard him crying. After hours and hours of this I slowly soaked up his apathy and despair like a sponge. It was hard for me to be around him, but at the same time I needed him. He was the only one in the platoon more miserable than I. We were both pretty much in the same position, but it hit him harder. That somehow validated my own sense of survival. Think of it as the opposite of Survivor's Guilt syndrome.
  
  To pass the time we played games with each other. I took care of him for the same reason he let me, out of pure spite and anger. I owed him one, and he took every advantage of it. So I took every advantage of owing him.
  
  Sometimes I would put his tray of food too far from his bed. I'd watch him hobble toward it to remind him that he needed me, and that I was one leg up on him. He would dirty extra dishes, and make extra messes just because he knew I hated cleaning them up. But at the same time, cleaning up his messes made him feel more and more like an invalid, and he hated himself for it. So I took sick pleasure in cleaning up these extra messes he made just to spite me, in order to spite him.
  
  After a day and a half of this we were getting restless. Even the morphine drip wasn’t enough to cure our boredom. We decided to play our old game and head back to the bar for our last night out. We took our bottles of Percocet and I wheeled him out against the doctor’s orders. After his violent outburst and complaining and my antics they didn’t put up much of a fight.
  
  I wheeled him back to the dorm and checked our mail one last time. I received another letter from Jenny. Mother had died. She died whispering my name, looking off into space with those lopsided eyeballs.
  
  What else could go wrong? I thought.
  
  That night at the bar there was something thick and somber weighing down the air. We sat in a corner booth looking at each other. There was a vacancy in Tucker’s eyes that I can’t quite describe, like he was about to ask me permission to do something horrifying and he half hoped I might try and talk him out of it. And as if by instinct I knew what he was about to say.
  
  “Jason, we need to talk,” he said.
  
  I looked away from him and rolled up two cigarettes. We ate some more Percocets and watched the orange moon through the window. He told me he wasn't going back home.
  
  "I have nothing to go back for."
  
  "I understand that."
  
  "No, I don't think you do," he said, chewing another Percocet.
  
  “I’m a brick layer,” he said, looking down at where his leg used to be, “that’s all I know how to do.”
  
  I didn't say anything for a few minutes. I sat there, silently smoking that cigarette. It might have been the pills but a faint halo slowly formed around the moon. We chewed a few more pills and washed them down with whiskey. We ordered shot after shot.
  
  "I need you to do something for me."
  
  He wanted me to euthanize him, in front of the platoon. In the locker room, first thing in the morning I was to sneak up behind him and blow his brains out with my forty-five.
  
  "Wouldn't it be so much easier just to take pills, or IV morphine?" I said.
  
  The nurses would probably even oblige.
  
  "Nope, everyone needs to see this. All those people getting discharged, going home to their wives and kids with both legs, they need to see this."
  
  "It's murder. I don't want to go to prison. And why can’t you do this yourself?"
  
  He stubbed out his cigarette and sat silent for a minute, as if he were waiting for some hidden part of him to surface and walk him back out of this dark labyrinth he had created for himself.
  
  “I need you to do it,” he said, “because I don’t have the balls to do it myself. I don’t even want to see it coming. You’re the only one I know with the stones to pull it off. Maybe we could do it together.”
  
  The room was starting to spin.
  
  “What do you have left to go back to anyway?” he said.
  
  He was right. Everything weighed down on me in a way that I had never imagined possible. A man died three feet away from me. I’d lost my fiancée, my mother, and my left eye. With the side of my face disfigured, I looked like a funhouse monster.
  
  Even if I made it out of this insane war alive it seemed I had nothing to look forward to. No matter which way I tried to spin it the forecast always seemed to hold the same thing for me: one miserable and crazy veteran, crying in his beer with a shotgun propped underneath his chin.
  
  It seemed inevitable I told myself, so I may as well get it over with now.
  
  The rest of that night is a blur. I woke up a little after five the next morning in my own vomit. I was still drunk. Everyone had already gone to Mess. I wiped the rheum from my eyes thinking it would clear the blurriness. It didn’t.
  
  I walked over to Tucker’s bunk. He was gone but there were a few wrapped presents, a bottle of champagne and a fruit basket on his bed. I chuckled.
  
  The gun was loaded so I put on my fatigues and headed to the locker room. Tucker was in the wheelchair taking off his shirt. Sergeant Liskey was helping him with his boot and the shower was running.
  
  I turned around, and walked back to my cot. I couldn't do it, especially with Liskey watching. I lit a cigarette and tried to build up the courage while he took his last shower.
  
  After the cigarette I hurried back to the locker room. He was alone, sitting in the wheelchair and facing away from me like we had planned. He began whistling. I crept up behind him, pressed the gun to the back of his head and pulled the trigger.
  
  Time was suspended. His brains seemed to fly out of his head in slow motion, like a beaten pillow's feathers, slowly floating to the ground. My heart didn't beat for what could have been an eternity, or two and a half seconds.
  
  Fragments of his brain speckled the wall, which dripped red with his blood. I put the barrel in my mouth and would have pulled the trigger, but I heard someone call my name. A moment later someone turned off the shower.
  
  I peeked around the corner. Tucker sat on a plastic stool under a showerhead. His hair was still wet. Later, I found out Liskey had helped him into the shower and playfully commandeered the wheelchair.
  
  If I had just finished him before he got into the shower everything would have worked out as planned. I constantly beat myself up for it, even though I know it doesn’t help grappling with those what-ifs. The debate about if my eye were better, or if my vision weren’t blurred from the drunkenness and pill hangover, doesn’t take away the bars in front of me. It certainly cannot give Sergeant Liskey his life back, either. The only real debate now is when and how to kill myself. Otherwise I’ll be rotting in prison for the rest of my life, or worse.
  
  My trial is in three days. Tucker hung himself in a walk in closet a couple of months ago. I’m still waiting for my sister to write back.
  
  In wartime, every day is just another spin of the loaded chamber. In wartime we are all asked to spin it and pull the trigger. Some are lucky enough to win the roulette game and some are not. These are the stories that sometimes slip through the cracks.