jamin_law (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jamin_law) wrote in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} alien_suicide,@ 2004-06-02 17:35:00 |
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CHAPTER 10: WHAT YOU FIND INSIDE THE SUN
I don’t have my head together. I don’t treat my friends right. I don’t treat my enemies right. Things are NEVER going to be right for me. Do you understand? Nothing will feel right. Nothing will work out for me.
I’ve committed my hubris. So what is there left to do?
The only thing left to do is to get FUCKED UP.
I am currently prescribed to… I don’t even remember anymore. I have enough half-used prescription bottles to start my own pharmacy. I’d have to look at the expiration dates to remind me which one I’m taking. Whatever it is, it’s not working, and I need a large dose of something that will give me a lift tonight. I look through all the names and have quick flashbacks of the advertising posters in doctor’s office. They’re almost all the same- a girl skipping through sun drenched and flowered fields with a large tree objectively observing in the distance- PAXIL. I see Xanax pens and Lorazepam tissue boxes… Efexor paper weights.
But it’s the little purple crazies that call me- Wellbutrin. I take three times the normal dosage. Maybe I’ll be sane tonight.
I meet Rob at the State store- that’s a State run liquor store, for those of you who are not from Pennsylvania. It’s the only place where you can buy hard liquor. Rob is a casual friend who is throwing a house party for his girlfriend’s birthday, and I’m helping him pick out the liquor.
“What does she drink?”
“I don’t know, girl stuff, I guess,” he says.
“Girl stuff, what does that mean?” I ask. I walk over to the schnapps. “Do you mean this stuff- pink and blue and green stuff… the pretty alcohol?”
He looks at the bottles I’m holding. “Well yeah, I guess you and Cricket are the goddesses of Jagermeister and tequila, respectively.”
With a crinkled nose I reply, “What’s your girlfriend’s name, again?”
“It’s Lisa. You know it’s Lisa.”
“Actually I didn’t.”
“Yes you did,” he sighs, “you’ve met her four or five times now.”
“I know,” I say, “I just have to irritate you about it.” I turn around and just that fast I’m face to face with my mother. It’s just that fast, so let me slow it down for you.
I’m face to face with my mother.
“Mom!” I’m shocked for an instant. “Um, hi, how are you?”
She’s holding a bottle of wine in crossed arms and wearing a gray business suit with elegant white panty hose and expensive black shoes. She’s wearing her hair high in a banana clip. She’s unnaturally tanned and is probably wearing just a tad too much makeup for a business outfit. She looks great but I’m too shocked to tell her.
“Fine, are you still working in the mall?” she says flatly.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. I’m still a little off guard, but my tone is cordial. I’m trying to sound like I’m glad to see my mother, probably because most normal people would be to see their mother. I’m trying to be normal. Normal. Of course, she’s acting like this is a root canal. “Where are you working at now?” I ask her.
“Down at AAA now,” she says. She doesn’t embellish. I start to feel sorry for asking, and then she sees Rob walking up behind me. She doesn’t even nod her head, he just shifts her eyes. “Is this the new guy you’re fucking?”
I feel a pop in my chest. At first, because of shock, I think about explaining that he’s just a friend, or that I’m still seeing Luke, but I say what I have to say: “You know mom, it was nice running into you in a liquor store and all, but let’s not do this. If we get into it, it’ll just make me spend more money at the checkout. I don’t need this.”
“Whatever you say, dear,” she says. She grabs my elbow as she passes, winks, and walks toward the registers. She eyes Rob up and down as she passes him. I’m thankful that she doesn’t grab his ass.
“That was your mom?” Rob asks.
“Yeah… I’m… I’m sorry you had to see that, Rob.”
“Ivy… I think I’ve seen her before,” he says.
“Well it’s a small town, Rob,” I say.
“Ivy… I think I should show you something. Let’s get back to my place.”
Before we go I put back the little bottle of Jagermeister and take the big bottle.
…
“Okay the first thing I have to do is admit to you that I watch porn,” Rob says.
“Where is this going?” I ask with a smirk and wide eyes, half serious and half teasing him. He’s sitting at his computer and I’m leaning over him, and I can tell he’s having trouble telling me something. “What? You- have natural human impulses and fantasies?” I say, picking on him, yet trying to make him feel better.
“I don’t know how to say it, so I’m going to say it out loud, because if you know already you probably would have already stopped me-“
“Will you stop babbling and get to it? You’re such a neurotic lush.”
He holds out his hands. “I think you’re mom is in porn.”
I cock my head at him, trying to detect a joke.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure she is. It was her voice. I’m not going to forget that voice.”
“You’re serious,” I say, a little alarmed.
“Yeah,” he says softly, and he looks at me for an extra second. He holds up his hands again. “I think that- if I’m right- I should tell you instead of you finding out some embarrassing way… you know?”
I get down on my knees and put my arm on the armrest of his chair. I look at the screen, and then back at him. “You have it on here?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s see it.”
…
“Well I knew she had a mouth on her but I never heard anything like that come out it before… or knew she could do anything like that with it,” I say.
“So it’s her?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“In a way, I’m a little relieved, I didn’t want to drag you through that for nothing,” he says, and then adds, “sorry, I don’t know how you feel about this.”
“I don’t know how I feel about it either, but you were right to tell me about it… Damn! She has a dirty mouth on her!” The video clip is still playing.
“Yeah, I’m not going to forget that voice… whoops, sorry, Ivy.”
I hit him kiddingly. I know this is going to bother me- it just isn’t at the moment. It’s going to need time to seep in. “What kind of site did you get this from?” I ask.
“A MILF site,” he answers.
“MILF, and that’s-“
“A mom I’d like to-“
“Okay, okay,” I interrupt, “I think I have it.”
“Yeah, sexy, mature moms…” and he trails off, looking at the screen.
I look back at the action. “She’s pretty aggressive, isn’t she?”
Rob pauses- I think the question unnerved him- so he changes the topic to something less uncomfortable, “I didn’t realize you had such a rocky relationship with your mom.”
“Well, just look at the way she behaved, how can I not have a rocky relationship with someone like that?”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “You’re pretty easy going and laid back. She is… not.”
“I mean think about what she said. I can’t believe it. I don’t think she has a soul. She’s so damn cold.”
“Hey, I don’t get along with my dad,” he offers.
Before I can respond Lisa walks through the door with a paper grocery bag full of party supplies. “Hey Lisa, happy birthday,” I say.
“Thanks,” she beams.
“Want to watch my mother have sex on your boyfriend’s computer?”
Her eyes shift to the screen and she walks over to us and leans over the space between Rob’s shoulder and my head on the armrest. She leaves the door open and doesn’t put down the bag. Her jaw drops. “That’s your mommy?” she asks in a shocked innocent voice, probably attempting to empathize.
I don’t answer. I look at the screen, but I can only imagine the view if it were a mirror, with the three of us sitting here with our jaws dropped and eyes glazed, sickly white and blue light bouncing off our faces, and disembodied moans of sex pouring from the speakers.
…
The night began, and when you’re at a house party… and when you’ve been drinking… the night can jump around… and your memories are ordered at first, but they can wisp away and reverse order and become jumbled…
….
Drunken Memory #1:
It started with four of us, sitting at the kitchen table, avoiding the long sunset rays slicing through the Venetian blinds, and playing a game of spades (girls v. guys) to pass the time. I like Lisa. Without premeditation, we start cheating together. We start passing signals for high and low, and for suit. This isn’t for money or anything so petty- this is to beat the boys.
The other boy we’re trying to beat is named James. We dated. We’re from the same town, but we didn’t actually meet until after we had left our hometown for college. We were doomed because at the time I was languishing in Efexor Hell. The world was filled with too many somber shades of gray and amber. There were no lows but there were no highs, and I found that to be much more torturous. Sunsets were colorless, food was banal, seasons had no aroma, and sex had the tantalizing appeal of sucking on cardboard. How could I have possibly enjoyed a relationship through this? In Hell, Love is an impossibility.
Efexor- the evil siren… she calls you in with her beautiful song, but soon your body is smashed against the rocks.
When Lisa and Rob wander away for a boyfriend/girlfriend moment, I take the first moment I have in at least three years to explain this to him, “I think the meds I was on had an effect on you and I.
“What?” he asks, a little off guard.
“You and I never really had closure, and I’ve been really nervous sitting here for the last twenty minutes. I don’t know if you held a grudge or if you thought I might be holding one. I just wanted to let you know that I don’t, and I hope you don’t, and I really think that the meds I was on at the time really dulled things beyond enjoyment, and that’s why things feel apart.” I am rambling, but I’m just trying to say everything before Rob and Lisa get back- I don’t know how much time I have.
“I really haven’t given it much thought,” he says with no emotion.
“Yeah, I figure, you’ve always seemed okay with things, but now that I know what was going on back then, I should let you know… in case you care, ‘cause if you do, you have the right to know.”
“Okay,” he says, almost as if he is annoyed.
I hear Lisa and Rob coming back, and quickly I say, “I was only concerned about your feelings, asshole.”
…
Drunken Memory #2:
Dan and Paul and Kyle show up. Rachael and Bobby show up together. Tyler and Mike and Phil… Renee and Sarah and Gina and Mary… an avalanche of effeminate boys named David… Jen and Jess and Jess and Jen and Jen and Jess… Groft and Coop… names, cheers, and smiles fill the house.
Eventually Cricket comes walking through the door with a shout and crinkled face and middle fingers to the air, but what sends my body into shock is the sight of her baby sister- Eve- that wonders in behind her. She has grown into a young woman. It makes sense- she should be close to sixteen by now. I go over to greet them. Hugs are exchanged. I don’t tell Eve how much she’s grown because I don’t want to be old enough to make that observation.
After a moment, Cricket and I have a moment “alone”, amongst a crowd of people. She takes a long drag from her cigarette, and without looking at me, she says, “I want to hear you say it out loud.”
She looks at me and I stare back at her, silently asking why.
“It will just make me feel better to hear it said out loud.”
I say, “It won’t affect our friendship. If anything, we’re going to be stronger friends now.”
She smiles and holds out her arms like a beautifully pierced and tattooed butterfly and envelops me in a hug. “Now how hard was that?” she asks in baby talk. And while her head is on my shoulder during a hug, she screams again in baby talk, “QUISTUL!” Crystal grabs me from behind, so I both of them hugging me, and then we start giggling and jumping up and down. I chalk it up to pre-party giggles for those two but I’ve already had a few.
“So you two did it?” Crystal asks.
“Cricket!” I say, surprised. “I’m the one who’s supposed to blurt out secrets and cause uncomfortable social situations.” I slur the last three words.
Cricket points an accusing finger at Crystal and says, “That little devil child knows how to pump information. Besides, I figured you’d tell her anyway.”
People pass back in forth in around us and we clam up when someone else is near. When she gets the chance to ask, Crystal tilts her shoulders and head forward. “Was it better?”
“Yeah, but not because she’s a girl,” I look at Cricket, who is giving me a cute and innocent look, and then back at Crystal, “it’s because we actually care about each other.” I think about what I say and then correct myself, “I’m not comparing things to Luke though- he and I care about each other. I’m assuming you wanted to know boys versus girls.”
“We’ll have to have a conversation about this when there aren’t so many people around,” Crystal says. I give her a funny look, so she embellishes, “I’m not curious about the girl-girl stuff, but I do need some serious boy lessons.”
“If I can help you out, I will,” I say. “The first sexual experience shouldn’t be taken lightly, for me it was a reflection of how I wanted the world to treat me…” I hold out my arms and say loud enough for others to hear me, “Vaginal penetration is a metaphor for a woman’s relationship with reality. There is a reason why girls want their first time to be perfect.”
“And what guy is going to understand that?” Crystal asks.
…
Drunken Memory #3
At what point does a house party get out of control? Is it when the samurai swords come out? I know the boys need to play, but usually they wrestle or something. This time, there is a guy at this party who brought martial arts weapons. Now he’s aiming his blade at the cigarette Rob is poking out of his mouth. I can’t watch this- yet I cannot turn away. Everyone knows this is trouble but no one is stopping it. There’s a wide grin pasted on everyone. The room that everyone is in is at the very top of the stairs, and I’m standing between the door’s threshold and the top step. I keep turning around to look down the stairs for Rob’s girlfriend. If Lisa sees this she’ll flip. I can see her walking into the room and shouting in horror, disrupting this kid’s swing and removing part of Rob’s face.
The kid with the sword swings but the results are very anti-climatic. Not only did Rob keep his face, but his cigarette didn’t even break. I could have swiped the cigarette out of his mouth just the same as that sword. I leave the room while I have the chance… before the throwing stars start flying.
…
Drunken Memory #... um… 25
I’m trying to catch up with Eve, but we keep getting interrupted by this sonic disruption that overpowers our conversation. We walk into the other room to investigate it, and we see Cricket pointing at the boys, who are screaming karaoke to the Misfits.
“Perfect,” Cricket screams with open arms, and then she puts her hands on her hips and smirks, tilting her head down slightly to glare approvingly.
Luke is one of the loving fools screaming- I didn’t seem him come in. He winks at me but he doesn’t come over to me. In fact, he doesn’t pay much attention to me the entire night.
The boys sing Misfits and Dead Kennedys and Descendents and Bad Religion covers all night, all the while jumping into, bruising, and wrestling each other.
…
Drunken Memory # 20 or 21
Later in the night, Eve and I actually have a chance to catch up, but instead we’re having a conversation about whether or not Dark Side of the Moon actually synchronizes with The Wizard of Oz. Luke swings through the crowd and kisses me. He says, “Beer run,” and moves on.
That was the last time I ever kissed Luke.
“Are you two avoiding each other?” Eve asks.
“Yes, just not intentionally,” I answer. I change the subject, “So is high school the same as it used to be?”
“I don’t know,” she responds, “did they claim to promote individuality but stifle every attempt at creativity and originality?”
“Yeah.”
“If you show any sign of depression do they throw you into crisis management and treat you with fear and resentment? Did they treat you like a criminal if you were moody?”
“Is it really that bad?” I ask.
“It’s prison,” she says. “If you make a drawing or painting with a little black in it, they pluck you away to the crisis management brain washing camps. Yet they still want to encourage us to express ourselves. We just have to express ourselves the way they want us too.”
“And just like everyone else.”
“It’s fascism,” she sighs.
“So nothing’s changed then.”
…
Drunken Memory #18:
Things are VERY VERY blurry.
“I’m thankful that God made it painful to stare into the sun. Otherwise, I think most people would be blind,” I say… I’m very blitzed at this point.
“You think so?” someone- who knows- asks.
“That’s pure power in the sky. Anyone can be a part of that power by staring at it, and letting it flow through you. Remember how hard it was to look away when you were told not to?” I ask.
“Yeah…” she says unsurely.
“Let me put it another way. Have you ever watched a crowd who knows they are on TV? They can’t take their eyes of the camera- the object of power… the object that projects them into a million homes... Unless of course… There is a big screen in the building. Then it’s a crowd of people waving at their own images on a screen- idiots smiling at idiots.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, “and then there’s always that one guy talking to someone on a cell phone, telling them to turn on the TV too see him wave to himself!”
“Yeah! King of the Idiots…” I agree.
“Yeah,” she says- I realize that it’s Lisa- and she’s drunk too, and trailing off.
I carry on anyway, “This is not far away from the monkeys wandering out of the jungle and seeing their reflection in the river for the first time.” I swing my arm to emphasize my point and spill my drink.
Lisa puts her finger in my chest- not to be mean- just to make a point and she’s too drunk to realize how aggressive the gesture is… but I’m too drunk to realize it too. She says, “That’s why anyone will humiliate themselves to get on a reality show. Or girls will starve themselves to get loved. I mean… the right movie part.”
“That was a Freudian slip,” I say. Lisa and I are hugging at this point, more from a loss of balance than an emotional need- although I sensed the need was there.
“I understand that it might be a jump from those people to people that would burn out their eyes by looking at the sun,” I say, “but what if they thought by doing it they could feel closer to God? If they could feel more powerful?”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that why people stare into cameras or starve themselves… or date assholes?” Lisa asks. “I mean… not Rob, but I had a problem for a while.”
“Yeah, Rob always seemed like a straight shooter,” I say.
“What are you guys talking about?” One of the Jens comes up and asks.
Lisa pauses and then spits, “Penises!”
Jen shakes her head and walks away while Lisa and I laugh.
…
Drunken Memory #75
I’m trying to catch up with one of the boys that I haven’t seen in a while but I can’t keep Jason off of me. I don’t mind people being touchy-feely. There is nothing wrong with affection, but there is something wrong with the way he does it. I can’t put my finger on it. The biggest red flag is when I ask him to stop, he doesn’t… I don’t care if he’s been drinking. I try talking to him:
“Jason... really… I don’t have a problem with you and me flirting just a little bit, to be nice, but you cross the line, even when I’ve been drinking… now that I think of it, especially since I’ve been drinking.”
“Whatever… I don’t need this…” he says and he whips away.
I made him mad. It’s too bad, but I had to get the point across. He can be a friend and be affectionate and hug me and put his arm around me (if he’s earned it), but he can’t put his hands on me all night.
A few partial conversations come and go… and in the clearing I see him doing it to someone else. He’s putting his hands all over Eve- a sixteen year old… and Eve!
And she doesn’t like it… and he isn’t stopping it. I feel my blood boil. I try to avert my attention. I pretend it’s not happening, but I keep turning back and seeing him touch her behind and back and shoulders. I keep seeing her squirm away with an alcohol-induced numbness.
I walk over to the foursome that they are standing in and start to make out what everyone is saying. Even one of his friends is telling him to back off, but he’s not having it. “No, she likes it,” he says.
“You! “ I say to him. I stick my finger into his chest and defiantly stare up at him. “Everything you say to me is a damn sexual innuendo and I’m sick of it. And every time I see you with a girl I overhear you saying something sexual- or you’re always putting your hands all over them. It’s one thing to be affectionate with friends, but for the three years that I’ve known you I haven’t seen you devote a second to something other than your penis.”
He pushes my finger out of the way. “Why don’t you mind your own business,” he says.
“Why don’t act like human being for once? Why don’t you try relating to girls instead of trying to talk them into bed?”
“I’m not going to listen to you,” he says. “You’re just some crazy chick.”
“I understand. I’m a crazy chick because I won’t let you push girls around. Is that it?”
“Your whole family is crazy. Why don’t you blow your brains out like your dad did?” He turns away and drinks his beer.
I take a bottle out of the closest hand and make a top-to-bottom tap from my bottle to the one he’s drinking, so that his bottle chips his tooth and my bottle over-foams and spills all over him. “He slit his wrists! Get it right!” I yell.
“Bitch!” he yells, and he pushes me into the crowd.
I see a bottle fly, and then a scuffle. The next thing I know Cricket is brandishing a vodka bottle, and my anger shifts to drunken glee as three of us barely hold her back. We’re laughing ourselves sick, and finally we overpower her. As a final gesture, with her back on top of three fallen bodies, she leans up and shoots him the finger.
Then there was a knock at the door.
…
Drunken Memory #77
When the police arrived, we thought it was because of all the noise we were making. We were screaming punk songs, slamming each other into the ground, and breaking glass in a fight. That’s not why they arrived.
There was a fatal accident involving people from a party.
What a buzz kill.
We have to sit there and wonder who’s been killed, because the police won’t tell us- they don’t even know. Rob and Lisa leave with the police to identify the people in the crash. We have to sit and wait… and think… about who left and how long ago…
I know that Luke left a long time ago for a beer run. He should have been back a long time ago. He could have been involved in the accident on his way back… but if he was gone as long as I think he was, he may not have wanted to come back. I’ve lost all sense of time. I look at the clock. It is early morning. None of this means anything.
The thoughts start to hurt.
It starts with a headache, and then a sharp pain in my stomach. The thoughts- they nauseated and twisted me.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I say to Cricket. “Can you take me home?”
“You want to leave now?” she asks. She’s surprised.
“Yeah,” I say. “I can’t take being here anymore.”
She takes a long look at me, and all at once she understands. She helps me up, and motions to Eve for help. They have to help me out the front door, with one of my arms around Cricket and another around her sister. Crystal sees us heading out and follows us.
“Are you guys okay?” she asks.
“We’ve got to get her out of here,” Cricket answers.
…
Drunken Memory #88
They must be carrying me, because the world is whirling around me. I gain control of my vision as we are gliding down the front walkway. There are three blobs and smears spotted along the grass the line walkway to the house and when I look closer, I can see that they’re dead rabbits. “Do you see that?” I whisper, but no one answers. So maybe I never did say anything.
I wonder if they’re in my imagination and just when I’m on the cusp of freaking out, Cricket answers, “…Must have been a cat.”
I look back over my shoulder, and I realize that my arm is around her shoulder. I look back at the bloody smears, and maybe I say it aloud, or maybe I just think it, but somehow the thought is conveyed:
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”
Raindrops start pounding my head. Then I’m soaked. I’m dropped into the back seat of a car. I have no idea where I am. The dome light is a pulsating banshee, nauseating me to insanity. I hear a conversation- a mile away- about who is sober enough to drive. “Please, please, get in… the light,” I whisper. The effort to say the words are exhausting.
The light goes out, and the darkness is warm. I am silver-tongued and shriveled- throat swollen, chest heavy, and doused in fever- sick with some unknown parasite that I can feel breathing in my brainstem.
“How do you feel?” I hear someone ask.
“The same way I feel every time,” I say. “The drugs feel good at first but then they wear off and you have to change your diagnosis and we start all over again. Meanwhile my brains turn to scrambled eggs.” Again, did I just think that, or say it?
“Ivy,” Crystal says. She hugs me. I start crying convulsively.
“This is so scary,” I choke out. “Who’s been hurt?”
“I know, I know,” she says. “We’re scared too. We just need to get to home.”
“We’re coming up on it,” Cricket says. Red and blue lights whip through us. “You’re okay, right?” she asks Eve, who’s driving.
“Yeah,” Eve answers, “why?”
“Because if they know we came from the party…”
Their conversation fades in my mind. I understand that they are in survival mode, but I can see through my own hazy cloud. I can see out through the windshield. I can see the accident.
One of the cars is Luke’s.
…
END PART ONE
I don’t have my head together. I don’t treat my friends right. I don’t treat my enemies right. Things are NEVER going to be right for me. Do you understand? Nothing will feel right. Nothing will work out for me.
I’ve committed my hubris. So what is there left to do?
The only thing left to do is to get FUCKED UP.
I am currently prescribed to… I don’t even remember anymore. I have enough half-used prescription bottles to start my own pharmacy. I’d have to look at the expiration dates to remind me which one I’m taking. Whatever it is, it’s not working, and I need a large dose of something that will give me a lift tonight. I look through all the names and have quick flashbacks of the advertising posters in doctor’s office. They’re almost all the same- a girl skipping through sun drenched and flowered fields with a large tree objectively observing in the distance- PAXIL. I see Xanax pens and Lorazepam tissue boxes… Efexor paper weights.
But it’s the little purple crazies that call me- Wellbutrin. I take three times the normal dosage. Maybe I’ll be sane tonight.
I meet Rob at the State store- that’s a State run liquor store, for those of you who are not from Pennsylvania. It’s the only place where you can buy hard liquor. Rob is a casual friend who is throwing a house party for his girlfriend’s birthday, and I’m helping him pick out the liquor.
“What does she drink?”
“I don’t know, girl stuff, I guess,” he says.
“Girl stuff, what does that mean?” I ask. I walk over to the schnapps. “Do you mean this stuff- pink and blue and green stuff… the pretty alcohol?”
He looks at the bottles I’m holding. “Well yeah, I guess you and Cricket are the goddesses of Jagermeister and tequila, respectively.”
With a crinkled nose I reply, “What’s your girlfriend’s name, again?”
“It’s Lisa. You know it’s Lisa.”
“Actually I didn’t.”
“Yes you did,” he sighs, “you’ve met her four or five times now.”
“I know,” I say, “I just have to irritate you about it.” I turn around and just that fast I’m face to face with my mother. It’s just that fast, so let me slow it down for you.
I’m face to face with my mother.
“Mom!” I’m shocked for an instant. “Um, hi, how are you?”
She’s holding a bottle of wine in crossed arms and wearing a gray business suit with elegant white panty hose and expensive black shoes. She’s wearing her hair high in a banana clip. She’s unnaturally tanned and is probably wearing just a tad too much makeup for a business outfit. She looks great but I’m too shocked to tell her.
“Fine, are you still working in the mall?” she says flatly.
“Uh, yeah,” I say. I’m still a little off guard, but my tone is cordial. I’m trying to sound like I’m glad to see my mother, probably because most normal people would be to see their mother. I’m trying to be normal. Normal. Of course, she’s acting like this is a root canal. “Where are you working at now?” I ask her.
“Down at AAA now,” she says. She doesn’t embellish. I start to feel sorry for asking, and then she sees Rob walking up behind me. She doesn’t even nod her head, he just shifts her eyes. “Is this the new guy you’re fucking?”
I feel a pop in my chest. At first, because of shock, I think about explaining that he’s just a friend, or that I’m still seeing Luke, but I say what I have to say: “You know mom, it was nice running into you in a liquor store and all, but let’s not do this. If we get into it, it’ll just make me spend more money at the checkout. I don’t need this.”
“Whatever you say, dear,” she says. She grabs my elbow as she passes, winks, and walks toward the registers. She eyes Rob up and down as she passes him. I’m thankful that she doesn’t grab his ass.
“That was your mom?” Rob asks.
“Yeah… I’m… I’m sorry you had to see that, Rob.”
“Ivy… I think I’ve seen her before,” he says.
“Well it’s a small town, Rob,” I say.
“Ivy… I think I should show you something. Let’s get back to my place.”
Before we go I put back the little bottle of Jagermeister and take the big bottle.
…
“Okay the first thing I have to do is admit to you that I watch porn,” Rob says.
“Where is this going?” I ask with a smirk and wide eyes, half serious and half teasing him. He’s sitting at his computer and I’m leaning over him, and I can tell he’s having trouble telling me something. “What? You- have natural human impulses and fantasies?” I say, picking on him, yet trying to make him feel better.
“I don’t know how to say it, so I’m going to say it out loud, because if you know already you probably would have already stopped me-“
“Will you stop babbling and get to it? You’re such a neurotic lush.”
He holds out his hands. “I think you’re mom is in porn.”
I cock my head at him, trying to detect a joke.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure she is. It was her voice. I’m not going to forget that voice.”
“You’re serious,” I say, a little alarmed.
“Yeah,” he says softly, and he looks at me for an extra second. He holds up his hands again. “I think that- if I’m right- I should tell you instead of you finding out some embarrassing way… you know?”
I get down on my knees and put my arm on the armrest of his chair. I look at the screen, and then back at him. “You have it on here?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s see it.”
…
“Well I knew she had a mouth on her but I never heard anything like that come out it before… or knew she could do anything like that with it,” I say.
“So it’s her?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“In a way, I’m a little relieved, I didn’t want to drag you through that for nothing,” he says, and then adds, “sorry, I don’t know how you feel about this.”
“I don’t know how I feel about it either, but you were right to tell me about it… Damn! She has a dirty mouth on her!” The video clip is still playing.
“Yeah, I’m not going to forget that voice… whoops, sorry, Ivy.”
I hit him kiddingly. I know this is going to bother me- it just isn’t at the moment. It’s going to need time to seep in. “What kind of site did you get this from?” I ask.
“A MILF site,” he answers.
“MILF, and that’s-“
“A mom I’d like to-“
“Okay, okay,” I interrupt, “I think I have it.”
“Yeah, sexy, mature moms…” and he trails off, looking at the screen.
I look back at the action. “She’s pretty aggressive, isn’t she?”
Rob pauses- I think the question unnerved him- so he changes the topic to something less uncomfortable, “I didn’t realize you had such a rocky relationship with your mom.”
“Well, just look at the way she behaved, how can I not have a rocky relationship with someone like that?”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “You’re pretty easy going and laid back. She is… not.”
“I mean think about what she said. I can’t believe it. I don’t think she has a soul. She’s so damn cold.”
“Hey, I don’t get along with my dad,” he offers.
Before I can respond Lisa walks through the door with a paper grocery bag full of party supplies. “Hey Lisa, happy birthday,” I say.
“Thanks,” she beams.
“Want to watch my mother have sex on your boyfriend’s computer?”
Her eyes shift to the screen and she walks over to us and leans over the space between Rob’s shoulder and my head on the armrest. She leaves the door open and doesn’t put down the bag. Her jaw drops. “That’s your mommy?” she asks in a shocked innocent voice, probably attempting to empathize.
I don’t answer. I look at the screen, but I can only imagine the view if it were a mirror, with the three of us sitting here with our jaws dropped and eyes glazed, sickly white and blue light bouncing off our faces, and disembodied moans of sex pouring from the speakers.
…
The night began, and when you’re at a house party… and when you’ve been drinking… the night can jump around… and your memories are ordered at first, but they can wisp away and reverse order and become jumbled…
….
Drunken Memory #1:
It started with four of us, sitting at the kitchen table, avoiding the long sunset rays slicing through the Venetian blinds, and playing a game of spades (girls v. guys) to pass the time. I like Lisa. Without premeditation, we start cheating together. We start passing signals for high and low, and for suit. This isn’t for money or anything so petty- this is to beat the boys.
The other boy we’re trying to beat is named James. We dated. We’re from the same town, but we didn’t actually meet until after we had left our hometown for college. We were doomed because at the time I was languishing in Efexor Hell. The world was filled with too many somber shades of gray and amber. There were no lows but there were no highs, and I found that to be much more torturous. Sunsets were colorless, food was banal, seasons had no aroma, and sex had the tantalizing appeal of sucking on cardboard. How could I have possibly enjoyed a relationship through this? In Hell, Love is an impossibility.
Efexor- the evil siren… she calls you in with her beautiful song, but soon your body is smashed against the rocks.
When Lisa and Rob wander away for a boyfriend/girlfriend moment, I take the first moment I have in at least three years to explain this to him, “I think the meds I was on had an effect on you and I.
“What?” he asks, a little off guard.
“You and I never really had closure, and I’ve been really nervous sitting here for the last twenty minutes. I don’t know if you held a grudge or if you thought I might be holding one. I just wanted to let you know that I don’t, and I hope you don’t, and I really think that the meds I was on at the time really dulled things beyond enjoyment, and that’s why things feel apart.” I am rambling, but I’m just trying to say everything before Rob and Lisa get back- I don’t know how much time I have.
“I really haven’t given it much thought,” he says with no emotion.
“Yeah, I figure, you’ve always seemed okay with things, but now that I know what was going on back then, I should let you know… in case you care, ‘cause if you do, you have the right to know.”
“Okay,” he says, almost as if he is annoyed.
I hear Lisa and Rob coming back, and quickly I say, “I was only concerned about your feelings, asshole.”
…
Drunken Memory #2:
Dan and Paul and Kyle show up. Rachael and Bobby show up together. Tyler and Mike and Phil… Renee and Sarah and Gina and Mary… an avalanche of effeminate boys named David… Jen and Jess and Jess and Jen and Jen and Jess… Groft and Coop… names, cheers, and smiles fill the house.
Eventually Cricket comes walking through the door with a shout and crinkled face and middle fingers to the air, but what sends my body into shock is the sight of her baby sister- Eve- that wonders in behind her. She has grown into a young woman. It makes sense- she should be close to sixteen by now. I go over to greet them. Hugs are exchanged. I don’t tell Eve how much she’s grown because I don’t want to be old enough to make that observation.
After a moment, Cricket and I have a moment “alone”, amongst a crowd of people. She takes a long drag from her cigarette, and without looking at me, she says, “I want to hear you say it out loud.”
She looks at me and I stare back at her, silently asking why.
“It will just make me feel better to hear it said out loud.”
I say, “It won’t affect our friendship. If anything, we’re going to be stronger friends now.”
She smiles and holds out her arms like a beautifully pierced and tattooed butterfly and envelops me in a hug. “Now how hard was that?” she asks in baby talk. And while her head is on my shoulder during a hug, she screams again in baby talk, “QUISTUL!” Crystal grabs me from behind, so I both of them hugging me, and then we start giggling and jumping up and down. I chalk it up to pre-party giggles for those two but I’ve already had a few.
“So you two did it?” Crystal asks.
“Cricket!” I say, surprised. “I’m the one who’s supposed to blurt out secrets and cause uncomfortable social situations.” I slur the last three words.
Cricket points an accusing finger at Crystal and says, “That little devil child knows how to pump information. Besides, I figured you’d tell her anyway.”
People pass back in forth in around us and we clam up when someone else is near. When she gets the chance to ask, Crystal tilts her shoulders and head forward. “Was it better?”
“Yeah, but not because she’s a girl,” I look at Cricket, who is giving me a cute and innocent look, and then back at Crystal, “it’s because we actually care about each other.” I think about what I say and then correct myself, “I’m not comparing things to Luke though- he and I care about each other. I’m assuming you wanted to know boys versus girls.”
“We’ll have to have a conversation about this when there aren’t so many people around,” Crystal says. I give her a funny look, so she embellishes, “I’m not curious about the girl-girl stuff, but I do need some serious boy lessons.”
“If I can help you out, I will,” I say. “The first sexual experience shouldn’t be taken lightly, for me it was a reflection of how I wanted the world to treat me…” I hold out my arms and say loud enough for others to hear me, “Vaginal penetration is a metaphor for a woman’s relationship with reality. There is a reason why girls want their first time to be perfect.”
“And what guy is going to understand that?” Crystal asks.
…
Drunken Memory #3
At what point does a house party get out of control? Is it when the samurai swords come out? I know the boys need to play, but usually they wrestle or something. This time, there is a guy at this party who brought martial arts weapons. Now he’s aiming his blade at the cigarette Rob is poking out of his mouth. I can’t watch this- yet I cannot turn away. Everyone knows this is trouble but no one is stopping it. There’s a wide grin pasted on everyone. The room that everyone is in is at the very top of the stairs, and I’m standing between the door’s threshold and the top step. I keep turning around to look down the stairs for Rob’s girlfriend. If Lisa sees this she’ll flip. I can see her walking into the room and shouting in horror, disrupting this kid’s swing and removing part of Rob’s face.
The kid with the sword swings but the results are very anti-climatic. Not only did Rob keep his face, but his cigarette didn’t even break. I could have swiped the cigarette out of his mouth just the same as that sword. I leave the room while I have the chance… before the throwing stars start flying.
…
Drunken Memory #... um… 25
I’m trying to catch up with Eve, but we keep getting interrupted by this sonic disruption that overpowers our conversation. We walk into the other room to investigate it, and we see Cricket pointing at the boys, who are screaming karaoke to the Misfits.
“Perfect,” Cricket screams with open arms, and then she puts her hands on her hips and smirks, tilting her head down slightly to glare approvingly.
Luke is one of the loving fools screaming- I didn’t seem him come in. He winks at me but he doesn’t come over to me. In fact, he doesn’t pay much attention to me the entire night.
The boys sing Misfits and Dead Kennedys and Descendents and Bad Religion covers all night, all the while jumping into, bruising, and wrestling each other.
…
Drunken Memory # 20 or 21
Later in the night, Eve and I actually have a chance to catch up, but instead we’re having a conversation about whether or not Dark Side of the Moon actually synchronizes with The Wizard of Oz. Luke swings through the crowd and kisses me. He says, “Beer run,” and moves on.
That was the last time I ever kissed Luke.
“Are you two avoiding each other?” Eve asks.
“Yes, just not intentionally,” I answer. I change the subject, “So is high school the same as it used to be?”
“I don’t know,” she responds, “did they claim to promote individuality but stifle every attempt at creativity and originality?”
“Yeah.”
“If you show any sign of depression do they throw you into crisis management and treat you with fear and resentment? Did they treat you like a criminal if you were moody?”
“Is it really that bad?” I ask.
“It’s prison,” she says. “If you make a drawing or painting with a little black in it, they pluck you away to the crisis management brain washing camps. Yet they still want to encourage us to express ourselves. We just have to express ourselves the way they want us too.”
“And just like everyone else.”
“It’s fascism,” she sighs.
“So nothing’s changed then.”
…
Drunken Memory #18:
Things are VERY VERY blurry.
“I’m thankful that God made it painful to stare into the sun. Otherwise, I think most people would be blind,” I say… I’m very blitzed at this point.
“You think so?” someone- who knows- asks.
“That’s pure power in the sky. Anyone can be a part of that power by staring at it, and letting it flow through you. Remember how hard it was to look away when you were told not to?” I ask.
“Yeah…” she says unsurely.
“Let me put it another way. Have you ever watched a crowd who knows they are on TV? They can’t take their eyes of the camera- the object of power… the object that projects them into a million homes... Unless of course… There is a big screen in the building. Then it’s a crowd of people waving at their own images on a screen- idiots smiling at idiots.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, “and then there’s always that one guy talking to someone on a cell phone, telling them to turn on the TV too see him wave to himself!”
“Yeah! King of the Idiots…” I agree.
“Yeah,” she says- I realize that it’s Lisa- and she’s drunk too, and trailing off.
I carry on anyway, “This is not far away from the monkeys wandering out of the jungle and seeing their reflection in the river for the first time.” I swing my arm to emphasize my point and spill my drink.
Lisa puts her finger in my chest- not to be mean- just to make a point and she’s too drunk to realize how aggressive the gesture is… but I’m too drunk to realize it too. She says, “That’s why anyone will humiliate themselves to get on a reality show. Or girls will starve themselves to get loved. I mean… the right movie part.”
“That was a Freudian slip,” I say. Lisa and I are hugging at this point, more from a loss of balance than an emotional need- although I sensed the need was there.
“I understand that it might be a jump from those people to people that would burn out their eyes by looking at the sun,” I say, “but what if they thought by doing it they could feel closer to God? If they could feel more powerful?”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that why people stare into cameras or starve themselves… or date assholes?” Lisa asks. “I mean… not Rob, but I had a problem for a while.”
“Yeah, Rob always seemed like a straight shooter,” I say.
“What are you guys talking about?” One of the Jens comes up and asks.
Lisa pauses and then spits, “Penises!”
Jen shakes her head and walks away while Lisa and I laugh.
…
Drunken Memory #75
I’m trying to catch up with one of the boys that I haven’t seen in a while but I can’t keep Jason off of me. I don’t mind people being touchy-feely. There is nothing wrong with affection, but there is something wrong with the way he does it. I can’t put my finger on it. The biggest red flag is when I ask him to stop, he doesn’t… I don’t care if he’s been drinking. I try talking to him:
“Jason... really… I don’t have a problem with you and me flirting just a little bit, to be nice, but you cross the line, even when I’ve been drinking… now that I think of it, especially since I’ve been drinking.”
“Whatever… I don’t need this…” he says and he whips away.
I made him mad. It’s too bad, but I had to get the point across. He can be a friend and be affectionate and hug me and put his arm around me (if he’s earned it), but he can’t put his hands on me all night.
A few partial conversations come and go… and in the clearing I see him doing it to someone else. He’s putting his hands all over Eve- a sixteen year old… and Eve!
And she doesn’t like it… and he isn’t stopping it. I feel my blood boil. I try to avert my attention. I pretend it’s not happening, but I keep turning back and seeing him touch her behind and back and shoulders. I keep seeing her squirm away with an alcohol-induced numbness.
I walk over to the foursome that they are standing in and start to make out what everyone is saying. Even one of his friends is telling him to back off, but he’s not having it. “No, she likes it,” he says.
“You! “ I say to him. I stick my finger into his chest and defiantly stare up at him. “Everything you say to me is a damn sexual innuendo and I’m sick of it. And every time I see you with a girl I overhear you saying something sexual- or you’re always putting your hands all over them. It’s one thing to be affectionate with friends, but for the three years that I’ve known you I haven’t seen you devote a second to something other than your penis.”
He pushes my finger out of the way. “Why don’t you mind your own business,” he says.
“Why don’t act like human being for once? Why don’t you try relating to girls instead of trying to talk them into bed?”
“I’m not going to listen to you,” he says. “You’re just some crazy chick.”
“I understand. I’m a crazy chick because I won’t let you push girls around. Is that it?”
“Your whole family is crazy. Why don’t you blow your brains out like your dad did?” He turns away and drinks his beer.
I take a bottle out of the closest hand and make a top-to-bottom tap from my bottle to the one he’s drinking, so that his bottle chips his tooth and my bottle over-foams and spills all over him. “He slit his wrists! Get it right!” I yell.
“Bitch!” he yells, and he pushes me into the crowd.
I see a bottle fly, and then a scuffle. The next thing I know Cricket is brandishing a vodka bottle, and my anger shifts to drunken glee as three of us barely hold her back. We’re laughing ourselves sick, and finally we overpower her. As a final gesture, with her back on top of three fallen bodies, she leans up and shoots him the finger.
Then there was a knock at the door.
…
Drunken Memory #77
When the police arrived, we thought it was because of all the noise we were making. We were screaming punk songs, slamming each other into the ground, and breaking glass in a fight. That’s not why they arrived.
There was a fatal accident involving people from a party.
What a buzz kill.
We have to sit there and wonder who’s been killed, because the police won’t tell us- they don’t even know. Rob and Lisa leave with the police to identify the people in the crash. We have to sit and wait… and think… about who left and how long ago…
I know that Luke left a long time ago for a beer run. He should have been back a long time ago. He could have been involved in the accident on his way back… but if he was gone as long as I think he was, he may not have wanted to come back. I’ve lost all sense of time. I look at the clock. It is early morning. None of this means anything.
The thoughts start to hurt.
It starts with a headache, and then a sharp pain in my stomach. The thoughts- they nauseated and twisted me.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” I say to Cricket. “Can you take me home?”
“You want to leave now?” she asks. She’s surprised.
“Yeah,” I say. “I can’t take being here anymore.”
She takes a long look at me, and all at once she understands. She helps me up, and motions to Eve for help. They have to help me out the front door, with one of my arms around Cricket and another around her sister. Crystal sees us heading out and follows us.
“Are you guys okay?” she asks.
“We’ve got to get her out of here,” Cricket answers.
…
Drunken Memory #88
They must be carrying me, because the world is whirling around me. I gain control of my vision as we are gliding down the front walkway. There are three blobs and smears spotted along the grass the line walkway to the house and when I look closer, I can see that they’re dead rabbits. “Do you see that?” I whisper, but no one answers. So maybe I never did say anything.
I wonder if they’re in my imagination and just when I’m on the cusp of freaking out, Cricket answers, “…Must have been a cat.”
I look back over my shoulder, and I realize that my arm is around her shoulder. I look back at the bloody smears, and maybe I say it aloud, or maybe I just think it, but somehow the thought is conveyed:
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”
Raindrops start pounding my head. Then I’m soaked. I’m dropped into the back seat of a car. I have no idea where I am. The dome light is a pulsating banshee, nauseating me to insanity. I hear a conversation- a mile away- about who is sober enough to drive. “Please, please, get in… the light,” I whisper. The effort to say the words are exhausting.
The light goes out, and the darkness is warm. I am silver-tongued and shriveled- throat swollen, chest heavy, and doused in fever- sick with some unknown parasite that I can feel breathing in my brainstem.
“How do you feel?” I hear someone ask.
“The same way I feel every time,” I say. “The drugs feel good at first but then they wear off and you have to change your diagnosis and we start all over again. Meanwhile my brains turn to scrambled eggs.” Again, did I just think that, or say it?
“Ivy,” Crystal says. She hugs me. I start crying convulsively.
“This is so scary,” I choke out. “Who’s been hurt?”
“I know, I know,” she says. “We’re scared too. We just need to get to home.”
“We’re coming up on it,” Cricket says. Red and blue lights whip through us. “You’re okay, right?” she asks Eve, who’s driving.
“Yeah,” Eve answers, “why?”
“Because if they know we came from the party…”
Their conversation fades in my mind. I understand that they are in survival mode, but I can see through my own hazy cloud. I can see out through the windshield. I can see the accident.
One of the cars is Luke’s.
…
END PART ONE
