The Forgiven (236 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 2 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by charminglybeef (View user info) at 2007-01-21 23:27:02 EST
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
She's gone. Which is what I wanted, right?
And the fourth piece of greased up hut slice slides down my gullet along with the seven Kalik's and I can see my gut protruding so explain to me, please, this empty feeling in my midsection. This hollow, cavernous vacuum, maybe, even.
Nah man, no science needed here.
It's just that empty pain again, that's all.
So hey, wipe those eyes and have another pull and eat another slice and trod on, my friend. Trod on. Down this sandy, sunny street and to the beach. Out of the house. Away from the musty sheets and the cockroaches and the busted AC and the smell of her shitty perfume.
You can bring the beer. Lug it. Like the rock it is. Like a boulder tied to your ankle. Fuck it -- to the beach! Onward. Step. Pull. You can do it. Step. Almost there.
Pull.
And sit. In the soft, icing-sugar sand. Feel it? It's supposed to feel good, my friend -- not like nothing. Good. My friend. My only friend.
Me.
Good.
It's hard to imagine now.
Man, I've done some rotten things in my day. Rotten, rotten things.
Things that stunk.
But nothing like what I'm doing to this poor girl though, man.
Man.
So she's on the plane and I'm on the beach and that seems like a pretty fitting metaphor for our entire relationship. Her, transient and uncomfortable; me, relaxed and surrounded by what I desire. The beach. The plane. The tears.
Yeah, it's dramatic -- I know.
But it's how I feel and you're here, my friend (my only friend), and so long as you're listening I'm gonna keep talking.
Because it makes me feel worse and that makes me feel better.
The ghost crab beside me comes darting out of his hole. Quick and insect-like. He looks around. And then violently, throws some sand across the beach. He pauses. Waits. For something. Some moment. Some perfect moment. Before scuttling back in. Tiny footprints and piles of discarded sand surround his hole. In. Out. I watch him a few more times. Then throw my beer. But he's fast. And aware. And he's back in his hole before the bottle even hits the sand. And it was a good shot.
Why?
Because I was inspired by his violent tossing.
And I want something else to hurt.
So I stand up and puff out my shoulders and watch my shadow cast its gloom over his hole and drop to my knees and dig like a rabid dog. And about six inches down I find the little shit. All translucence and black shiny eyeballs and fearlessness.
I scoop him out and onto the open part of the beach and he offers me his claws and we circle like boxers. He won't let me behind him. He must be scared out of his little fucking crab-mind. He must. I lunge. Onto my knees and elbows and pin him to the beach and then force my palm into the sand and feel the soft crunch of his expiration.
Why?
Because I hurt so much and I've hurt so many and I've especially hurt her. With all of my beaches and all of her airplanes and all of the rest.
"Just one more time," I said, "and I will show you how much I love you."
But it was nothing like that. It was more like, "Just one more time, and I will show you how much I hate myself."
Come on down. I will fly you. Under the guise of reparations. And you will see a man destroy himself with the drug and the drink. You will feel a man's fingers around your neck and you will see what it's like for a man to cry like a child and vomit similarly.
Come on down.
I pace.
I scream an apology out over the bay. It goes far across that flat water, but not far enough. Maybe, in a scientific sense, it even reaches continental America. But then the mountains and the rest, you know. There's no way it could get as far as it needs to.
But I am sorry.
I spelunked deep within the catacombs of my head to figure that one out. All it took was some brain-spelunking. Imagine that -- candle in hand, walking the recesses of your own mind -- the turn of every corner revealing something new and shocking or old and understood.
Profundity at every turn. Your own mind. Cast in eerie and dancing candle-light.
Come, I beckon.
There is my unhappiness. See him? I point to it, solemn and wild-eyed all at once.
Huddled in the corner -- hair long and ragged and streaming atop tattered clothing. Wet with the dampness of the cave. Shivering. Shivering at the sight of me, confronting myself.
Scared of myself.
Scared of standing up to myself and accepting who I am and what I am and dealing with and how to do it with a little goddamn dignity.
I am dying of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
That's right. It's real. It's not just users and minorities and fags -- it's people too. Regular people.
Never sucked a dick or stuck a needle or had dark skin. But somehow got it. From this Chinese bitch named Jennifer, I think. But that was a long time and a continent ago and I never had the courage or the confidence or the decency to call back and find out. Or tell anyone that might have wanted to know. Or should have known.
Fuck 'em, right?
I got fucked. No one told me.
Pay it forward.
Right?
I scream. I crawl to the ocean. It laps at the beach. I crawl in. My clothing tugs at me and urges me back to land. "Leave me be," I say, sobbing like a hopeless drunk. "You don't care. Just leave me be." And the water reaches my chest. Cold. Thieving. The sea swells into my mouth. Up my nose. I crawl. The sand fills my shoes and the sleeves of my shirt. Water up to my eyes now.
Close them.
Forward.
Forward to the inevitable.
Over my head. I am beginning to float. Force out my air. Open my eyes. Squint into the salty sea. A determined and desperate narrowing of the eyes. And... Inhale, you sonofabitch.
Corrosive spiders exploring every possibility of my lungs. They're wet but they're on fire. Down the main highway and then off to the side streets and then the alleys and then even the footpaths.
Enjoy it you piece of shit, for it will be the last thing you ever feel.
Enjoy it.
And then: an arm beneath my stomach and a hand around my ankle and I'm being sucked back out. The ocean swirls and bubbles and disappears and I call out in feeble protest.
"Shit, boi," he says, exasperated. "Shit." And he rolls me onto my side. I can feel the water dribbling from between my lips. He starts thumping at my back. The liquid comes quicker then slows and ultimately stops. He grabs my ankles and lifts them above my head and gives me a good shaking. My face digs into the wet sand and the sensation is quick and real and reaches my brain immediately. I cough, burping and belching up great geysers of ocean.
He lets go and I curl my knees to my chest and cough violently and involuntarily. It digs and grinds the salt into the back of my throat.
Slowly I calm and my brain allows my legs to straighten and I lay face down, one hand clutching the sand, as if it were my own filthy bed sheet.
"Shit boi -- you be drownin' like a legless dog, boi!"
I roll and look up to him, my black angel, silhouetted and haloed by the afternoon sun.
"I wanted to die."
"Ain't nobody wants to die," he says.
But he doesn't know shit. Some people want to die. I want to die, and I raise myself to my hands and knees and water drips from my nostrils and out of the corner of my eye I spot that bottle. What would its razor-shards feel like, pressed against my neck?
Bad, no doubt. Brilliantly bad.
But no, there's beer left -- hiding in its corner. Maybe a mouthful. I crawl over to it, sandy hair hanging in my eyes. Pick it up, flop onto my back and drain the pig. Two mouthfuls in one. It dribbles past my chin and my cheeks blow out and I swallow it all recklessly and I end up spitting most of it out and coughing all over again.
I stand. The stranger stares. I pick up the bottle and hurl it as far as I can into the ocean. Begin the lonely shuffle home. And realize, in my sorrow that I am dying. But I do not want to.
I do not want to.
No one wants to.
She won't want to.
But she is. Just like me.
And I think of her for once as a person instead of a miserable body. And how she will feel when she finds out. How I felt when I found out. How I feel now. What it has made me. Will it do the same to her? Will she seek out someone she sees as worthless and miserable anyway and use them to get off because she is so goddamn greedy and uncaring? Or will she resign herself to a life of celibacy and loneliness and tallied sunsets?
My throat clenches and my nose runs and tears flow freely.
Those awful moments where I lay panting on top of her and she dug her nails into my back and I released my tainted seed and did it without guilt or remorse.
I double over and vomit in the street.
No, she needs to know. She needs to know. Even though it will ruin her, she needs to know. The guilt has caught up to me. Grabbed my shirt and propelled itself past me. It was indeed a race. With no rules and only one end.
Oh, god. Move those legs. Just get yourself to bed you awful fucking human.
I put my shoulder hard into the screen door and it slams against the wall. I stumble inside and with the sweep of my arm trash a dozen bottles from the counter. Open the cupboard. The Cupboard. Pull out that Bacardi Dark and unscrew it and tilt it unconsciouswards and gulp, gulp, gulp. Gulp an impossible, inhuman amount.
I am inhuman.
I am inhuman.
My vision slurs and swirls and the fire of the drink burns in my belly and I make my way in the direction of bed and collapse.
Collapse.
Huh?
Uh, this thick, dark, malodorous... dry and crusted and flaky... vomit? Caked to my shirt. Like a bib. And the taste in my mouth. Its taste -- I assume. Hard and dark and bitter. Concentrated in the back of my throat. My tongue, so fat and dry and leathery. My eyes, swollen and burning.
And of course, my conscience. Or scious?
Both, really.
In sorry states, my friend.
That blur of white and black and hands and numbers and what fucking time is it anyway? I think, slumped on the dirty tile -- not on but rather against my bed. It is... noon. Noon and a half.
But what day?
Would she be home by now?
Yes.
Especially if it's two days since yesterday.
So we should dial then, really, but not in this state -- not before a shower -- and so I drag myself into the bathroom and feel the hot kiss of hot water behind my ears and I think. Is this really the correct course of action? At the point we're at now, might I be better to simply continue the charade and spend the rest of my miserable life with this sweet, innocent, exploited human being and resent it and hate it and do it all because of what I have done, to myself and to her?
That would breed contempt. And the charade, it cannot continue forever. I'm already bursting at the seams with the booze and the rest.
So I should tell her and hot water presses against my back and my cheeks grow flushed and I turn the water to pure cold until the hot's all gone and I step out. Look in the mirror. At the thin stringy hair and the deep circles beneath my eyes and the gaunt look of my face and the hollow one in my eyes.
It is time to tell the truth.
For her, and for me.
Sit in the plastic chair. Grab that rotary phone. Steady those trembling digits. Wipe those eyes. Spin those numbers. It takes so many numbers to get where I'm going. It rings once and I slam the phone down.
One of the benefits of a rotary phone, it must be said.
Do it. Do it, you worthless faggot.
It rings.
"Hello?"
Cowardice creeps into me and I fight it. A medieval sword fight. Personal and vulgar and loud and dirty.
"Hello," I say.
"You sound a mess James, are you all right?"
The black knight has his boot on my chest and blade to my neck. And I contemplate lying.
A real pitiful, open-faced fallacy.
But before I can unleash my epic and horrible lie the girl starts crying man -- she starts crying! And it was a tough good-bye -- believe me, I know! But I thought her tears were done with -- or at least until after I had said my piece -- but here she is and she's sobbing uncontrollably and it starts to get to me and we spend a moment or two there just sobbing into either end of the earpiece before she finally speaks:
"I haven't been completely honest with you, James."
Not what I expected. My heart thunders. Need something to slow it. What happened to the script, man? "Just one sec," I say and run to the cupboard. The Cupboard. But it's not in there it's on the floor and it's broken but there's still some left in the base which is miraculously right-side up and full of the delicious, intoxicating, necessary Bacardi Dark. I sit back down and pick up the phone and say with what strikes even me as an odd tone, "yeah, go ahead," and sip from the jagged edges and feel a tiny splinter make its way into my cheek.
"I'm not sure how," she says, "but somehow I had justified what I have done to you. Not anymore."
I raise an eyebrow.
She continues. "I'm sick, James -- I'm very sick. And I have been for a long time." She begins to sob. Gasping. "And... I... Thought... You..."
"I what?"
"I wanted so much to tell you face to face, but I just couldn't."
"Couldn't tell me what?"
"I fucked you because I could fuck no one else and now you're sick and it's making me crazy and I want to tell you that I'm sorry even though I know it means nothing.
"I'm sorry," she says and the phone goes dead.
I click the receiver. Inhale. Drain what's left of what's left of the Bacardi Dark. Rise from the chair, light and heavy all at once.
"It's all right," I say -- worthless and miserable and used to get off.
"It's all right," I say, to no one but myself.
.
User Reviews
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-06-04 23:28:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-06-04 22:51:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You always wanna reveal how the title ties in at the end, don't you? Twist-merchant.