Stop.
Okay, I am slightly concerned. I mean I see treetops and they are rapidly approaching. I am definitely falling, no, I am hurtling, my rate of descent marked by the streaking stars. Still, without a body, or any belief in reality for that matter, the drama of plunging is rather uneventful. Big whoop. Oh, no, help, I’m falling. I might hit the ground and break my…
The earth is rushing up pretty fast.
A few hundred feet to go.
Look! There! I can see Paunch’s mangled carcass.
I can see Lumpy kneeling over my body.
Closer.
My dead body.
Closer.
Dead…
* * *
“…Requesting back-up, over. Officer down. Repeat, officer down.”
My eyes snap open, a thick wet sound as they slam ajar, and I cough sick. Lumpy, fuzzy, Lumpy, coming into focus, Lumpy, one hand on my throat feeling for a pulse, the other holding a walkie-talkie. When he notices my alert eyes, his eyes go sooo wide I think they might fall free out. A dead second hangs between us. The world too solid, the world on pause, the world resuming full force. Lumpy is on his feet, screaming, gun drawn, trained at my head.
“Stay down, motherfucker!”
“Don’t move a motherfucking muscle motherfucker!”
“I motherfucking swear to motherfucking God, I will splatter your motherfucking brains all over the motherfucking ground!”
It’s nice to see that nothing has changed.
Lumpy continues to rant and rave and his shrieking shrinks down to a dull murmur at the back of my brain.
I am fucking crazy.
Wait, let me rephrase that, I am motherfucking crazy. Just ask Lumpy.
Okay, assessment: I am clearly out of my head. I am here and I hurt and reality is very real. Annabelle, digital mumbo jumbo, me as the one man who can make a difference: complete bullshit. Complete crap, because everything really, really hurts. I’ve been shot in three places and I can feel every sucking, steaming, stinging wound.
If I am dead, the destroyer, the anti-savior, shouldn’t I feel different?
Shouldn’t I feel more than human?
Divine?
Everlasting?
Bones of pearl and eyes of fire?
Shouldn’t there be something other than crappy awareness? Something other than physical distress? Something other than pain?
Something?
I am such a fucking rube. To think, that even for a second, I was in control. Purpose. Destiny aligning. I was in control of my destiny. Not only my destiny, but also yours. True freedom. For a split second there, in my brain, or in my ridiculous fantasy or wherever, I actually mattered.
No belief.
No feeling.
No responsibility to one’s self or others.
Nothing.
Imagine that. Imagine us as nothing more than images patterned by a dreaming mind. Like The Matrix, but way cooler because our bodies aren’t enslaved batteries—they don’t even exist. Think of all of this wasted, useless non-time feeling less, feeling insignificant, feeling like a lower rung or a lower class or like I deserve more. How cool would it be if it was all for nothing.
For a glorious second: gunshot trauma, a waking dream, unconscious, whatever: equalization. You were no better than me. No better than me with my gimp hand and my God complex and my aversion to sex and people and people-generated ideas, and oh, oh, oh, my need, my truculent, soul-sucking, organ-galvanizing need.
Seizures for you.
On my back writhing for you.
Acceptance.
Less than you.
Did I mention how much these gunshot wounds hurt?
Sloshing about in my biology, I look up at Lumpy. He’s still going at it: “I should kill you, you motherfucker. For what you did to my Paunch, I should…”
Repulsive. His nostrils twitch and his eyelids vibrate like greasy hummingbird wings. Sweat beads and pushes through his pin-sized pores. No better than me. But here I am, still me, still lost, and as disgusting as Lumpy. At least he fits in, at least he gets respect, at least somebody somewhere loves him. And why do I care? So what if nobody respects me? Who cares if nobody loves me? Why should it matter? You figure after a while one would get used to exclusion, one would get used to watching. You figure. But it never happens. The comfort levels never rise to the occasion.
Sometimes at home, in the quiet dark, just before I fall asleep, I feel okay. I feel somewhat normal, or I think that when I wake up the next day I will do something eventful and earn my place in society. Sometimes getting really absorbed within a fantasy or a daydream helps. Sometimes when my hand gets me down I can forget about who I am and where I’m going. Instances like these provide reprieve, but alas, an instance only lasts for an instant.
Last year I reached the breaking point. I sucked it up and tried to make friends. I tried to give people the benefit of the doubt and pretend I didn’t hate them. I tried doing it the old-fashioned way, no seizures or ploys for sympathy, just, “Hi, I’m Charles and I think you’re swell.” Good idea, right? Wrong. A guy can only take so many cold shoulders.
And all of this fucking sucks because despite my hatred, inside I feel like I am a nice person. I have friendly eyes. When I screw up my courage and really concentrate, I can get a sentence out without tripping over any words. Yet regardless, there is something off about me, something wrong. People are instinctually repelled and want nothing to do with me. I can see it in their eyes.
With idiot humans it’s all about the eyes.
I remember: six years old, on my back, a gathering crowd of strangers. Mall freak-out. One minute I’m begging my mom for a pack of sea monkey powder, the next I’m flopping around like a fish.
Swirls, a hurricane of color, perhaps a little less malign back then, perhaps cartoon characters and childish-dreamy-things floating about in the hallucinatory mix instead of bones and dirt and Annabelles with flaming nipples.
Nothing to fret about.
This wasn’t the first time—it was commonplace, happenstance, just another day in the life of Seizure Boy, and I can remember my brain not making too much of it. I can remember thinking: ride it out, don’t swallow your tongue, be brave, this will get us a pack of sea monkeys for sure.
When the world finally recomposed and the craziness retreated back into of my head where it belonged, I was greeted by a sea of faces. The looks of concern, the looks of horror, the laughers (always a few of them), the dramatists and their calls for help, I’ve seen them all before. I’ve studied them and oftentimes while lying there recovering, waiting for my mom or dad or an accompanying loved one to snap me out of it, I’ve stared and left my recuperating body behind to travel deep within them. I’ve taken thousands of journeys to that end place, that cerebrating place where the brain and the eyeballs meet.
Every person thinks of themselves as an individual, this fresh personality, this walking wet work of special quirks and nuances. And maybe, to some extent, this is true, but for the most part the bulk of our emotional bundles are fashioned the same way. I know because I’ve seen it up close. I’ve seen beyond the painted looks and into that pink-gray juncture and no matter what, whether concerned or horrified or laughing or overreacting, the same base aspects emanate from every pair of eyes.
If I seize in front of you, there is no way you can hide it. No matter how you dress it up, the basic core of disdain and sadness and compassion and hate and sorrow and amusement comes across. It’s the look you give to the retarded or the mute or the disfigured or those from a lower social class. It’s the worst look one could receive and the worst one could give. It says, I feel sorry for you, I wish I could help you, I’m glad I am not you, I am glad you are not me, I hate you because you are ugly and you make me feel uncomfortable, but I will never admit this to anyone, not even myself because that makes me a horrible person, but if ever, through some miracle, I am able to come to terms with myself and this horrible lie, I would still be okay
with it because again, I am not you.
And of course every time, including that fateful day at the mall, the looks consume me. Embarrassment flushes my cheeks and buzzes about my stomach. My head goes loopy with heat and icy with humiliating pinpricks of mortification.
That day, as any, I wanted everyone to go away and I wanted my mommy.
That day, as any, I wanted my mommy, but she wasn’t by my side. Every other time she had shielded me, cradled my head in her arms and waved away the faux compassion of the idiot hordes. But this time I was utterly alone. This time I felt the cold of the world seeping through the floor tiles and into my bones. This time her fingers weren’t in my mouth, the sweet taste of lotion and polish, holding my tongue. Her voice wasn’t in my ears telling me it was okay. Fear eclipsed embarrassment. Frustrations gathered as my eyes nervously scanned the crowd.
Where was she? The only one who understood?
A firebomb in my chest.
Where? The only one who never looked at me the way everybody else looked at me.
My hand buzzed. Seizure juice primed, ready for round two.
Where?
My eyes blurred.
Where?
And finally, her hands. Warmth. Calm. I turned my head relieved and eagerly looked to meet her eyes, hungry for her eyes. What I saw stopped me cold.
She had become one of them. The look in her eyes turned my blood to ice and my heart to rot. She was one of them. The only human being I ever cared and trusted had turned on me. I expected as much from my dad, but not my mom. Not my protector. Not my seraph of safety.
But alas, it was true. Betrayal leaked from the corners of her shifty eyes. Her skin was flush. Sweat dampened her hairline. She was ashamed of me, embarrassed by my idiot seizures.
Suddenly, I was completely and utterly alone.
Nothing has been the same ever since.
I always figured it would get better after high school. Maybe once I got away from the sham that was my life and started someplace fresh I would blend and live like anybody else. The moment I could, I left and for the most part things are better. Nobody stares or makes fun of me to my face, nobody tries to trip me or steal my lunch or beat me senseless, but then again nobody bothers to look at me. Nobody says hi to me. Every day I enter the world and every day the world greets me with a sea of downturned eyes. Unless of course you count Mr. Shithead (he regards me with contempt, but hey, regard is regard), which I don’t.
“Are you listening to me, punk?”
Lumpy, Lumpy, Lumpy, if only you understood. If only you knew. Then maybe you would do this piece of shit a favor and put a bullet somewhere fatal.
“You are going to pay for this! He”—Lumpy makes a grand gesture toward Paunch’s corpse—“was a highly decorated officer!”
I try to speak and ask for the bullet, but I end up gargling on my own blood.
“Shut the fuck up!” Lumpy shakes his gun for effect.
Maybe I should try and get up and jump the pig, force him into finishing me off. Maybe I should flail about or make crazy eyes or try and get past the blood in my throat and call him a stupid prick bastard. Maybe I should…
“Yes, maybe you should.”
Annabelle?
The dream come to life.
My eyes search until they find one of Annabelle’s dainty hands making rabbit ears behind Lumpy’s head. She peers around his frame and smiles at me with her eyes.
Walking through Lumpy, red mist, Annabelle comes to a stop a few paces in front of him and places her hands on her hips. Her red, red hair frames her face and her eyes glow deep, deep black. No slogan across her chest this time, just a plain white T-shirt and those plaid bondage pants.
“Get up already,” she demands.
“You’re real?” I stammer in disbelief. I’m not crazy?
Lumpy thinks I am talking to him. He tells me to shut my fucking fuckhole and lunges a few feet forward in a threatening display of power. Annabelle smirks at the thick machismo as her body dematerializes around his. She disappears and I frantically crane my neck, afraid I might lose sight of her. Two dainty fingers rise up behind Lumpy’s big-ass head. Annabelle steps through him yet again.
“Get up, Charles. I’m serious.” She frowns in illustration.
It’s hard to take her seriously with Lumpy’s gun hand jutting through her chest. I motion with my eyes. She looks down, lets out a frustrated sigh and then takes another few steps forward, putting Lumpy’s appendage completely behind her. She looks at me expectantly.
“What do I do?” I ask.
Lumpy responds, “You don’t do nothing, asshole! You lay absolutely fucking still!”
Annabelle rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Kill him,” she says calmly.
Kill him?
“How?”
Lumpy steps closer, “If you don’t shut your fucking mouth, I am going to shut it for you!”
Sidestepping, Annabelle blows a shock of red hair out of her face. She extends her arms toward Lumpy and pretends to be a matador waving an invisible cloak. “Charge, Charles. Tackle the beast and don’t let go until he’s dead. Just hold on.”
I stare dumbly.
“Do it!”
Surprised by my own speed, I am on my feet and toppling Lumpy before he has a chance to react. I have him on his back and am doing exactly as Annabelle instructed, but the bastard struggles something fierce. This is quite remarkable because his strength is easily a zillion times more than mine yet still I manage to hold on. The struggle seems to go on and on—Lumpy fighting for freedom— me holding him down—and it is all growing a little tiresome. Not that the situation isn’t exciting or dangerous—I mean, it’s going somewhere, I can actually feel his gun smashed between our torsos, it’s just taking forever to get there. The knobby gun metal shifts and shuffles as Lumpy tries to dig the barrel into my stomach. Desperate, screaming bloody hell, he shouts, “Motherfucker,” and then takes a chance. The gun roars its approval.
Lucky for him he has managed to angle the barrel into my stomach. A blast of blinding white explodes between us and a surging heat rips through my lower abdomen. Lumpy screams like a girl. I feel a slick, hungry hole open in my lower back and the world wastes no time invading me, kissing my insides, sending waves of chilly tingles throughout my body. It hurts like hell and my brain sizzles like it has been dipped in fire, but no worries, I am a motherfucking trooper.
Just ask Lumpy.
Just ask Lumpy as I grit my teeth and push my bleeding body into his.
Just ask Lumpy as he moans and tries to squirm away from my hold, tighter and tighter and tighter, our skin fusing, our bones growing together, our DNA intertwining.
Just ask him and see if he can answer you through his weak whimpering.
My left hand, gimp hand, idiot maker, is throbbing, up to no good, and I arch my neck for a closer look. Using my forehead I strain and manage to push our bodies slightly apart. The source of Lumpy’s pussy whimpers—a muzzle-burned stomach, all red and gooey and charred—greets me. I wince at the damage, look away, and focus on my buzzing hand.
It grips one of poor Lumpy’s arms like a vice and an eerie whitish-bluish-greenish color defying light ominously shines out from beneath the palm. The tough nylon of Lumpy’s standard- issue policeman’s jacket melts and crusts and disintegrates. Apparently my hand is trying to get through the jacket, through the shirt beneath, to his bare arm.
The strange light makes short work of Lumpy’s clothing, obliterating the fabric of his police shirt like it doesn’t exist. The moment the light touches flesh a pillar of smoke erupts, stinging my eyes, and the smell of burning hair stings my nostrils. As the palm touches down, flesh to flesh, and closes around his forearm I hear a sick, sucking sound and feel Lumpy’s body go stiff.
Instantly I go swimmy and the world washes away. It almost feels like one of my seizures, but even more intense. My brain becomes a dead flower. A black rose blossoming in reverse. A dead funnel. My body starts to shimmy-
shake, seizing, doing the horizontal jitterbug with Officer Statue frozen beneath me. My eyes roll and inner vision flickers: Jesus on the cross. He’s looking at me with a pair of big doughy eyes. Tears roll down his cheeks and he shakes his head. Forget that he is nailed to a couple of splintery boards. Forget that they are the biggest, rustiest, sharpest spikes I have ever seen. Forget the screaming, bleeding wounds gaping from his hands and feet. Forget that he is dying. The only thing that matters is those two soft, disapproving eyes. It’s like they’re saying: Why? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you so readily turned your back on me?
And I knew this was coming.
And I can’t help thinking that nailed there, his sacred life ebbing, he’s got much bigger problems to worry about than me. I can’t help thinking that he’s the one who’s fucked and I’m sitting goddamned pretty compared to this poor fool.
The eyes: Why have you abandoned me?
My little blasphemous thoughts grow like weeds, unfurling black dust, filling me with guilt. Why does he care about me? Why should he? How could he? And one more: how could I have ever believed that he did? And, okay, last one: given my newly acquired faithlessness, why do I still care? What’s with this guilt?
In my world, in your world, in the world, the one before Annabelle’s revelations opened me, god was hard enough to believe in. With firm resolve and big faith, belief was possible and I took it on. But now? There’s no way. God doesn’t fit into Annabelle’s world. We don’t even fit into Annabelle’s world. We are a mistake, an aberration, a hostile imagination run wild. Perhaps there is a god of sorts who governs that which dreams us, but if so, how can it have anything to do with us?
Sometimes when I wake up from a dream I feel strange, disconnected. I try to recall things and put my finger on the unease in my heart, but I can only come up with the undemanding stuff, the objects, the weird people, the surreal places, the disjointed plots and loopy, dreamy scenarios. No matter how hard I try, or how deep I go, I can’t figure the true meaning behind it all. Maybe that’s what god, our gods, our Buddha and Allah are to the dreamer. Maybe that which dreams us has a firm grasp on us, our actions and interactions and day-to-day trails, much like we remember bits and pieces of our dreams, but doesn’t understand the true meaning. Maybe it doesn’t understand the fantastical religion and myth that we as dreams dream up for ourselves? How could it? Imagine trying to decipher the dreams of a dream itself. Talk about muddled and esoteric.
I Will Rise Page 8
