Love Finds Its Pocket

by Mary Scarpelli

  “You must think I’m being harsh; I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, Toni. This isn’t what you were expecting, but it is the reality of the situation and my white flag is raised high, eyes tearful and puffy, my heart heavy from having to bear the weight of this tragedy time and again, but my hope flails in the wind, rudderless and evaporated.” Desmond stopped speaking when a wave of emotions overcame him and he began to weep.

  “I have been living in fear that this day would come before I was ready to deal with it - the end of her continued well-being; I love her so profoundly that I’m able to feel her pain. You do realize that it’s not just Monica who’s being negatively affected by this, right?”

  “Yeah, sure. I hear what you’re saying.” Toni said, barely audibly.

  “We’re all suffering, Toni. Maybe part of me resents it and just wishes she would put an end to it so we can all get back to the pleasure of living, but then I start to feel guilty for harboring such ugly thoughts and think that perhaps if I overcompensate and give in just one more time, my guilt can be assuaged for another day. Do you understand where I’m going with this, Toni?” Desmond was hoping against hope that she did, sparing him the indignity of having to verbalize such an outwardly inhumane decision.

  Toni certainly did know the direction of his commentary as she too had drawn that same conclusion when she walked away from Monica for the last time. But now here she was, once again entering the arena in which bloodshed was assured. Her immediate reaction was to be angry with Kat for interjecting when she should have known better and just let her sighting become an anecdote to ponder when they required humbling rather than the impassioned attempt at salvation it had transformed into.

  Kat was only aware of the secondhand accounts on what it was like to be in a relationship with a severely depressed, functioning drug addict, someone whose mind constructed myriad creative ways in which to fuck with her, always pushing her to extremes and compelling her to believe that her life was so useless and empty that she had no recourse other than to put an end to it yet always allowing herself to be brought back from the edge when the ‘right’ amount of love and attention were given to her. Toni didn’t necessarily want to call out Monica as a manipulative narcissist, as that would be too harsh a moniker for someone so clearly in psychic pain, but their collective worlds certainly did revolve around her and her fragility – every action had to be measured against how Monica might react to it, every day that Monica was nowhere to be found proved to be an exercise in hide and seek, with Toni worried sick, completely alone in her efforts to hunt down her lover with hopes that when she finally did unearth her, she hadn’t engaged in some type of horribly destructive behavior that would, once again, land her in the hospital or worse.

  Every day brought about a new series of events that promised to keep her guard from enjoying a relaxed position; she never knew what shape Monica would be in when she saw her, at times forcing her way into the studio only to witness an alternate reality of Monica, having fallen into a near stupor with remnants of drugs and its respective paraphernalia strewn about, dazed by a lack of sleep and acting in any manner of inappropriate behaviors, so incongruous with the existing circumstances as to have one think that, beyond any doubt, her interpretation of reality, her perception of her surroundings bore no resemblance to that of anyone else’s construct.

  Certainly no two world views are exactly the same and people do tend to more readily be able to make sense of the world when surrounded by like-minded people, but save for those who had no shame in faking it to gain admittance to the obscure world of Monica, she floated alone, the only one who truly captured her essence to the purposeful exclusion of everyone else. She inhabited a foreboding territory, one in which no one else was invited or welcome.

  Toward the end of their relationship, she started to physically pound away at Toni, no provocation required, leaving bruises that would last for days, just to follow-up on those outbursts with sincere apologies, with proclamations of undying love and devotion, with pleas for forgiveness, almost obscene with desperation, one time going so far as to begin the process of disrobing during one of her exhibits, barely able to stand without assistance, asking the attendees to take her side, as they bore witness to her vulnerability as she begged forgiveness for a previous transgression against her lover. Toni’s embarrassment was complete when she practically begged to be fucked in full view of paparazzi and invited guests alike.

  Toni’s rather conservative upbringing coupled with her unwavering stability left her bereft of a compartment in which to house the debacle of Monica or to make sense of her erratic, abusive and now humiliating behavior. On that night, Toni was relieved to have Richard and Desmond present, who had flown in partly for the unveiling but also because the works were so terribly offensive and potentially incendiary, they knew they would be needed to field the negative press that would most assuredly ensue, so were able to scoop up Monica and deposit her into an office at the back of the gallery until she agreed to pull it together and demonstrate at least some measure of decorum, and appreciate the fact that although this was her show and everyone was there to see her and hopefully purchase her work, she couldn’t behave in so unacceptably disruptive a manner and expect that her benefactors would continue to support her.

  “Most of these assholes have only come here to witness you unravel, Monica. They are useless sycophants, are bored and lack imagination. Don’t serve yourself up for their amusement; they don’t deserve you and anyway, you’re better than that,” Richard had said to her, hoping to redirect her spiral, if only for one night.

  The glitterati tended to salivate with lust for those artists who lived on the societal periphery, the ones who had the balls to be different, unapologetically so, without constraint but even New Yorkers had their limits of tolerance and Monica had been pushing their respective envelopes for so long that her eccentricities were beginning to wear thin. Sales suffered for awhile but then picked up again once rumors began to circulate that she had become so frail that she probably was not long for this life.

  Everyone wanted to own a piece of her work as an investment, in hopes that its value would skyrocket, post-mortem. The unsettling nature of the work would simply be ignored, covered by a drop cloth or left in its crate in a properly temperature controlled storage facility, while the owner would scour artistic publications for news of her ultimate demise, smiling with self satisfaction at how prescient they’d been to secure a few crucial pieces that they could then display in their homes, biding their time while awaiting the moment in which they’d be able to tease out the best price possible, then in due course convert that unsightly distraction into a significant profit, guiltlessly moving on to discover the next tortured soul whose otherwise useless existence would serve a profitable economic purpose.

  ******

  “So then where do we go from here?” Toni didn’t want to understand his position, so angry she was that he was sneaking out the back door, clearly unwilling to participate in any further salvage operations.

  “Please forgive me, Toni. I don’t envy your position and I would not want to trade places with you under any circumstances but trust me when I say that I can not, indeed will not go through that retched process again. I can’t even fathom a future time that I’d be willing to reconsider.” And with that last comment, Desmond wished her good luck and suggested that perhaps she should just go about her own life and stop trying to save someone who clearly had no interest in being saved.

  “Know when to abandon ship, Toni; there’s no dishonor in choosing self-preservation over certain destruction.” were his parting words to her.

  Toni sat in stunned silence, holding the phone down and away from her ear, arm dangling by her side, the phone soon after dropping from a hand in which muscle control was no longer available, unfocused eyes staring vacantly at the opposing wall. Kat walked over and sat next to her on the arm of the sofa.

  “He doesn’t want to get involved, does he?�
� Kat asked simply to break the silence; she already knew the answer.

  “No. We’re on our own.

  “What the hell are we going to do? I don’t see a positive conclusion here, Kat. This can’t possibly end well. I’m at a complete loss about what to do next. I’m just..., lost.” Toni’s delivery was slow, monotone and fatalistic.

  Kat reclined on the sofa, beckoning Toni to follow suit, advising her to find her usual pocket, and allow Kat to comfort her. Toni obliged as she felt herself in the process of spacing out entirely and badly needed Kat’s strength to absorb into her. The extent and depravity of the reality required more dissociative inclinations than she had on offer. Her quiet, uneventful and loving upbringing left her ill-equipped to know how to successfully navigate through such an unforgiving, emotionally depraved landscape.

  After a few minutes, Kat heard Toni’s breathing begin to slow down, becoming deeper and more even. She reconciled herself to do whatever was required to resolve their current dilemma. She had unwittingly implicated Toni and now felt responsible to extricate them both from the pain and suffering that certainly would be inflicted on all parties if the nightmare were allowed to continue.

  She hadn’t properly appreciated the depth of despair that Monica had been suffering through and although Toni did share stories with her in broad strokes while still in that relationship, she now knew that quite the chasm existed between hearing it second hand and actually living through it as an active participant. She resolved to make it right, whatever that meant, by not allowing Toni to get involved any further. It wouldn’t have been fair to categorize this as one of Toni’s limitations, but since Kat didn’t know of any other way in which to interpret Toni’s inability to compartmentalize and forge ahead, that’s how she would always classify it.

  Monica Cashes In Her Chips

  Monica felt a lightness of being, the quality of which she couldn’t recall ever having felt before. The thought that had prompted her to plan her final exit was the realization that she simply was no longer interested in sustaining her dislocated existence; she welcomed the respite that death would bring. Her pervasive sense of isolation and despair had been suffocating her for the entirety of her life, culminating in her current dilemma of being ready to check out for good but not wanting to make a horrible mess of it; clean, quiet and with as little drama as possible were the factors under consideration to ensure that her legacy wouldn’t be sullied by her method of expiration. She accepted living within the sphere of a catastrophic mess but she was insistent that her death be handled with panache.

  She realized that she’d made quite a scene at her more recent showings, providing fodder for those who would salivate mightily at being given an opportunity to skewer her, embed lacerations in her character that could adversely affect the value of her remaining art pieces, hence hurt her partners’ future profit-making potential. She acknowledged the stark conflict between worrying about the future salability of her art and how that spoke to the continuation of a healthy ego hence a desire to remain alive and well, versus her purported need to put an end to her suffering. Reminding herself of the psychic pain that she felt each time her grip on cohesion began to melt away and how powerless she was to prevent that dissolution, helped to reinforce her resolve to stay the course and execute her plan.

  How fortuitous, she thought, that Kat had run into her at a time when her patience had nearly expired and her conclusively fatalistic solution had been devised but with one crucial segment of that plan remaining incomplete. And then there they were, her maidens in white, offering to provide her with the most precious gift imaginable. Her view of reality had changed considerably over time and her happiness quotient, whatever that meant, had never been anything more than frightfully tenuous, but as of late, after rebounding from her fourth run-in with yet another stint of fruitless institutionalization, became impossible to retain, at first merely a disorienting inconvenience but in due course transforming into the de facto basis of her character.

  She sought to deflect the positive attention given to her work from transitioning into a mere curiosity as created by an oddball junk-head. Those who skulked around her, in eager anticipation of her ultimate demise, those whose rubbernecking proclivities were legendary, perverse miscreants that they were, whose value to her was negligible, but who continued their association with her knowing full well how significantly they stood to benefit from her death, would not be given the satisfaction of a gloat. The people external to her private world, staying with her long after the vultures had retreated to their respective aeries were the worst of the lot as they were utterly devoid of conscience – the smiles and well wishes immediately followed by an assessment of her remaining life expectancy, calculated with the precision of an actuary.

  Monica took a leisurely stroll over to the neighborhood party-goods store where she rented a helium tank, purchased several oversized balloons upon which were emblazoned cartoon characters past and present, picked-up the one she had special-ordered one week prior, matching up each one with an appropriately colored, ribbed ribbon, one of which would be given the honor of being securely affixed to her neck, just below her chin and tied in a perfect bow, as the colorless, odorless gas seeped out of the chamber, though the rubber hosing and into her eagerly awaiting lungs.

  Affixed to her jaw – right side, with a piece of orange duct tape, would be a voice activated digital recordation device into which she would dictate her suicide note, succinct yet explosive. She wasn’t without conscience regarding Kat and Toni’s role and the potential trouble they could be in if anyone were to conjecture that they were somehow complicit. She met with them primarily to give them fair warning so that the notification would have less of an adverse impact on Toni’s fragile heart. She knew that Toni would have been far too sensitive to deal with the fallout if she were alone but would be able to get through it just fine with Kat by her side – Katherine, the Cold-Hearted Cunt is how Monica enjoyed referring to her, but, appreciated the fact that she and Toni brought out each other’s best qualities and as they were about to serve an important role in her life/death, sucked back her criticism and focused on her next steps.

  Her message would be unequivocal, indisputable; to ensure maximum dramatic effect, she would not start speaking until having drawn in several lungfuls of helium. The comical component was not her original intention but rather an afterthought as she hoped to provide evidence that she alone bore responsibility for her death and the ludicrousness of doing so in a comical voice, several octaves above her own, would provide evidence that she indeed had lost her mind.

  Toni and Kat had offered her an invaluable gift; sadly for them, Monica planned on upending their original rationale by including them in her termination plans. She trusted them implicitly. They were women whose ethics were unshakable and who, during her incarnation as a fairly reasonable facsimile of a functioning human being, meant something special to her – Kat for unflinchingly maintaining her center despite the imminence of any catastrophic implosion, not to mention the effortless, mind-blowing sex they shared and Toni for demonstrating to her, time and again, that unconditional love between unrelated people is not a myth.

  For myriad reasons Monica could barely articulate yet understood intrinsically, she selected Kat as her proxy in death, the one who would ensure that her last wishes would be carried out to the letter. Odd, she thought, how that one choice alleviated any doubt she had about there being logistical miscalculations or that she would inadvertently be made up to look like a fool in an open casket for her fan-base to gawk at her remains, chuckling over her waxen corpse.

  Their discovery of her body would be supported by an undeniable audit trail that would make their presence at the scene merely a response to an automated phone call she would execute, one hour post mortem, to each of their cell phones requesting their presence at her studio. The stink of possible complicity would only perpetuate the suffering, create resentments and make life even more miserable for all partie
s involved. No one needed that.

  Monica had spent a considerable amount of time with an IT acquaintance of hers, learning how to rig her cell phone so that calls could be executed at a predetermined hour, with an accompanying pre-recorded message apprising them of her suicide and requesting that they journey to her studio, entering concurrent with the police.

  Neither Toni nor Kat were in possession of a key nor would forced entry be evident so she believed that all bases were covered. That way, the time of death and Toni and Kat’s arrival at her studio would provide sufficient breathing space to eliminate them as having culpability for the fatal event. However, as she had named them both as her powers-of-attorney to settle the affairs of her personal estate with the business side delegated exclusively to Richard and Desmond, they would be granted rights sufficient to ensure that her wish not to be autopsied, rather to be cremated with immediate effect would be carried out as she had decreed.

  She had also advised Desmond and Richard of her intentions, information Desmond had in his possession prior to receiving Toni’s desperate phone call, so they would provide corroborating testimony in the event that anyone were to question their involvement. Also, as her business partners who stood to gain from her death, she wanted to make certain they would not be implicated but would be present to secure the studio and take possession of the art asap. She only hoped that the studio would not be labeled as a crime scene – that would be a game-changer over which she’d have no control considering she’d be too dead to redirect the course of the investigation. Since she was on the lease with Richard and Desmond, the police could not refuse them entry or question their intentions to place the crated art into a van and then on a plane to its final destination, which would be with them in San Francisco.