RoboChildren

by James Hunt

  "What are you guys on this time?" she asked.

  "What the hell do you care? You wouldn't understand the goddamn differences between any ONE of the drugs we ingest anyway!" I replied. I felt her judging gaze burn through my mirrors.

  "Now, now, james,” Zach said, “Lets be civil. Phoebe, we are completely ROBO-fucked!" He is making me look like a damned fool, I thought.

  "You indecent fuck, I'll have your head for this!" I screamed.

  "I can't believe you guys drove out here like this, you guys look like you don't have any idea where you are!" Her tone was drenched with horror and a splinter of concern.

  "Good question. But yes, I do have any idea where we are! Many in fact. Ideas that is. Why are you always worried about us? I know how to handle myself in times like this!" I said. I almost convinced myself.

  "Yeah, I'm fine to drive!" Zach stated without a twitch of worry in his voice. I was shocked he pulled that off, he was usually unsure of himself, especially about driving, in this particular state of mind. The starter fluid must have killed off the last of the brain cells that held his conscience and decision making abilities. Perhaps, though, he never had any of those to begin with. I am more inclined to believe the latter.

  "Besides, if we don't make it, we can always pull into a ditch, break into a hotel, and threaten to cut throats if they don't give us a room!" I saying this as violently as possible, but dex for me is a "cute drug," and puts violence to the very back of my mind. I feel like a fuzzy bunny, or a big eyed beagle pup. I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much. It could make the toughest criminal cry in a situation involving any real violence. It leveled me out.

  "Uhhh... Alright...” Phoebe responded, “Hey james I need to talk to Zach, can you wait outside?"

  I wasn't sure if I should be offended or not. What I had said might have disturbed such innocent ears, I reasoned. Her virgin mind probably cringed at the very thought of me holding a huge machete, mad on substances she had no experience with, so I decided to obey her wishes without another word. She was an angel, and demons know best than to anger an angels, for theirs is comparable to the wrath of a thousand alcohol-tortured men. I stood outside the car with the rag we soaked in our ether and smoked my cigar, barely entertained within myself. I didn't even consider the potentially explosive combination of the freely burning tobacco and the highly inflammable ether.

  Soon restlessness got the better of me and I demanded to be told when I would be released from the bullshit. Fuck angels. Feelings of contempt and hatred toward Zach began to take hold of me when I noticed he was putting the moves on my good friend and fantasized lover of my past. I remembered when I was the object of her affection many years ago as well. We could have been happy and complete together and there would be no need for this madness. But now my jealousy was getting on top of me, so I opened Zach's door and pulled him out by his legs despite his objections. I reasoned with him by reminding him of the journey back to our town and the risk of completely losing control. He grunted some sort of acquiescence and we sang Phoebe a fond farewell.

  The forever-beautiful Phoebe. You are an immortal doll, you. I am sincerely sorry that I've turned into the object of nightmares for you, the very thing I promised to never become, a common (though, please tell me not so painfully common) drug fiend. If only she knew my intentions. If only I knew my intentions. I never saw my sweet nurse again. Well, of course, that wasn't true, but it seemed a fitting mentality to end the Wah-Wah-WallyWhirled episode.

  Chapter 2

  Companionship and

  Works of the Devil

  It was on our way home that we realized we had no place to stay for the night. That is, we could stay at my place, but it would just be the two of us, and that was unacceptable – we needed a party. I entertained the thought of taking that machete (which I would need to purchase first) into the lobby of a high-class hotel and demanding “a key card to a room or your curtains will suffer an untimely demise...” I opted to call Gary, a fellow hometown fuck-off, instead. His past crossed paths with mine to form a twisted epic of its own. He was fucking my ex-girlfriend and I wanted her back so I befriended his friends, getting closer to her and Gary, to sabotage their relationship. He was an angry bastard and a common drug fiend, but that was of little bother to me. I'm sure he thought of me in similar terms, for I was not the least bit subtle about my insidious plans – he could sense my territorial behavior, I felt. And it was a dangerous game to play, because this particular creature was liable to stab any unsuspecting wench in the throat, at any moment, just to watch her bleed out. And when the fountain of wench-blood stopped, he could play in her blood as though it were a kiddy pool. With him, the disturbed kiddy, covered in bitch blood. But he was a good guy and I admired him, so it was sometimes hard to be the one pushing the knife into his back.

  I dialed his number, which was difficult, the drug had heavily affected my ability to focus on what it was I was doing. My fingers were scrambling wildly across the keypad of my phone. After decades of fucking with it, I worked the digits together in the correct order.

  "goddammit Gary, why the hell is your phone number so long?" I screamed right as he answered.

  "What the fuck are you talking about?" he replied. He was void of patience for a fellow dex head. I could feel the hostility in his voice rattling in my stomach, almost destroying my composure.

  "What are you doing? I need a place to fuck the goats out of my brain!"

  "Uhh..." he paused, comprehending the possible meanings behind my ranting, "Sure..."

  "Are you with Daniel? I'm robo-fucked like a dirty skank on a mission!" I said, confident I was articulating myself accurately.

  "Yeah he's here, we're robotripping too, dude. Get over here!" he demanded. His crazed tone almost sent me into some sort of paranoid frenzy. I hung up the phone on that sentiment.

  Zach steered the car in the direction of Gary and Daniel's apartment, my good comrades. These shitheads knew how to have a good time, if nothing else. I had found them fucked in the head on the same chemicals I was on many times without conference. Complete coincidences. It had been a dry winter and good quality psychedelics were hard to come by. Nothing but pot, coke, and the magic of cough syrup. And we were all starving for insight and enlightenment beyond the grey skies and dirty snow of Ohio winters. It was a sad winter, made sadder by the drugs and drinks of poor townies and the smoke pushed out of their lungs into the unforgiving air. I faintly recalled an episode starring Gary and I where an endless loop of nonsense and an out-of-body experience became our reality. I remember running up and down the stairs to the attic where the walls were splattered with a colorful array of spots of glow that had been released from plastic prisons. This produced the most beautiful feelings one can get in such a state. But we wanted desperately to be back in our bodies, housed warmly in a security that the metaphysical plane of unreality can never provide. The night ended with compliments exchanged between the two of us. Gary complimented my beautifully nonexistent forehead, and I returned the sentiment by acknowledging his third nose. With intellectual drugs there is reference to a third eye, but on the cough medicine concoction there is a third nose. Why? Why not? Too much nonsense to make cents. But there had to be something artistic in there somewhere. Only because of these tender memories did I have any illusion of safety around such a violent person as Gary.

  We arrived at the apartment just in time. In time for what, I wondered. No idea, best to not ask questions when so much is on the line, my friend. What's on the line this time? I don't know, but you better tell it I'm not home or it will certainly reprimand me. Pure lunacy. How the hell did we get here alive? My partner in tonight’s crimes assured me he had taken great care to get us here so safely. Or maybe he didn't say anything at all... its hard to tell at this point. The exchange of words had become inefficient, we had developed some form of extra sensory perception enabling us to read each others thoughts. I hope he is reading my thoughts better than I am. I couldn't make any
sense of the gaping hole I once referred to as my brain. Holy shit, we were at the front door. When did this happen? Who invented the idea of thinking while walking? BRILLIANT! The simplest tasks become so amazingly complex, and perplexing.

  I swung the door open after deciding knocking would be too predictable. Everyone in the room froze for an indeterminate amount of time – caught in their illegal activities. I could see the wave of bad vibes cutting straight through their doomed little souls. Ah Ha! I thought to myself. I could now see everyone in the room as the cloud of judgment and scorn cleared from the air. There was Daniel, Beth (Daniels promiscuous girlfriend and roommate), Dane (one of my friends from the old era, before the delirium), Macaroni, and Gary. Daniel is about my height, five foot-twelve inches, and has the same color of hair as me, black, and has an odd shaped nose, much like my own. We were completely different from each other though, despite our similar appearance. He always knew what to say that would end in either approval or laughter from everyone. All I could say were awkward statements, usually murderous or sexual in nature and always far too graphic for impolite company, eliciting sympathy laughs. Perhaps they felt sorry for me, being a social cripple. Some part of me despises the fact we are so alike in appearance, yet he has mastered social games and I have not. His female body count was in the double digits at age 17. Being cool. That's an interesting concept. Confidence is key.

  I helped myself to a chair at the dining room table and began to assess the situation I had forced myself into. I began dictating my thoughts into my tape recorder. Reporting things such as how the double vision was hindering my ability to read tongue twister cards lying on the table. Gary told me they were from a Christian board game they were using for a drinking game. Thank god.

  I turned to Dane, "Why the hell are my pants not mended at this point?"

  He laughed in reply but uttered no words were to calm my compulsive freak out. Dane is a dangerously outspoken liberal with a knack for exploding into vicious political blasphemy. He should be drawn and quartered. He's blonde too with an overgrown hobo beard. Bastard. I once attacked him, strangling him by the neck in a drunken rage because of his blasphemous and racist tongue. But I released him when I realized what I was doing, and sobbed in the corner for being such a dick. But in hind-sight, I should have snapped his neck.

  "That goddamn floating woman in the isle said that she could help me, but I decided the needle was better off in her eye, so I gave it to her pretty damn hard... hope it appreciates what I did for society. My personal society at the very least. What kind of a world allows those blue-vested freaks to unload their unholy mission of guaranteed low prices to the masses without any regard to the effect on the economy at large? Its capitalism at its best, but I, good sir, am NO capitalist. I do not intend on capitalizing anything in the name of my name for my name's sake!" Perfect cents. You're still not making sense. What am I looking for here?

  "What are you talking about now?" he managed bark.

  "Don't you fuckers listen when I'm talking, jesus, you act like a bunch of fuckin' retards. Fuckin' pig skins roasted with marshmallows man! I CAN'T BELIEVE I GO THROUGH LIFE EVERYDAY THINKING THAT I NEED TO TEACH YOU MOTHER FUCKERS THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ALIVE AND WELL WITHIN A CLOSED SOCIETY! Dost thou understandeth whateth I sayeth? Come now and fuck yourselves. I am trying to see things from your perspective, Dane, but alas, I cannot stick my head that far up my ass!” I was losing composure.

  "Man, I never know what the hell you're talking about!" he laughed. He was telling the truth as far as I could tell.

  "Yeah, james you're a fuckin' dumb ass!" Daniel felt the need to say.

  "Whatever, man... If my neurons were moving any slower I might just lower myself to your unholy level, you fuck," I said.

  Was I losing my mind? Have I said nothing this entire time that makes any sense? goddamn that fucking prick, getting me started down this paranoid, self doubting path that inevitably ends in a fetal position seizure in some corner of hell. Daniel grabbed my recorder, which I was using to record my thoughts of hate for him and his arrogant statements. He pushed his vodka soaked lips up to it.

  "james is a faggot," he mumbled into the recorder.

  "Fuck! Now when I review this tomorrow I'm going to think that I think I'm thinking I'm a faggot! These are MY thoughts you unholy pig! They will lock me away in some prison for the homosexually psychopathic! THE DAMAGE IS DONE NOW!" I declared.

  "james is gonna, james is gonna thinks he's a faggot," he recorded. The room erupted in laughter. I sulked. Then I remembered I was among good friends and bad people like myself, giving me enough confidence to maintain control over myself. The conversation continued in this fashion for some time. At one point everyone talked about a girl I did not know. They said she was a whore who would sleep with a guy just for a ride to the supermarket to get more condoms to fuck the next guy. When the conversation ended I figured it would somehow twist itself back onto insulting me, as it usually did, so I decided I wouldn't give them the pleasure.

  "And, james is gay, right?" I said.

  Once again, the room burst into wild laughter. I will never hear the end of this one, I thought to myself. These fuckers are unbelievable, back stabbing, horse fucking, acid freaks. Good friends. Further conversation ensued and did its usual twisting and turning around the pole of heavy intoxication. A note on my recorder from this night made by Gary reminded me to never robotrip with Dane. There's a very important story behind this, and I finally got the story right from Dane's mouth. Unfortunately, the record was destroyed the following evening. All I know is the widely accepted rumor. Dane had been a big Dex head, like myself. On the night in question, he had downed a bottle of the horrid syrup with his friend Matt, whose personality I hated with every cell in my body. With the very thought of that cum-guzzling pig every single atom within me screamed with a certain brand of loathing to which only psychopaths could possibly relate. He and Dane went on a journey into the wrong parts of their minds. They did what every dex user knows to never do: They questioned their sexuality and the proper ways of engaging themselves in a heterosexual fashion in the company of a male friend. Dane's mother walked in on them viciously masturbating each other and tripping on cough syrup. These are the kind of people my age had to look up to in high school.

  I got a call from my bodyguard and best friend, Phil. He asked what I was up to and if he could join in. I gave him permission without asking my hosts. He arrived and I believed it to be the only time I had ever been so fucked out of my mind while he was sober. It was strange. I could sense his aggravation, intensified by the fact he was the only sober person in the room. He settled in and began playing Guitar Hero.

  "You know,” said Beth, “you and Daniel look almost exactly alike,"

  At this statement Daniel and I looked at each other, cracked our necks and nodded in approval all in synchronicity. It was like looking in a mirror. Then I handed Daniel my sunglasses and we switched places around the table. Phil was distracted by his video game, but then turned to Daniel.

  "james, when are you going home?" he asked.

  Once again laughter pored from the ceiling and down the walls, filling the air of the tiny apartment with its stench. Phil figured out what had just happened, and I hope he was ashamed. Some best friend he is, can't even tell one Dexican from another. I poured a drink from a pitcher that appeared to contain water. I shuddered in disgust and demanded to know what the liquid was. I was told it contained vodka – my greatest enemy. I then hated that glass so fucking much, but I shrugged and gulped down the rest of it. Zach gave me a look that told me I had totally lost my grip on the situation. And for an instant I was worried. Then Daniel grabbed the pitcher and began chugging the shit. Macaroni started to bitch about how he was surely going to die of alcohol poisoning, and how it was my fault for allowing him to do it. Having had the poisoning once myself, I tried to keep him conscious. This seemed to amuse the rest of the group as if they were oblivious to the impending alcohol dea
th.

  But this was all some cosmic joke put on by the biggest assholes in the universe, and it was only water. Phil left, and everyone passed out and my mind got lost in Robotussin-land. A wonderful land of closed-eyed hallucinations involving the morphing of whatever deranged images the mind chooses to produce. Hills of strawberry covered muffs and demon hipster women with bright green tails bouncing in and out of the vaginal openings of a brilliant ball of purple flames wrapping in and out of itself like a cosmic fuck-fest.

  But this night was only the beginning to the rest of my life.

  Zach----the Madman----

  Now, I'm not too sure what to say here,

  except that I don't know how I got here.

  I don't mean here at Gary's Apartment,

  I mean in the middle of a massive drug binge

  with james. He's crazy, and very convincing

  when he assures me things will work out.

  I remember when we used to hang out when school let out.

  We would play hacky-sack at my house.

  We got pretty good... well I did.

  He was never too good at anything physical.