Fan’s Complaint

Sometimes I feel like my life is a song on repeat. Or it’s a series of sequels to a movie that wasn’t even all that good in the first place.

It’s the same story as last time, and the time before, but there’s a few different characters. Even so, it’s possible to tell that here is the part where I go get sloppy drunk and say things I shouldn’t say, and after that is the part where I think, “Hey, maybe I can get some good writing out of this,” which I of course don’t, and I end up going on a bender and hitting bottom. Again.

A few months later, the story starts anew: Chapter IX: A New Hope.

I wish my life were more like Star Wars, actually. And no, I don’t mean that in a nerdly “I wish I had force powers and a lightsaber” way, even though it’d be awesome to have those things.

The original Star Wars Trilogy was a heroic quest, it had a beginning and an end. And if I remembered more of my high school English (Sorry, Ms. Yoon!), I’d be able to tell you more parts of the heroic quest than just going into a cave and being reborn.

At this point, getting reborn sounds pretty good to me. Maybe I’d come back with “powers.”

even my fiction is non-fiction.

“You know, h., I have a story for you from my childhood that I think you’d find instructive, especially in light of what you’ve told me today.”

“Shoot, Doc.”

“I was playing basketball in my driveway with my friend Billy. He was a good guy, I wonder what happened to him. Last I heard, he was living in Oklahoma City… Anyway, we were playing basketball, and I started to hear this strange sound coming from the house next door. I could tell by the look on Billy’s face that he’d heard it too. But we kept playing, and trying to ignore the sound. Then, after a while, the sound stopped, and my neighbor, let’s call him Mr. F., came out of his house wearing only his underwear, carrying a small box in one hand and a baseball bat in the other. His face was all red, like he’d been crying, or drinking, or both. And maybe that was what we’d heard–his crying. Billy and I just stood there, watching him, as the ball rolled down the driveway and into the street. Mr. F. was completely oblivious–he didn’t hear the silence, or rather, he didn’t notice that we had stopped dribbling the ball. He placed the box on his lawn, and started smashing it with the bat.”

(more…)

The monologue from before has been updated. I don’t know where I’m going with this. It seemed a lot better the other night, when I started writing that after two pages of crap. Now it’s indistinguishable from the crap.

It’s still not a step in any direction. When I started this thing, I was straining to make the character not myself. The words began to flow easier when I put more of myself into it, and now it’s entirely recognizable as me. It’s completely true, except for the fact that I never had any such conversation with any psychiatrist.

Maybe the character I should be working on is the shrink.

“So I was leaving work the other night, and I wanted to avoid the evening rush. It was a nice enough night, so I walk over to Bryant Park to go smoke cigarettes and watch all the suits rush across 5th ave. Once it had cooled off a bit, I decided to walk over to Times Square to catch the 7 train. When I got there, I still didn’t feel like going home and having to deal with my mother, so I decided to walk up to 72nd to get a Recession Special—”

“A Recession Special, Doc. That’s this deal they have at Gray’s Papaya. You get two dogs and a cup of papaya juice for $2.50. Damn good deal if you ask me. It was tradition for a while to end a night of drinking with the Recession Special. They say the Papaya juice is good for hangovers…”

“Yeah, so I was walking up Broadway, and at the park I saw this woman dragging a heavy bag on the sidewalk. She was tiny. One of those upper-west-side types whose kids I envied in high school. You know, with their summer trips and good politics. Not like how I spent my summers, blowing up anthills and setting garbage can fires—”

(more…)

T, J, S, and I are roommates in a small apartment. While we’re sitting around watching TV, a cop jumps through one of our windows. We quickly surround him to tend to his wounds. He’s hurt pretty bad, with several gunshot wounds in his torso. With his dying breath, he tells us to run.

S. grabs the cop’s gun from out of its holster, and tells the rest of us to hide. Someone dressed like a terrorist from Counterstrike jumps through the window that the cop came through, and S. shoots him dead. S. takes the the shotgun and desert eagle off the terrorist’s body, and hands them to T. and J. Another terrorists kicks down our door and comes through. T. and S. quickly make short work of him. His dual pistols are handed to me.

The four of us exit our apartment out into the street, where we find all the cars have been turned over. Terrorists are hiding behind the cars, and a long firefight ensues between the four of us and the fifteen or so terrorists. We eventually win.

The four of us are in a high school gymnasim. The entire town is here to honor our heroic actions. S. is on stage, giving a speech. T., J., and I are watching from the bleachers. S. finishes his speech, and waves at the three of us to get on stage with him. I manage to get off the bleachers first, and I see a look of horror on S.’ face. The bleachers are collapsing behind me.

T. and J. are dead.

I’m still living with S. in our apartment. S. is slowly going insane. Since we saved the town, we are the only citizens allowed to carry firearms. S. has been brandishing his gun all around town. Whipping it out at the 7-11 to get free groceries, and at the bar to get free drinks. He comes home drunk every night with prostitutes, and makes them leave without any money.

I stop spending time in the apartment, leaving early in the morning on walks around town, and going back only to sleep. One night, as I’m falling asleep, I get the feeling that tonight, S. is going to bring home the girl who is supposed to be my girlfriend. It was a strange, semi-conscious notion. None of us were really ourselves, we were just playing characters in this story. Neither T. nor J. are really dead. This girl, however, does not belong in this dream, and cannot be allowed to sleep with S.

So I get out of bed and hide in S.’ closet. My hunch was correct. S. did bring the girl back. They start making out and taking each others’ clothes off. I burst out of the closet and unload both my guns into S. When I am done, both S. and the girl are dead.

well…

I just threw up.

I’m obviously not wasted. I drove home alright. And I had only six drinks, if that.

Maybe I am really falling apart.

addendum@8:15am: I threw up again. Sitting there by the toilet bowl it occurred to me for the first time today that I really should not be throwing up, as I have nothing to throw up, not having eaten for over twenty four hours.

Oops. I was wrong. I had a McDonald’s apple pie last night. It was a pretty big apple pie, I guess.

incredibly intricate dreams of crystalline windows, windshields, spider-webs, led to fractured dreams of labyrinthine narratives. following her on rollerblades, tracing out routes in the wastelands of brooklyn which may or may not have spelled a hidden message (a la City of Glass), until I found myself at an artists’ collective in an old warehouse, where the spider-webs and windows came back.

she said, “you’re falling apart. you should spend the night.”

Failure caught up with me tonight, sometime around midnight, on Lafayette, about a block from the cube. Death almost caught me on the BQE, four-wheel drifting across a lane at 85mph because of my worn suspension (or impaired senses). Needless to say, I am back. For good. Updates soon.