CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you'll start missing everybody."
-Holden Caulfield.

It's so quiet I can hear how loud the clock is. Time has a voice. It's late, I should be in bed, I don't even feel like writing. Force of habit. My computer is buzzing too much. It worries me. It could explode or something. . .

Someone was blowing something up, fireworks or something, but I went outside and couldn't see anything. Just whistles and pops and explosions. No light at all. The woods were screaming alive. Loons screeching on the lake.

There are weird insects outside that are trying to attack me. They are clanging up against the door and when I open it they buzz in and try to suck the blood out my neck. I've squashed a dozen of them so far and switched off the light and I refuse to open that door again.

I finished the Catcher in the Rye. It was very good, very deep but finishing it depressed me a lot. I've never been so upset about ending a novel and it's not because I wanted it to go on and on forever. I don't know what it is. I almost wish I had never read it.

Anyway, this is some cult book, some book I was supposed to be born knowing every word. People think you're stupid when you get to be my age and you get excited about something that they've loved since grade school. It was this way with Fight Club, with the Mars Volta. "Dude, I love this new band." "Yeah, I know, I heard about them years ago. They're OK."

It's this way with religion too. "Jesus? Sure, I know about him."

What was the point of reading this novel anyway? Chuck Palahniuk has sheepishly stated that Fight Club is just a remake of Catcher in the Rye. Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis obviously was. The same message, the same characters, the same people, who like me, like this book. I think Fight Club was more fleshed out. The anti-consumerism ideas were better expressed. There was also a twist ending and some actual sex.

Truth be told, I've just been trying to rewrite these books myself.

It bothers me that Mark David Chapman liked this book and saw himself as the Catcher in the Rye. Because I really see myself as standing beneath that cliff and catching kids, poor depressed kids who don't have direction in life. I mean, that's what I want to do. I'm not doing it yet. I fear maybe I'll end up shooting someone instead. Or kill my grandma. Ha.

It's a weird name for a character though. A 'caul' is a mucus membrane that some people are born in. So it's more like he's holdin' a field of these things.

I met an old lady today that my grandparents visited cause she is having surgery. Her name is Mim. She's so old and so sick that she's nothing but a skeleton. You could see how big her skull was supposed to be because her eyes keep popping out. Think shrunken head. Think puppet.

Her dogs were huge German shepherds and I have a fear of big dogs. I was doing my best to control myself, but they would just sit and watch me. They'd lick their lips and maybe it meant nothing, maybe it didn't. My grandparents kept talking but I couldn't focus in on the conversation. I stared at the TV to keep my mind off the dogs, but I have no idea what I watched. We were there ten minutes, but it should have been an hour.

I asked Mim if I could take a picture of her. She said, but I'm a wreck, but OK. I told her, it's because I didn't want to forget her. I don't know if I was lying or not, just to get another weird picture of a dying old lady. I'm sick in the head, really. But I won't forget her now. I can't.

I went trekking in the woods today. I've been meaning to for awhile. Get lost. Find something else. I didn't go far but I didn't have to, not to be completely surrounded by trees and a shag carpet of dead leaves and you can't smell or hear anything but the woods. I looked up and I could see nothing but blue and green and I told myself, "God is here."

But I ran out of the woods, swatting at my neck and my arms, because of mosquitoes and dirty little bloodsuckers that wanted my life. I said to myself, "Satan is here, too."

Day Twelve: Reading Material

Reading Catcher in the Rye. It's beginning to be good.

I told myself I was taking the day off and I'm glad I did. Unlike my obits, I didn't promise anything. Interruption wouldn't hurt the project.

For an interesting blog read this. Not This God's other posts are blah, but this one is good:

http://notthisgod.blogspot.com/2008/05/seven-essential-sins.html

Kinda got me thinking.

Day Eleven: Inheritance

I'm not gonna be one of THOSE people.
When you're here, dark is really dark. Not some pathetic attempt at it. You'd really stumble, you'd really get lost. There are these things called Loons, which are creepy looking birds that scream at night. The lake is haunted. The forest alive with nocturnal whispers. They won't hurt you, but they will keep you on your toes. No wonder people write horror stories about this place.

I'm just amazed that some of the land here has been owned since before America was the USA and yet, this place is so untouched. You are constantly surrounded by woods and wildlife. Ninety percent of the businesses here are locally owned, small businesses. Few corporate conglomerates here. Nothing is all the same. I don't know if it's better than Phoenix, where they've torn up the desert and made it an oasis, for better or worse. All I know is it's harder to get Monster energy drinks out here because few people carry them.

My grandma told me a story about how my father got into a wreck in a high speed police chase. He was about my age and he was trying to avoid the cops to avoid higher insurance rates. He hid behind a highschool and the cop waited ten minutes on the other side for him. He sped out, was still being chased and hit a wall.

My grandma says she has never been able to understand what Paul was thinking. His mind was always on some other frequency. I laughed and bit my tongue and told grandma that I definitely inherited that.

She said, oh, I hope not!

But I want to be. I really, really do.

Day Ten: Lachrymose Sky

I dented the front of my grandpa's Prius. Last week, I backed into a hill and popped off some sort of fender. He wasn't mad either time. Said he has insurance. I asked him why he wasn't mad. He said, "Why should I be? Do you want me to yell at you?" Oh, the things I get away with. Everything, but that toilet in junior year. Can't do no wrong, not me. Yell at me? It would make me feel better. Just a little.

Down the street the police installed a little speed monitoring board. I think it was put there because of me, narcissitic as that is. What's the name of that emotion? Where you think things are for you because they are presented that way. When someone writes an angry, anonymous blog you automatically think it's about you. It's probably not, but can you ever help thinking that? What am I supposed to do, guess?

The board doesn't take your picture or anything. In fact, there are so few security cameras around here that it was a relief seeing them in a CVS. It would take me a thirty minute drive to find that particular pharmacy again, but going inside was the only breath of normal I've felt since leaving Sky Harbor. I really don't like that about myself. I'm so molded by consumerism, even though I'm mostly against it.

Took work off. I helped move furniture with my grandpa today. Some Keystone Cops moments. Busted a lamp or two. Paint spatters on clothing. He painted the living room for this old cat lady. Her house smells like cigarette smoke, not the good, fresh kind. Cheap cigs. Cat hair and kitty litter and old lady. The weirdness of it all. Why she tapes doors shut. Why she ties lighters to everything. Why she taped a letter about mammograms to the wall. Why she collects spent Dunkin' Donuts coffee cups and uses them as insulation. May I never be so old my brain rots inside my skull, like molded bananas. I've seen this happen to almost every old person I know. I would rather fall down a staircase like ol' whatshisname. Maybe he didn't fall anyway.

I went to Bible study. Me and Rhonda got sidetracked from discussing the existence of God to why and how America is a "Christian Nation" and whatnot. We started arguing over the concept of the Iraq Invasion. I was explaining simple economics to her. When there is more demand than supply, price goes up. When you invade a country that has oil, supply goes down, demand goes up, therefore high gas prices. When you are investing in oil companies, like Bush and co. are, you have damn good reason to invade, because you will make a profit (Exxon made more money in a single quarter than any other company in history). Rhonda asked for proof. Motive. The smoking gun.

In a way, I feel bad that the discussion sidetracked. I have a way of doing that. . . Rhonda said she had a headache and wasn't up to arguing with me because of it. But she complimented me, saying I go right for it. Relentless. I smiled. Whatever.

So I went home and did some research. A lot of people claim Al-Qaeda had no reason to attack the U.S. but if you look back, we've been over in the Middle East since at least the '80s. Shooting down their civilian planes and trying to pay them off? Why wouldn't Muslim extremists be pissed and want retaliation?

It's a pretty disgusting part of history. Trench warfare, human waves and mustard gas. Never learned about this in high school. Wonder why. I got myself on a tangent about the mustard gas of course. The mutagenic, carcinogenic horror of it all. And my sick fascination with it.

It was rainy today, like yesterday, but I've been enjoying it. I love how the wet brings out all the color in everything. The road is black, real black. The trees, real green. Mud, real brown. The sky is the exception, some bleak gray slate, sometimes completely blank. The sky is oblivion. Like a wet water color portrait, every where I go, I track some of the bleeding colors with me. The light stretches out into nothing. No wonder Garbage is only happy when it rains. It's the only time life makes sense.

Day Nine

Day Eight: Scab

There was no picture that defined today, so I put one that makes me happy.
- - - x

Woke up. Something on my neck, like a scab. Peel it off, glance at it. It's a tick. The sight of this bloodsucker squirming makes me impulsively drop it. The shock of being awake and already bleeding.

Two minutes later, I find another or the same bastard sticking his head in my belly. You're supposed to burn them out, right? So I light match after match and hold it up to this vermin. I'm late for work and I'm just burning myself. The tick is still squirming in my gut. So I break the rules, pull the bugger out and decapitate it. A little white spinal cord is oozing out his neck. The head is still inside me, burrowing deeper, sucking me up. Toss the corpse in the toilet.

I could get Lyme disease, which doesn't seem that bad. Very treatable. I don't have the "bullseye" rash.I probably picked the tick up yesterday, when I was in the woods with my cousins finding scrap metal. It was drinking of me all night long.

Work was somehow more bearable than before, but not much. Watching the clock, like some office whore. Tick tock. I came home with a migraine and couldn't think clearly. I felt like I'd given blood.

The tick was still floating in the toilet, waiting for me.

Day S[w]even: Mark

DO NOT READ THIS WITHOUT READING SWEVEN I : "WHEN I AM KING" FIRST. It enhances this content. Click here. Take your time.

- - - x

Some horrible facet of the imagination. 'Sweven' is an archaic word meaning vision. Dream. I imagined Sweven I. I didn't want to explain because context ruins the story experience.

It is the most vivid dream I've ever had. Some nightmare caused by watching Bravehart, I woke up two hours before my alarm. Couldn't escape from the alternate reality all day, so I wrote it down. I'm still not convinced it didn't happen.

I'm sure you can guess why it is numbered. Expect more.

Church. A concert, not worship, on purpose. My grandfather preached, as usual. Very laid back, warm. Small families make up a congregation of fifty, but the sermon is televised into 100,000 homes. Televangelism, but not the same thing. No gimmick, no book to sell.

Talked to a few people I really didn't want to. Felt apathy dripping out my black sleeves. Some woman discussed the weather. Older than hell. Mentioned something about global warming and I spouted some facts about how it's never been proven to be an issue or that human beings are causing it. She kept saying, "Oh. Oh. Oh." Me, spreading truth and disease. "I've never heard that side before!" Now I know why Christ is the shepherd and his people the sheep.

Bad influence, yes I am. Horrid. Had several deep discussions with my cousin, Matt. Surprised even myself. Letting our true colors show. Wagering the future. Chewing fat while we still have molars.

I decided I will vote this year after all. Ron Paul. I know, he has no chance. But at least I will be able to sleep at night. Ten years from now, I'll remind myself I was a true patriot when I was young. An Anarchist patriot even. I'll remind myself that I once had something to believe in. It's not about winning, it's about trying. Who's with me? Who's not a coward?

This does not transition. Ate lunch with the whole family. Syrian food. What we ate was Koosa, which is a special type of pepper from Lebanon that is stuffed with meat and rice, dribbled with tomato sauce. We ate grape leaves, which is rice and meat wrapped in grape leaves, dribbled with lemon juice. It's not bad every once in a while. Couldn't eat it forever.

Sorry, didn't meet the girl today. Things didn't work out.

Very caffeine high. The kind of buzz that makes me want to explore everything. So me and my cousins drove down a service street and investigated a sewage drainage system. It was way more fun than it sounds. Look at the photos if you don't believe me.

Ate ice cream, I set my pants on fire. Considered tattoos. Played the game Exquisite Corpse and the Drawing Game. Dadaism over pistachio.

My cousins and I fired guns into some makeshift targets on their volleyball court. My relatives don't own guns for hunting or for security. They're toys. This was my first time ever firing a gun. The result of living in a city, I suppose. Just .22 rifles, a Magnum, but it was exciting for me.

We were careful not to aim the rifles at each other. I told myself, clutching the Magnum, this is not a toy. But it is. We picked out the chunks of lead spat in the sand. Twisted, bits of nothing. I wondered how something so small could really be so dangerous. And I stared at the back of Mark's head. Imagined the little .22 zipping through his skull, his brain and coming out in chunks the other end. Through every memory and emotion and sense the kid ever had.

I set the rifle down and couldn't stop shaking. Maybe it was the caffeine.