No Answers Coming For the Weed Eater

6.

We had two couches facing each other a few yards apart in our garage. I lit up a cigarette as I sat down and saw William’s weed eater on the other couch across from me.
I didn’t want to touch the weed eater even though I knew Will preferred a little help with chores around the house. I have a grass allergy, but I guess that’s a cop out.

When I was seven years old, my two so-called friends and I decided we weren’t going to return from recess after the bell rang. They encouraged me to come out to the Field with them.

The Field was our domain back in the day. Some kids are blacktop kids, but we were the Field kids. We liked to run around and stay separate from all the popular kids and the nerds.
So why would I suspect one of my friends would twist my hands behind my back while another would knee me in the stomach repeatedly? And who would’ve guessed they were going to shove grass up my nose and into my mouth and ears after they forced me to the ground?
I still remember one of them saying, “Make him eat grass!”
I still remember the pressure of their hands and knees digging into my back, the neglect for my personhood in their violence, the purposeful disregard for my pain and the utter sense of helplessness they put me through with their fingers and fists as they made sure I consumed, internalized and was penetrated by grass in every way they could think of. I remember wondering if it was really happening when they decided my ears and mouth were a good home for the muddy, green blades. I remember closing my eyes and waiting for it to be over.

I wound up forgiving them. I guess I decided I’d rather have friends than be alone. I suppose I didn’t think I could make new friends. The popular kids had nicer clothes, and I didn’t want to be seen as a weirdo nerd.

Our group was composed of a bunch of outcasts and misfits, but we had strength in our numbers, numbers I created. All those kids — the fat one, the fast kid, the leader, the rich kid, the weird kid — I was responsible for them all being a part of the group. But somehow I let the leader kid run the show. I guess he was stronger and smarter than me. He’s the one who held my arms behind my back while the fast kid kneed me in the stomach. He’s the one who held me down while the fast kid shoved grass in my orifices.
I figured out later that the leader kid would often get beat up pretty bad by his brother and by his Dad. I guess shit just rolls downhill.
I still wonder why they picked me to attack. I guess I just don’t know my fucking place and they felt like they had to put me there.
I poured a shot of whiskey. The glass had a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on it.
I put out my cigarette, lit another, and took my time before I drank.
The weed eater glared at me, and I saw Will’s sympathetic, disappointed face in my mind. I looked away.
I didn’t feel like eating weeds that day.

7.

The weekend finally came. I walked out of my room and quickly shut the door behind me. I fumbled with my keys and locked the door.

As I turned toward the kitchen, I noticed Jonathan’s reflection in the bathroom mirror across the hallway through a crack in the shitter door he had left temporarily resting ajar. We made eye contact as he irrigated his nostrils with a bottle of saline solution. I suddenly felt a wave of depression recede from my ears down to my shoulders and a voice, Jonathan’s voice said, I fucking hate you. Jonathan had a way of making me feel like a total idiot.

Jessica’s pink hair caught my attention in the kitchen as she stood patiently, pouring one of those two liter plastic containers of water into a gigantic, white funnel William was holding in his right hand. William was sitting in our lonely, single kitchen chair. His lips were wrapped around a nozzle attached to a red hose. The hose was connected to the funnel. I watched as William’s neck pulsated, his eyes bloodshot, bulging out of their sockets.

Jessica took a step backward as William spit water out onto the off-white kitchen floor. Bread crumbs and dog food molecules began a slow process of osmosis, reminding me I had forgotten to scrub Jonathan’s dried ejaculate off the shower walls.
William’s eyes blinked at the ground rapidly as he clenched his fists and cried out in a high baritone, “I don’t want to go back to work!”

“Yeah,” I muttered quietly.

I grabbed a sixteen ounce aluminum cocktail of high fructose corn syrup, caffeine, vitamins and ginseng. I popped the can and gulped down sweet cherry concentrate to mask any possible taste of fish oil. I didn’t really know if that shit helped anything, but my roommates usually had various vitamins and health supplements handy. I almost never dove into their containers perched like pigeons on the toaster oven our old neighbor had unloaded on us two years ago. We couldn’t get it to toast anything, but it served as a shelf. Our old buddy had a habit of borrowing tools, household accessories and electronics he needed and would drop off items we didn’t necessarily have uses for as payment. The borrowed items usually went missing in action, fallen soldiers we thought we had no capability of unearthing from the recesses of his tangled, fraying synapses. But who would I be to judge? The toaster oven was an awesome shelf anyway.

I went for a drive. I didn’t quite know where to go, but I just followed the breeze. I wound up at some restaurant on the outskirts of town — a really classy joint. They had decent barbeque at a mediocre price. They forgot my coleslaw, but I didn’t care.

The waitress was adorable. She was tall and skinny and she had these vibrant blue eyes. They looked just the way the ocean does off the coast of Mexico.

I went to Tijuana once — it was okay. They have these cute little toddlers running around barefoot asking you for change. I suppose they all go swimming once they get enough money to eat. My mom bought a necklace for thirty cents or something like that.

Anyway, the waitress was really nice. Being the drunken asshole I am, I asked her if she wanted to run away with me to Texas, since I figured she liked barbeque. She said no, but gave me her number. I called her two days later when I didn’t feel so jaded about everything and she actually answered. She said she was down to hang out and we met up.

We walked along the railroad tracks, just talking. It was nice. There were all these yellow wildflowers on either side of us. She hugged me when she decided to go home.
I called her a couple days later and she didn’t pick up. I sent a text message but she didn’t respond. That’s how women reject you these days — they just don’t say anything when somebody better comes along. Maybe she knew what an asshole I was, that I was a drunk, that I was a liar. I thought she wouldn’t care since I was obviously intoxicated at the restaurant. Maybe she didn’t like that I was sober on the date. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she started dating her ex-boyfriend again, some tall guy with dyed hair and gauged ears. Maybe she died.
I could’ve texted her again, but that would have been rude. You’re just supposed to understand that silence means no. I figured that out after awhile. It didn’t make sense to me when I was younger. It just doesn’t take much effort to send a text message back:

I met someone else.

I’m not interested in you.

I never took you seriously.

I’m back with my ex-boyfriend because I can’t resist his giant dick and gauged ears.
But honesty’s overrated these days. Silence is pretty much all I expect, especially when it’s just so easy to say nothing. Nobody owes anyone an explanation. Nobody owes anybody anything.
I sat in the garage with none of the lights on a week after we had hung out, smoking a cigarette and staring at the text message I sent her. The blue electronic glow was the brightest thing I could see.

Should I have left a voice message instead? Should I have waited to see if she would call back? Had I been too pushy?

No answer was coming and I knew it.

I poured a shot of whiskey and immediately gulped it down. I watched the smoke from my cigarette rise against the darkness of the garage. White on black looks so pretty when everything in your life is gray.

I finished the bottle of whiskey the next day. The heat was unbearable so I stayed inside and hid from the world. You’re supposed to rest on the weekend, especially on Sundays, so that’s what I did.

It’s not that I enjoy alcohol all that much. If I had it my way, I would spend my life doing things I have more interest in. I just enjoy laughing at myself sometimes and alcohol makes it easier to laugh. In fact if I didn’t consistently turn the events of my life into jokes I might not be alive still.

I brought my cooler to work on Monday. When lunchtime came around, I posted up against my rear bumper, sipping a beer. I casually crossed my legs and enjoyed the warmth of a shot of whiskey emanating throughout my body. My trunk hatch was open, but the 80 proof bottle was stashed safely out of view. However, the cooler had to be within arm’s reach in case I needed the beer to disappear from anyone who might approach me. There isn’t anything wrong with getting a light beer on your lunch break every once in awhile. I got distracted and lost myself inside my thoughts.

The secondary benefit of keeping the trunk up is the shielding effect it provides. Angling my car just so would keep me out of anyone’s view as long as I kept my wits about me, but relaxation can make a man apathetic.

“What the fuck are you doing?”
Shit.

I jumped like a little kid in a movie theater watching a horror flick when the killer suddenly appears, wielding a knife high in the air. You spent the last fifteen seconds telling the cheerleader not to open the closet door. You should’ve seen this one coming — they always open the fucking door. I turned around to see Laura’s gigantic, offended eyes. I initially mistook a look of horror for what was actually rage.

“I’m drinking some piss, Laura. Cut me a break here,” I sneered, pretending to be unperturbed. Maybe an air of confidence would throw her off.

“I should tell our boss.”
“You’re so adorable when you’re mad, Laura,” I smiled and intentionally chuckled for emphasis. “You’re like an angry little elf or something.”

The rage on her face immediately gave way to shock.
“Look at your pointy little ears,” I laughed again.

Her mouth hung open, but she was speechless. I placed my empty beer down before crushing the aluminum can with my shoe. She regained her composure and raised her chin a little higher than necessary, standing as straight and tall as she could. I watched the little elf’s red hair slowly move from side to side as she walked away, maintaining her posture. Her back was perfectly straight. I wondered what she would do.
I sat back down after lunch and waited for somebody to tell me to see the boss, but no one did.

I stood up to get some water and ran into short, little Laura in the hall. She looked away. That little munchkin must have told the boss, I thought to myself, but the hammer never fell.

When I finally got back home, I sat down on one of the couches in the garage and wondered if I was lucky or not. I was tired of working. Getting fired might have been a blessing. Maybe she guessed I would feel this way and decided it was better to torture me. I took two shots of whiskey, one immediately after the other. They weren’t enough. I lit up a cigarette and followed it up with a couple more. At some point, I fell asleep.

I woke up to the sudden pain of a cigarette burning my leg. I hadn’t planned on napping, but boredom does me in every now and then. I was going to have a scar. I was okay with that.

Thanks to the scalding pain from the cigarette’s romantic affair with my thigh, I actually got a couple winks in my own “bed.” The futon was about two and a half inches off the ground in most places, but was around six at the corners. I always meant to rub it in to any chick daring enough to spend the night with me. The plan was to ask the unlucky woman how many inches tall she thought the mattress was at its highest point.

I awoke from a dream about pornography. It was indicative of my surrender of my hobbies and interests. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but a part of me had died on the inside a long time ago. My mental state was just a body decomposing, feeding the snails and worms.

Sometimes I would entertain the notion of giving up alcohol and drugs, but I’d quickly laugh at myself for being so naïve. Only children have hope for the future. Growing up means admitting you’re dead.

I drank a bit of water and half-heartedly did a few crunches. I stepped outside and had a smoke. The sky was overcast. A crow was walking alongside the curb. It peered into the gutter. I turned away. Something about that bird disturbed me.