Orlando (Part Two)
by Precipitate8
III.
It’s getting more difficult and enjoyable all the time; Julie and I own a couch here. Absorbing the lightsss, dancersss, musssic, and by golly, I’m tripping balls. Some kid is sitting next to Julie, talking, she gets up to watch the dancers from the balcony and introduces me to the stranger.
First of all: what the hell is he doing here? Hippie shade hat, Hawaiian shirt, shorts and a head shop aura. Sore thumbs and barrel traps.
“Hey my name is ;aldkf;l…”
“Thomas.”
By now I’m just trying to maintain some type of focus through the ether. I was by no means prepared for head trips and cryogenic conversation:
“Your girlfriend is kind of…well, flaky.”
“Oh yeah…what do you mean?”
“Well, she keeps getting up and coming back and moving all over the place, you know.”
Actually I didn’t know. I didn’t know she’d moved, I didn’t know she was flaky, and I certainly didn’t know some kid in a Hawaiian shirt in a goth club could accuse someone of such a thing.
“She’s okay. She’s just having a good time…and…doing whatever she feels like, you know, that sort’a thing.”
“Alright, whatever.”
He leans in a little closer now. “You know, I know what you are.”
It made me smile,”Oh yeah, who am I?”
“No, I don’t know who you are, I know what you are.”
Haze. No connection.
“Who am I then?”
“No man, I don’t know who you are, I know what you are.”
“Oh…well, what am I then.”
Pause and frustration on his part. Intonation of tainted sweets.
“You’re a good person.”
Oblivious. I’m not getting any of this.
“I don’t know if I’m a good person or not.”
He lays in for the strike.
“Sure you are man, you’re a good person…and you’re lucky, too. You don’t know how lucky you are to have that girl over there man. She is a great person, man, and you don’t know how lucky you are to have her.”
Trying to fuck with a limp dick.
“No man, I know how good she is…I know how lucky I am.”
Sets in for the kill.
“No man, you don’t know. I know man, cause I’ve seen some shit man, I’ve seen some shit…do you know half my fucking relatives are in prison man? No shit…they’re in prison, gettin’ fucked up the ass and shit, and that’s where they’re livin their lives. Get this though man, the day after I found out one of my relatives went to jail, man, I find out my sister is HIV positive and that’s not all man, I…”
He knows, I can feel it. He knows with each sentence he’s propelling me further and further down the ranks of confusion. I can barely listen…the music is so fucking loud…I suddenly realize he’s almost kissing my ear as he talks, the both of us huddled together there on the couch to maintain this psychological virus download.
Julie finally interrupts, “Hey, what are we talking about?”
He pauses just long enough to acknowledge her and then returns to throwing his madness at me.
I whisper in Julie’s ear, “We have to go.”
She doesn’t hear me.
He keeps rolling and rolling, I try again, “We have to go.”
And another failure.
She realizes I’m trying to say something, and for that instant I get the sensation of mental fortitude, so I think maybe I can survive this guy. “Wait.”
The moment passes and I have to leave. Visceral sensations like butterflies–a unique nervousness strangely unrelated to the drugs. As polite as I can manage, I excuse myself from the conversation and head to the outside veranda in the back of the club. Julie follows. I explain my disturbance as best I can.
“You handled that situation poorly. I thought you were okay enough for me to leave you with that guy, but I guess I was wrong.”
“I’m just so fucked up…I couldn’t take it…I probably would’ve been fine sober.”
“That’s a fucking retarded excuse. You should understand that.”
Now I do.
IV.
Coffee shop characters never seem to leave, surviving on endless refill policies and nervous titters. Maintenance of the unshaven face, mud-laced overcoats, and a boorish loneliness that drives desperate social impulses. These fucking dead beatnik zombies…bohemia is no more. Harold and Maude’s exists as a Pharoah’s tomb where you can fuck Kerouac’s mummy for three pence and Ginsberg for free. What a dream though…
Two characters…the girl and the lagging boy. Takes three weeks of blood analysis to believe any damn thought. The Perfect tragic hero. Enamored in the impending mediocrity that controls his life. All the information for happiness stands in front of the high beams, but alas, there is no instinct….
A toast to my own loneliness and the lunatics of the world:
“Here’s to the girl that boobytrapped my asshole!”
Oh…that debauchorous night…dark martinis, Johnny Walker, vodka tonics, and she was faking on the gay mimosa. Took me home and fed me some more wine and this fetid cheese that any sane intestine would roadblock and quarantine. Lured into bed…She owns the night and wears me out. Drunk, satisfied, there’s nothing left to do but pass out without vomiting–and we’ll call the night a total sucksess.
Well, no sooner am I dreaming about poppies in chinese gardens than her unsatisfied person is rolling me over and looking to place the damage. She goes to a desk drawer and gets a fresh utility razor and looks me over.
Getting the idea, she gives a petite chuckle and slides her hands down my back to rest on my ass. With one hand she pulls the left cheek away to expose the anal sphincter. With the razor, she makes a slow, light incision in the tightest part of the orifice. Repeating this procedure with the other side, she relaxes, exhales, and lies down to sleep.
The next morning, I wake up to cramping nausea. As if the head hangover weren’t enough, that god damn cheese from last night has got me all backed up. The girl…gone–some note on the pillow…arggghhhh….I got to use the shitter.
Damn that cheese–It’s one of those painful shits, but it passes quickly and I am relieved. I pull out a thick wad of toilet paper and instantly I feel the wetness touch my hand through the paper. I pull my hand out to reveal a blood soaked tissue–and I see shooting stars all over the white bathroom tile. As soon as I regain consciousness…I’m gonna have myself a drink….
What night is it…
I’m always asking for it. In the window I could see all the desks pushed against the walls of the class room, and a white sheeted, queen size bed in the center. There was a girl in her underwear moving some of the last protruding desks up against the far side of the wall. I entered the class room expecting to startle her, but without looking at me, she said, “It’s about time you got here, I’ve been waiting for a half hour.”
She finished clearing and came over to me in a fairly seductive manner and led me to the bed by my hand. It is important to note at this point that this strange but friendly girl seemed to have a well-endowed bosom as far as could be seen by the bra she was wearing. We sat down on the bed and she started kissing me, so I kissed back, and soon started to enjoy it. She paused in between kisses to ask me to take off her bra. I happily obliged, and started to kiss her again. My face felt wet. It got so wet I became alarmed (as I might be leaking) and I pulled away from her face to discover we were soaked in her tears.
Disturbing fear. I begged her to tell me what was wrong, but she only shied away and cried more violently. After much begging and pleading to let me understand her distress, she calmed down, took away her formerly crossed arms that were hiding her chest, and exposed two prepubescent breasts that were not in need of a bra’s support, emotional or otherwise. She started to sob to me her feelings of inadequacy and unattractiveness as I suppressed my incomprehension. All I could tell her was that she was attractive and that the size of her breasts were not inherently related to the quality of her person (which I knew nothing of, but hell, she was so sad, I didn’t know what else to do). Nothing helped. She continued to bawl, and I grew more depressed, wanting to help her, but seeing more clearly the futility of it as I became more ineffectual. Finally she asked me to leave. If only I could have helped her….
