Practicing positive self-talk in a mirror
Here’s the thing: there used to be two of us here—me, and the kid (or is it: the kid and I?). And the kid used to do everything for us. He cooked and cleaned, and he would’ve done all this damned laundry I’ve got piling up now if he were still around.
Just the other day, he hightailed out of here and left me to deal with it all alone. I’ve got to write this now. I have never been so annoyed. Writing was always the kid’s thing and it’s his story to begin with—I was barely even there!
And really, I am tired, and the toilet is covered in vomit—he won’t even be able to clean it until tomorrow (if he’s back by tomorrow, that is), so I think this should be his job at the end of the day anyways. I mean—leaving the image of that toilet in my mind would be reason enough for him to have to do it; but for the kid to just thrust it all on me and dip out like his deadbeat father, I am planning an extra special, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious punishment for his imminent return.
Until then, the story has to go out because I have a deadline coming up, so we’ll all have to suffer through my words. I warned you; writing is the kid’s thing, forgive me for my inevitable mistakes.
Let us begin:
Who vomits on a toilet? I mean, in it, sure. But on it?
Imagine the scene: a half-naked, cracker-barrel-pale, emaciated husk curled up on the cold tiled floor of the bathroom. Drunk out of his mind, the kid wheels his head around to and fro, in some floundering imitation of dance.
There is no music on except for the rhythmic boom in his ear. His head bobs in time to it, and there is a nice sort of cadence to the screams that eke their way out his near-paralyzed throat.
Why is he dancing? Or rather—how does one figure to dance while shirtless, and sat cross-legged on the bathroom floor?
Poorly, for starters.
He figures to dance poorly.
And he has just dragged himself back while on the verge of blackout, so his legs (yes, both of them) gave out the moment the door shut behind him.
That’s why he is on the floor, you see. He is too tired to stand. And he dances like that because, well, he knows no other way, really, except to dance poorly.
He never stops thinking dance well; and the distraction of having a thought is enough for him to forget all about just dancing. He’s got the heart for it—I’ve always been the first to tell him—if only he didn’t think. I’ve always been the first to tell him that too. Why think when you can just listen, I think to him all the time. He is too married to it though. The kid loves the sound of our own voice more than he loves being a lazy shithead (and that’s really saying something) and he especially loves making that voice sound like it’s come up with something smart.
The drink has him stupid, so tonight he’s decided to dance like shit on purpose.
“Might as well make it mine,” he says with feigned inventiveness; and I am almost completely overwhelmed by this childish audacity that I set up to strike him. I hesitate, though, when I notice the bruises along my fingers. It would be such a shame to let him make me crack another nail.
He retches.
It is just a heave, though (my kid doesn’t give up that easy), and the pathetic, alcohol-fueled marionette starts up again.
The contemptuous backhand is raised as near to his face as can be managed without touching. I just want to know what it feels like, I think. The way he avoids my eyes is infuriating; the tone of his silence upsets me; he thinks, you deserve to die.
Shut up, I think back.
But his dance continues, even while the sing-songy croons are stopped by an imminent wave of nausea. He flops like a dolphin on the sand, and I kneel down to watch as the life drains out of those intelligent, lonely eyes.
He does need a good smack, but maybe not right now. It would be quite the mistake for me to prove him right when he’s so close to the end. Let him go out guilty, that’s what I say, and so I lower the hand—reluctantly.
He has had to fight like this for a long while now. He tries to think about all the other times he has been too tired to stand, but I remind him that that’s cheating and so the vomit comes at once.
He aims for the toilet.
He hits every inch of it except for that pool of water that sits in the middle—you know? Like the place in a toilet where you would normally put what one puts in toilets—that’s the part he failed to hit.
Nice, he thinks. The “dance” starts up again.
I mean, look at him, he doesn’t even care anymore. You’re telling me I’m the one who has to write this story and clean up this mess? The kid just graffitied my throne with a mix of vodka and apples, and now he preens over his art like he’s the next Basquiat.
“Basquiat wishes,” he says, and to emphasize his creative genius, the boy empties the rest of his stomach onto the neighboring floor.
It’s a nice gesture, but the tag now more resembles a Jackson Pollock, so I compliment him on the ruined simile, and it seems to break his spirit a little.
“Yeah, but only a little,” I say, before he can. He always hates when I do that.
I slip out into the dark, mournful room behind while he tries to stand—in an attempt to chase after me, I presume.
He slips in his own sick and begins to sob.
Nice, I think and then titter loud enough to hear through the door as I bound into the hallway. No one else is there, so I laugh again—this time a lower pitch and flatter tune.
His fear howls through the wall, and I can’t help but press my ear to it as to have its touch inside me. A tendril of shame tickles my lobe and the rush of his screams runs through me like blood. I can hear his heart beat so loudly that I almost want to reach through and rip it out myself.
He will do it for me though, and I feel the wall grow warmer as the thought echoes between us. A blaze threatens to bring the whole building down: the anger, the resignation, his failures its fuel.
There is nothing to do now except cackle. As I wait to be consumed by the flames, I press my head and hands to the floor and laugh in time to the drum that beats on in the burning dorm room. Victory at hand, at last.
Yet, as I am knelt there—basking in the upcoming gloom, orgasming at his helpless, never-ending agony—a thought waves back at me, through the other side of the wall.
One can only stand to kneel for so long, he thinks.
I feel my own fear, clear and icy, tickle its way down my spine.
No reassuring heat ever seems to lick at my heels, and—laying there—I find a pathetic sick of my own in the stained carpet pressing itself into my nostrils.
Have I awaited a death not to come? I curse the boy for being too scared to write, but the insults bounce right off of him, back on to me. The tears are unwanted.
They will not be stopped.
He assaults me from the other room. I can feel the kid stand and all I can see are little threads of fractured light, as the failure pools in my eyes.
I think a thought to the tears: how dare you rebel? And I am possessed by them. Racked with sobs and convulsions as these liquid insurgents invade my land and steal my property.
They run to their vacant existence below—to be melded with the carpet and evaporate harmlessly into the late-night air. It does not look as if they have taken anything.
But I find myself missing my pride.
I am too scared to go back inside. The kid knows it too. He could kill me right here if he wanted. Strike me one last time and the breath would be done forever. I yearn for him to. I want him to know what it feels like, and I sit before the door, waiting, until it opens hours later. I can see the snow through the window behind him and the pale, early morning sunlight filtering in deepens the shadows between us and flickers across his lashes. He appears as a daemon to me, and I tremble before him, eager for the death yet still too timid to meet it.
He merely takes my hands into his and leads me back into the room. Music plays from a speaker in the corner.
We begin to dance. It is a poor kind of dance though. We step forward and back, forward, and then back again. Our clasped hands sway out of time to the beat of the song.
I hear the heart pumping in my ears though. And I remember a night, from months ago, when I danced like this with someone. She’s looking me in the eyes again, and I say: “This is what you call dancing?”
“I’m teaching you to dance like shit,” she replies. “That’s the first step.”
I notice my breast is beating again. “And the next one?”
“You dance alone,” and she pushes me square in the chest, shoving me out into the middle of the dance floor.
And then I am alone. She’s nowhere to be seen.
I’m swaying by myself in the dorm room, the boy gone as well.
The only remnant of them, is the pounding in my ears as their heart beats on. A shallow little bob, in time with the distant thunder.
Snow falls, then falls harder—and I feel the ache of a storm approaching.
A song comes on, “American Boy.” I swallow in fear.
And I dance.