Glass

Glass
         


It must be Thursday.  I am waiting tables and pretending to care, as I mindlessly drudge from one corporate asshole to another, smiling of course.    As I carry trays full of half empty glasses of Pinot and overpriced foreign beer, moving glasses from tables to the bar, I trip and fall.  The glasses would break and I would topple upon them.  People would stare, thinking about how I ruined their anniversary or the Thompson’s account.  As they stare at me I would look all around of course making sure to smile.  They would not be looking in my eyes, but at my throat.  I would then look down at the tickling feeling at the landmark that once resembled my throat.  There would be three fourths of a bar glass lodged in my windpipe, cutting off my airway, creating euphoria, calming me down so as not to cause a scene. Then one of the cooks from the kitchen would come from the back and stare.  I have heard if you focus in a time of fear on one point so that you can remain clam.  I kept staring at his shirt. Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body.  This dream is so real crystal clear.  I have it all the time, thus, I can’t sleep
He asks if I think my lack of sleep has led to my erratic behavior.  I say no.  He then asks how long I have been without sleep.  I say I don’t remember but I think to myself, I haven’t slept in 42 hours.  The DMT has been keeping me somewhat alert for about six hours now, and my poster of Robert DiNero in “Taxi Driver” has been openly conversing with me off and on for the past few weeks. 
“No it’s not that bad.” I say.  He looks at me, makes a mumbling sound and nodding his head in acceptance.  He then tells me to go on.
I am Dr. Frankenstein and his monster.  I created my rise and planned my decent.  Kill the engines and prepare for controlled crash.  I am the sadist and the masochist.  I am Catholicism to the Roman Empire.  It lets you know you are alive.  You have to be your own savior.  Don’t forget to have someone help pound in the other nail.  Greatness can never be achieved witout sacrifice.  I am the cousin of autoerotic asphyxiation.  I am the saint and the sinner.  I am Hitler’s hard on.  Sometimes we have to build our own crosses.  I am William Detric liar, fake, asshole and concerned employee. 
“Oh and son, don’t forget to make your father happy so he doesn’t have to lie to all his friends about what you do for a living.” Robert smiles and nods as he gives me life lessons.
As I am walking down the alley to my apartment I see the remains of the storm the night before.  It was loud, but it was not the only thing that kept me awake.  Trashcans are spilled over onto the pavement.  People’s past exposed for all to see.
Archeologists use a technique where they dig through, what they know to be the garbage pits of ancient civilizations.  You learn the most about people if you see what people find useless and throw away.  Horse bones and broken water vessels.  These were an advanced nomadic people.  A broken picture frame and pictures with the face cut out.  She must have just found out about his fuck on the side.  A cut up credit card, I hope they are enjoying their new TV and newfound debt.  Shredded receipts and ripped up legal forms, it must be around April.
I live next to a coffee shop, “Black Talk” to be specific.  Everyone has their reasons for the locations of their residence.  For some it is the view, others because it is close to the store and for a very miniscule amount of the American population it is because the elementary kids walk by.  My reason is because I get free Internet from the coffee shop’s wireless Internet.  These local area networks spread from 100 feet past the walls of the building, which is just enough to breach the walls of my shit-hole at 1342 Crowley St. Apartment 3.
Today when the mail came I separated it into piles, bills and other shit.  As I was thumbing through the mail I stopped and ripped open the envelope.  I get a lot of these around here, although if you saw my apartment you would not believe it. 
I opened it up and took out a piece of paper.  It is just a piece of paper with some numbers on it and a signature.  A signature that to most won’t mean much but to me it means the world, to me it is money for rent.
What is money?  It is nothing more than a piece of paper we trust is worth something.  It becomes less of “In God We Trust” and more “In Gold and Greed We Trust”.  How do we know the gold is really in Fort Knox?  How did I know the money was really in my bank account when I was little?  You and I don’t know.  I put my money in and my parents have access to it.  If they needed to they could use it; groceries, dippers, war, oppression.  It is like Social Security. We work to pay off other people’s problems.  My father had a gambling problem.  Our government has a problem with acquiring and controlling other nations.  Our government also has a problem with coked up Yale yuppies.  After a while, I didn’t have a bank account.  After a while, your account will run dry too.
“In Gold and Greed We trust”, I hear almost like a chorus as Robert smiles.
April 19: Fuck I slipped into another dream.  Not like a new one, just another one.  As a mixture of glass and flesh rocketed towards me, I saw my future fiancé and my future die.  I don’t remember much other than how the glass caught the sun and made a rainbow.  It was like a real rainbow, with a fresh rain prior to, but instead of rain, it was blood.  With the death of one, it was the death of us. 
When they got her to the hospital, she was dead, but not really dead.  As far as the doctors were concerned she was mechanically supported.  As far as I was concerned she was dead.  She suffered from every impact injury plausible, laying there, a lifeless shell of whom I once loved.  She was once the center of my world, now a carefully formatted mass of tissue and bone.  She didn’t really “die die”, for another two days.  Two days of unanswered prayers and coffee.  I felt, undecided, for she had died instead of me, but then again she died instead of me.  As far as I was concerned, she died to save me.  She took a hit for the team, because not everyone can walk away from something like that.
As I sat near her bed with a pathetic look on my face, the kind of face that can only come from good acting or a bad loss, I prayed.  To whom I didn’t know.  To myself, to her, to God, I felt undecided.  Why I prayed, I didn’t know.  For her, for me, for a God, I felt undecided.  Then for the first time since I could remember, I cried.  Only the kind of crying that comes from good acting or a bad loss.  Why I cried, I didn’t know.  Because of her, because of myself, because of God, I felt alone and forsaken.
It ends up that her parents sued the company of the truck driver.  They got a lot of money out of it.  And because they once loved me like a son, they incorporated me into the settlement.  They call it pain and suffering.  I call it food and rent.  The parents said they never wanted to see me again, because I was the last piece of their daughter alive, but it hurt too much to see me.  They once loved me for whom I was, but now hate me because of whom I loved.  Stretched out on the cross for all to see.
He looked up as he snapped out of his daydream and asked how I feel about death.  I said “Death…  It doesn’t hurt so much if you know it is coming.”  He said interesting, in the kind of tone that a well-educated man learns at Berkley or some shit like that.  The kind where he is really thinking about which secretary he wants tonight, and what his excuse will be to the wife when he comes home a three in the morning smelling like Robert Downey Jr. on a crack raid.
Somehow I felt as though this thought was right.  The families of cancer patients aren’t surprised; they are more relieved at the person’s death.  Expected deaths are less mourned.  If how you die and when you die is sudden, it has more of an affect on emotions.  Jesus died, because he had to better everyone else.  It had to be done.  He knew.  He knew all along.  “To die for yourself so your memory might live on.  Don’t forget to have someone help pound in the other nail.  Greatness can never be achieved with out sacrifice.  Biographies aren’t written about nobodies.  And that fucker has got the all time number one best seller.” I say out loud, or not.
He then asked me what I was like when I was a child.  I go into some well-rehearsed story about beatings, alcohol, crack and more beatings.  I tell him story about a boy who hid in plain sight, a boy who hid in his mind.  You never lose the talents, good or bad; you had in your childhood.  They just lay dormant.  They just evolve.
As I flip through the pages every page is filled up.  Front to back left to right, top to bottom.  Not filled with interesting facts or some one’s biography.  Just the same story over and over.  It is the same thing, but different, with the same words “death, die, dead, deading deader.” the same lines. The same dream, but not.  He asked me to do this for my mental whatever, but it is all filled up and I need to get another one.
As I stand in line at the local, corporate giant, I finally get to the check out teller.  I put down my notebook, the kind with black and white speckles.  The kind your teacher makes you buy for science labs.  So you can write down your response to the dead frog on the table.  As I am standing there I notice a kid in the cart behind me staring at me like I am seriously injured or truly inspiring.  Maybe he is looking at the bags under my eyes, the scar on my face or deep inside me.  Then I am suddenly asked the question that no one in this country can say no too.  “Would you like anything else?”  I look up and say “P-Funks!” in a rarely upbeat tone.
“What?” she asks, trying to search her mind what section that P-Funks are in and if they even had any.
“Parliament Lights.”  I say in the good ol’ monotone voice I was used to.  She says my total is $7.58.  As I am waiting for my receipt, in the event that I would need to prove I bought these items, the kid asks why I smoke.  Because statistics show every cigarette takes seven minutes off your life. That is seven minutes of me not shitting my pants.  Seven minutes of me not suffering.  Because I like to inhale poison and exhale my problems.  Because I was told my liver can’t take any more abuse.  Because I want to kill you while I exhale.  Because it feels nice, knowing you has your own personal hole in the ozone layer.  Because my parents didn’t love me enough.  Because death doesn’t come soon enough.  Because greatness doesn’t come without self-sacrifice.  But I look at him and say, “I don’t know, but they are bad for you”.  As I walk out the store I open the pack and work on killing myself again.
My migraines are back.  I lay next to the toilet with the lights off for God knows how long.  The cold caress of the seat, the condensation, numbing me to the world.  These times remind me of when I was at my worst, or when my mind is killing me. 
I couldn’t help but stare at the cross hanging on his wall, the total explanation of self in one symbol.  Yes this is my cross.  Yes I am an uptight.  On his wall are his doctorates and diplomas, his family photo.  Me laying there, slipping into another daydream, not another like a different one, just another one.  He asks some thing I didn’t catch what it was, but it was just enough to snap me out of it. 
Have I tried journaling? Yes.  Would I like to share them? No.  Have any tragic events happened in my life recently?  No, not mine. 
He said he had a relative who was very much like me and tragically killed.  I said that’s great.  He said that he is concerned about my lack of sleep, and my reoccurring nightmares.  He is also concerned about the bags under my eyes. 
“Are we done here?”
“What about your eyes?”  Total explanation of one’s self in one simple symbol. 
I haven’t talked to him in along time.  Not that he really cares; he has other people’s problems to deal with.  What is the sense in going after one statistic that is lost?  The good shepherd should just sit his ass down and stop.  So what about the black coloration, the swelling and my bloodshot eyes?  My own personal stigmata, my badge of honor.  Stigmata.  Pound in the nail.
I just don’t trust doctors or any sort for one simple reason, bloodletting.  These guys once thought this shit worked.  After bloodletting fell out of style in the scientific realm, washing your hands to kill little microscopic bugs call “germs” was the thing to do.   
The art of bloodletting has been around since the fifth century B.C. By the middle Ages, both surgeons and barbers were specializing in this practice. The practice reached unbelievable heights in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The first U.S. president, George Washington, died from a throat infection in 1799 after being drained of nine pints of blood within 24 hours. The draining of 16-30 ounces of blood was typical. Blood was often caught in a shallow bowl. When the patient became faint, the "treatment" was stopped. Greatness cannot be achieved without self-sacrifice.  Total explanation of one’s self in one simple symbol.


Me staring at the toilet bowl.  How the water looked like glass, I could see my self in it, but not really.  Looking in my shallow bowl.  I faint and fall over.  Then I throw up.  Then I have a well-deserved sleep, I slip into another dream.  Not another like a different one, just another one.
I wake up in a cold sweat and a cold puddle vomit.  Letting my weaknesses out, making me stronger.  Expelling the inner daemons.  The things about me I hate.  Destructive criticism.  Personal salvation.  Working on page 97 of my bestselling biography.  Making the book a little more interesting.  I am late for work, and late for life.  I woke up late for my shitty life.  It is hard to get up when your job is being a paradigm of hope for all, for only $6.19 an hour.  And when I say that I mean people thinking to themselves.  “Wow I am glad my life is not a shitty as his.  Here is a tip.” 

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

Over and over, the same day, the same dream.  I am tormented because I know this is my fate.  This is my pinnacle, my hill of skulls.  I have convinced myself this must work.  It must be done soon.  I don’t have enough money to make it to next month, so I have begun selling myself.
As the red color slowly travels the line, I begin to feel comfortable.  I see myself leaving myself, my infection, my poison leaving.  My daemons are dispersing, going somewhere else.  Mass distributed cross-country, my body and blood for all to have.  I am the bringer of life.  I am fucking Jesus.  Eat my body drink my blood.  I begin to feel more and more comfortable. Some call this a moment of clarity, I call it a moment.  I completely understand what must be done.  As the red leaves, on a highway of pain and healing, I think.  About what I am not sure, I don’t remember. 
After a while I get up and leave fifty dollars richer.  Me walking down the street, I feel relaxed.  It is either the moment I just had or the lowered blood pressure.  Me walking down the street a prostitute of sorts, selling myself.  Selling myself to others so they might carry on.  The savior of all.  Personal sacrifice so I might live on.  A prostitute, like all icons of our world.
When I was little my family was one of a statistic.  I was born the son of the invisible man.  One day instead of going to school I went to the address listed on the envelope where the money comes from.
When I got there the man and I talked for hours.  About what, I don’t know.  Life, death, his parents my mother.  I said how I couldn’t stand my mother.  How she is crazy.  How I want to stay with him.  How she said my father was a very smart doctor of, insert big word here.  I said she was crazy.  We talked about how I don’t know why she had to be my mother.  How she was taking pills.  I don’t know how many times I asked him if I could stay with him.  Every answer was the same.  He said they wouldn’t let us be together, not yet.  He said I had to go back.  Take care of my mother.  He said he would see me some other time.  We would talk again.  He told me to follow my dreams.  Not give up.  Insert generic motivational crap here.  As I walked out of his house he said to hurry home.  As I ran through his yard I heard him crying and then he disappeared back into his house and on my life went.  Son of the invisible man. 
As I look up from the bar a girl is wearing a shirt.  It has Che on it.  She sits there discussing the legalization of something.  Talking about how she doesn’t support child labor.  How she is all natural.  She is so oblivious.  This erasure of complexity.  A paradox is that the humanity that worships Che has by and large turned away from just about everything he believed in.  Just another fine example of the prostitution of a good man.  From revolutionary to social icon.  The Cinderella of the modern world. A prostitute for mankind to embrace with out knowing why.  Don’t forget to check yourself afterwards, she is a whore.  He was a truly inspiring man, but now days you see potheads wearing his shirt, quoting Che, not knowing what they are saying.  They are a walking paradox, a walking pallet of self-description.  It is so easy to skew the actions of others for your own good or your own motive.  Jimi Hendrix, Che, John Lennon, Jesus Christ, David Koresh.  They are all the same.  Men who had a mission and it was hijacked and rewritten after they were dead and gone.
Dead and gone.  What a comfortable thought.  As I look back down at my empty glass, I see my reflection.  It is me, but not really me.  It is someone else.  Me but skewed.  I look back up and think about the prostitution of good men. 
I get home and throw my jacket on the ground.  I look at the answering machine and there five messages.
Tuesday 2:45
“Hey Will, I was just wondering if you were going to call me some time?  Well, when you get this give me a call. Ok?  I am worried about you.”
Tuesday 7:28
“Will, pick up.  What the hell is going on?  Where are you?  Will?  When you get this call, ok?  Please, I need to talk to you. Bye”
Wednesday 12:14
“I can’t believe I am wasting my lunch break calling you.  Will, please call.  What is going on?  Please call me.  Will, I love you.  Please call.”
Wednesday 3:23
“I am coming over there when I am done with work.  We need to talk.  Ok?  Will please.  Please Will.  Why won’t you answer?  I will be over there soon.  I know you are listening to this.  Just pick up. Please.”
Wednesday 9:15
“Hey asshole, where were you?  You are such a cocksucker.  I knew I should have listened to them.  You are really fucked up you know.  I hate you.  Die.  I hope you die.  You and all your shit. Your fucked up shit.”
I delete them all.  Then I go into the bathroom to work on killing myself again.  Slowly but surely.  Easy does it.  Then the phone rings and I answer it. 
“Where the fuck have you been?”
I don’t even know what day it is.  Friday? Saturday? Monday? How long have I been out?  Have I even started yet? I am not really sure. I say I was at work. 
“Yeah ok what ever I don’t even fucking care.  I don’t even know why I am calling.  You are a fuck up, you know?”
I say yeah, or I don’t.  I am not sure.  The silence killed. 
“Will, what is going on?”
I say how I don’t know.  How know one knows what is going on.  How it will all work itself out.
“Work out what?  What are you doing?  What are you talking about?  If you are talking about getting back together you are crazy.  I can’t deal with all your shit.  Your issues.  I have had enough of your shit.”
I say how we can never be together again.  I say how I don’t want to hurt anymore.  I don’t want to hurt her but I must.
“I don’t understand you.  I wish I did.  I just can’t.  I am not strong enough. I just can’t anymore Will.”
I say I know.  It is not her fault.  She has been strong enough.  She begins to cry and the line goes dead.  I don’t know if she hung up or if I forgot to pay the bills.  It doesn’t matter.  I put the line down and slowly but surely I hit the floor.  Easy does it and I drift away.
My mother's boyfriend, pimp, dealer, insert here, was the discipline around the house.  It isn't like he punished me because he cared.  He just punished me.  Usually my mom is too strung out anyways to care about her only son.  They had been together since I can remember, no one ever talked about it, and I just know he was not my father.  I don't remember much of the lesson he was teaching me, I just remember my new white shirt being red.  It was the weirdest thing I had ever seen.  Actually as I recall it was hard to see because my eyes were so welled up with tears.  I was having trouble breathing too.  I don't know if it was from me laughing or me yelling. 
"Why would you be laughing?"
"Well ever time he beat the shit out of me I just thought of a funny movie."  Robert smiles, points and says, “It’s true”
"Continue please"
Well one day I just stopped caring.  I would go away to another place if shit got to heavy.  I had done it, I left.  I had left my island.  Reality is an island in the sea of the mind.  No longer did I have to think of funny movies when Joe was beating the shit out of me.  No longer did I have to sit and watch my crazy mother strung out on so many drugs, that for my birthday she lay on the ground convulsing in a pile of her own shit and vomit.  I would never be hit again.  A disappointing life filled with sad achievements.
"Well our time is up for today.  Remember I have vacation, so… I will see you in forty days, ok?"
"Thrilled."
Turn on the TV, consume, obey, don’t think, stay asleep, but don’t be late for work.  I will choose the first of the selection.  Some shit on public access about Waco 
"An illegitimate, dyslexic, a stuttered, a high school drop-out, obsessed with cars, guns, and rock music, a tearful, insecure, pesky young man, who wouldn't do it unless you wanted it.  It wasn't about sex, but he was a very appealing, sexual person.  He just loved the idea of womanhood and he made you feel special.  A union with Koresh was spiritual.  He's perfect, and he's going to father your children. What more can you ask for?" 
Isn’t it funny how some one can control people?  Just give it a couple centuries, and a few martyrs and you have got yourself a multibillion-dollar corporation.  As I sit down for my last supper I start to laugh.  I have run out of money, I won’t be eating for a while.  I order something I have never had before, eggs Benedict.  When the food comes I dig in.  As far as the taste for it I felt undecided, but I made it taste good. 
Benedict, that fucking Judas.  You have to keep in mind with out people like that life would not be the same.  Life with out fucking back stabbers.  It would be dull.  I don’t even know what Benedict Arnold did, and I could really fucking care less.  If Judas hadn’t turned on Jesus, that fairy tale wouldn’t have worked out.  If he didn’t what would life be like?  If my friend hadn’t stabbed me in the back I wouldn’t be the bitter asshole I am today.  If Brutus hadn’t turned on Caesar I wouldn’t have had anything to learn in drama.  The world needs those people.  You need to know those people, and if you don’t know anyone like that, you are a Judas.  We need those people, those Judas, those Brutus those friends. 
You need a little chaos in your life, to make you understand normality.  If there is never any change what is the point?  You got to shake shit up a bit.  I was once asked what would happen if we, as a human race all died, became extinct, fucking dinosaurs.  I said it would be a return to normality.  If you look at the human race in perspective, we as a race have only been around for a blink of an eye.  If we all died, it would be a return to normality for the rest of the earth.  We are chaos.  We are all chaos.  And all chaos ends.  As I walk into his office I say William Detric, to see Dr. Elohim.  She says it will be just a minute. 
“Ahh how are you doing my boy”
He kind of looks like one of those guys who is just classic.  He looks like he knows everything, gray beard and a suit.  I am strangely happy to see him.  When I see him I feel like I am not alone.
“How are you doing?”
“Ok, doc I am sorry but this is the last time I will be seeing you.  I don’t have the money to pay for the bill, the checks stopped coming.”
“Ok, well let’s get what we can done.  Ok Will, how are you dreams?”
“They are still there.”
We start to talk, not like doctor to patient, but almost father to son.  I start to cry, and I knew why, because I miss her, because I have found myself, because I no longer felt alone and forsaken.  I say goodbye and I shake his hand.  He tells me he will see me around.  And I say yeah.
One bottle of vodka and two slices on my wrist later, for the first time in my life I ask, why I am doing this.  I want to stop but I can’t.  This is what I have to do.  And as I write this I am drunk and dying.  Blood is running down my hand and dripping onto the page.  It is starting to smear; it is hard to differentiate my writing, my heart and soul, my feelings, from my blood.
“You know it isn’t always easy.  Something will happen kid, you just have to try.” Robert says in a matter of fact kind of style that only a talking poster could possess.
“Thanks Robert.  You know you were always here for me.  You always said the truth.”
“The truth, kid you can’t handle the truth!” he says laughing, “No just kidding, well it’s been fun.”
“Yeah, it has” I say to him as the “Taxi Driver” poster slowly looses focus and becomes blurry.  I look at the piece of glass I used to cut my self with, and I see my reflection.  My own reflection.  I feel the last bit of my blood drip onto the page.  I put my journal into one of those huge envelopes, and seal it and address it to the Doc’s office, and right before I drift away, for the last time I write. 
This is my biography.  My book of dreams and terrors.  So if you get this read it.  If I had a god, this is when he would listen.  If we all died, it would be a return to normality for the rest of the earth.  We are chaos.  We are all chaos.  And all chaos ends, sure we will go out with a bang, but what after that?  What happens when we die?  Well I can’t truly say.  So what’s the point?  I will try to tell others what I have experienced.  You can read this and try to understand but you wont know the ending.  No one knows the ending and that makes people uncomfortable.  The most famous book in history doesn’t have an ending, just a guess.  So I guess this is my bible.  My fairy tale.  I will guess, as I am about to slip away.  My prediction……….……..black, nothing, just black.  Finally, black!