Mixtape for the Apocalypse Page 14

  “I’ve seen you before,” he chuckled, and handed me a big brown package. “Sign here.”

  I signed his proffered clipboard. The mailman handed me a thick sheaf of envelopes, then hefted a large box from where it rested beside him on the floor. “It’s your lucky day,” he said.

  “It’s my birthday,” I mumbled, escaping before they could say anything else.

  I took the mail upstairs and looked over it. All of it was for Lise. All of it. Along with the usual bills and circulars were dozens of envelopes filled with free samples of laundry detergent, eye shadow, paper, address stickers, tea. The big box had a return address from some company I’d never heard of. With an X-acto knife, I carefully slit the paper around the box. It contained multiple videotapes, variously labeled. MuscleFlex System™. Jaunty Grill™. Modern Office Solutions. Teaching English In Korea. 15 Minute Glutes. I vaguely remember seeing late-night TV ads for all these product offers, but they had only been background detritus spacing out acts of CHiPs and Bosom Buddies reruns while Lise and I passed the bong back and forth and traded kisses and handjobs. The memory turned me on, and I masturbated.

  Afterwards I lay on my belly on the futon in front of the TV and went through Lise’s stacks of unmarked videotapes. I’d always assumed they were videos that her father had made and sent to her; she paid no attention to them, and the tapes we actually watched were right on top. In reality, these mystery tapes were three- to twenty-minute promotional tapes for every conceivable product: CPR instructional videos, anti-drug propaganda, religious splinter groups, foreign-language company training films. They solidly filled the TV shelf back to front; behind the TV shelf were four banker’s boxes full. There were enough of them to stack around myself, brick-wise, making a corral six videotapes high.

  I curled up in my corral, careful not to knock against the delicate walls. It was almost cozy; a sarcophagus of advertising media. They all wanted to make me a better person. After a brief rest, I climbed out of the corral and sat on the floor beside it, smoking more and drinking the last of the coffee. I sorted the mail, then arranged it by color and size around and inside the videotape corral. Still, the composition was unbalanced, so I put some of the opened mail from the kitchen table in. A large empty space of hardwood floor remained in the center. I stared at it for a long time, gnawing my nails and smoking. I got up and grabbed random, small, colorful things from the kitchen table and the bathroom counter, arranged them in the center, two Xs and three straight lines. That made sense. I felt calm.

  I ate a bowl of cereal, had another cigarette, took a long shower, crawled into the closet, and fell asleep.

  The next thing I knew, I was being shaken. “Squire, wake up.” I opened my eyes. Lise stood over me, the skin around her mouth white. “What is this? What . . . were you doing?”

  “I brought you the mail,” I said, rolling over and going back to sleep.

  Halloween, 10:15 p.m.

  Lise has gone to a Halloween party thrown by some people she works with. She asked me half-heartedly if I wanted to go, and seemed satisfied and relieved when I said no.

  Outside there are some kids trick-or-treating, swaying down the street in ridiculous plastic costumes, led by Mommy (invariably Mommy), invariably dressed as a pointy-hatted witch. I want to go join them, in my costume of the Normal American Youth, get some candy for my trouble. I have such a very good costume. I have THC in my fat cells, rendering me unhirable for any lucrative job and liable for arrest on drug charges; I have uncombed, greasy hair; I have the flannel shirt, I even have the tattoo. I am a typical young man. I am a psychotic killer, a genius, a sex maniac, an imbecile, a world traveler, an artist, an alien. I don’t belong here and I can never leave.

  I’ve put Crocodiles on and the low soft throbbing that introduces “Going Up” hums through the apartment at a discreet volume. Then the drums pick up and it’s like I’ve just cracked a Whip-it, the rush of euphoria, the first slice of reverb guitar and the heavy velvet of Mac’s voice.

  Art thou watching my film, analysing me?

  Damn, I love it. Practically swallowed, not at all like his later enunciation. Appropriate. A good beginning, ambiguity. They are after Mac, too, and he’s garbling his words so that only he and Bunnymen fans can understand them. He knows what to do in times of crisis.

  Oh, God, Mac, please be watching my film. Please help me figure this out. You’re so beautiful; you can do anything.

  I’ve drawing all evening doing a new comic. I think I finally have something:

  The Adventures of Neurotransmitter Boy, Superhero of the 90s!

  His green mask conceals his identity from the normal world. His costume is somewhat reminiscent of the typical Boy Wonder garb, but crossed with jockey’s silks—he’s a little fellow and the yellow and green circles on a background of red make him stand out so he can attract, then wallop the evildoers. Neurotransmitter Boy’s powers concern the ability to control his own brain chemistry and that of others. With a single sweep of his cape, he can drive a den of gangsters into a dog-pile of dopamine dozers; he can distract his foe by flooding him with beta-endorphin, then flit off while the baddie writhes in ecstasy on the floor! Neurotransmitter Boy is practically invincible against anyone who isn’t heavily medicated! And he never need feel chemically unbalanced. If he’s bored, he can just have his neurons fire at random, giving him a free, legal, and harmless psychedelic “trip”!

  A color sketch of Neurotransmitter Boy is taped onto the margin, flying in classic superguy pose, fist thrust toward the future. It’s pretty good, but rough.

  Page one:

  Panel 1: NB flying through a gorgeous cumulus sky.

  NB: Hurrah! My three-day weekend is here at last!

  Panel 2: birds-eye view of a typical crosswalk. A Bully is walking across, though the signal plainly reads DON’T WALK.

  Bully: Man, jaywalking is the best! Fuck that “look both ways” bullshit!

  Panel 3: N.B., shooting downward.

  NB: Crap, it’s an evildoer! Better go interfere . . .

  Panel 4: the crosswalk. N.B. swoops down and lands on the street, arms akimbo, safely out of traffic. The Bully continues on blithely.

  Page Two:

  Panel 1: N.B. is grimacing as he sends waves of energy at the bully.

  NB: (thought balloon) I’ll slow him down with some pure melatonin! Re-uptake this, buddy!

  Panel 2: The Bully, in the middle of the crosswalk, gets a drowsy smile on his face. Birds circle his head.

  Panel 3: The Bully gets hit by a VW bus full of hippies. N.B. is nonplussed.

  NB: Another job well done by Neurotransmitter Boy! Now! The weekend! where’s my crack dealer?

  This journal is full and done. I should really burn it. Maybe it’ll take me with it.

  Days later I woke to the sound of Lise laughing. I opened my eyes and looked at her for a while, listened to her giving her name and address to someone on the phone. She glanced over and noticed me awake, and she slammed the phone down in a panic.

  “Who were you talking to?” I asked.

  “Nobody,” she said lightly.

  I closed my eyes again.

  “Do you want to go to Triste?” Lise asked, nudging me with her toe. “It looks like it’s stopped raining. I wouldn’t mind getting a white chocolate mocha. Mmm, doesn’t that sound good? White chocolate mocha, Squire . . .”

  “Okay,” I said. “Sure, that sounds all right.”

  “Get up and take a shower,” she said. She was bright, perky, clean, dressed in a clingy sweater, a short felt skirt, and thick, fuzzy purple tights. Her hair was long enough to use barrettes again and she had three in a row on the top of her head. She looked really good, like she hadn’t in a long time. “And shave. You’re starting to look like a redneck.”

  I took a shower, and I shaved upper lip, under lip, one cheek, the other. The beard growth seemed even thinner than usual, but I was surprised at how much there was; I couldn’t remember the last time I�
�d shaved. Probably my last day of work at Link-Up, weeks ago. I smoothed my hair back and wiped the mirror, looking at myself in it. My cheekbones and nose looked knife-sharp. My hair had grown long enough to cover my entire face in the front, and almost to my shoulders in back. My eyes looked huge in my thin face, the whites of them chased with swollen capillaries, the skin around them baggy and stained with fatigue. But I wasn’t fatigued. I felt great.

  It had indeed stopped raining, and the gutters surged with water and leaves and trash. Lise and I held hands as we walked along, avoiding the puddles. She said, “Call your mom.”

  “Oh, I will. I just haven’t felt like talking to her. I don’t know. There’s certain stuff you can tell your mom, and certain stuff you can’t.”

  “I wouldn’t know, really,” she said faintly.

  “Sure you would,” I insisted. “I mean, you can talk to your dad, right?”

  “Uh, no, I can’t, Squire. He wouldn’t really care to know. He might say he cares, but he doesn’t. I don’t have real parents.”

  “I’ve only got one,” I said.

  “It’s better than none.”

  I didn’t want to remind her, again, that both her parents were still alive; it really didn’t help when neither of them really wanted anything to do with her. “You can have my mom,” I said, and laughed. “Really. Why don’t you just take up where I left off? I think she really wanted a girl.”

  “Squire, that’s not true.”

  “Bullshit it’s not true. I mean, look at me. I’m a swish. And I’m not even lucky enough to actually be gay. She likes you better than she ever liked me.”

  “I’m Marion’s friend,” Lise said. “I’m her buddy. You’re her kid. She likes me, but she loves you. And she likes you. I mean, shit, she likes you more than I’ve almost ever seen a parent like her kid. She was so cool to you when you were a teenager, when my dad was trying to put me in reform school. Marion came through for me as a friend. Your mom loves you, and she thinks you’re cool.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself,” Lise said under her breath. “You’ve got it pretty good.” Then she kissed me on the cheek. “Mmm, smooth. You’re not a swish. No swish can give me head like you can.” That made me smile, and even though I could have kept arguing with her, that was a good place to stop.

  We arrived at Triste, and I went in ahead of her, scouting for my usual table. It was occupied with some rocker guy and girl, obviously hung over, swirling their straws in their smoothies. I stood there looking at them, wondering if I should ask them to move.

  Lise went up to the counter. “Can I get two white chocolate mochas?” she asked cheerfully.

  “No.”

  Lise and I looked up at the same time. The manager was working her fantasy shift, Saturday afternoon, tip paradise, and she had on a tight flimsy top so that the guys would give her more money. “Huh? Why not?” Lise asked.

  “Are you with him?” The manager pointed at me.

  Lise arched her eyebrow. “Yeah, I’m with him.”

  “Then you don’t get anything. We have the right to refuse service to anyone. I’m refusing service to that little fuckwad, right there.”

  “What?” I said, starting to laugh.

  “You know what you did,” said the manager, spit spray leaping from her mouth.

  “No, I don’t, actually.”

  “Amanda,” called the manager. “Would you like to explain to your friend here why he’s 86ed from here?”

  The skinny hippie waitress came out of the back room, laden with her little boy, who was asleep against her collarbone. She held the three sheets of loose-leaf I’d written on in her other hand. Her face was stony, cold, and hurt. “Thanks a lot,” she hissed. “I’m glad I was nice enough to lend you the paper.”

  I took the pages back and looked at them. “Oh . . .” I said in agony. “Oh, crap.”

  “Your name’s not Amanda by any chance?” Lise, cringing, asked the hippie barista.

  “Yeah; what difference does it make?”

  “Shit,” said Lise softly. “It’s a long story. He’s—he’s—I mean, it’s a long story.”

  “Just go. Now,” said the manager, glaring at me, shaking her head slowly. “And don’t come back, or I call the cops. That goes for you too, sweetheart.”

  “What did I do?” Lise whined.

  “You obviously made a grievous error in judgment,” said Amanda the hippie lady, and went back to the back room. The child woke up just before they went into the back; he opened his eyes, looked directly at me, and smiled.

  We left Triste, and walked back up the street, heading to Spoons n’ Cups, a café we almost never went to. It had halfway decent coffee that nonetheless never tasted quite right (the espresso was okay), and more soupy/salady things than Triste did. We didn’t really talk. Lise just looked at me with a very odd expression on her face. “Can I read it?” she blurted, reaching for the pages.

  “Don’t touch it,” I said, snatching it away. I folded the pages and stuffed them in my jeans. “It’s—very—private.”

  I kept the pages there, next to my skin, not even trusting my pockets, all day. Later, after Lise was asleep, I tucked the loose pages into the back of the journal I’d just finished, and put it on the top shelf of the closet. I have no idea why they didn’t just get thrown away, but if the writing’s survived that fate twice, it might as well stand.

  FOUR: I’ll Show You the Life of the Mind.

  The second diary is a blue hard-backed lab booklet with yellow, narrow-ruled pages, its cover thickly covered in red, yellow, and black electrical tape in a kaleidoscopic mandala pattern. It’s really quite beautiful and I don’t know exactly how I did it. The strips of tape have been applied such that only the barest slivers of the original cover’s blue vinyl show through, but just enough to provide a shimmering three-dimensional pattern. The tape makes it heavier than the other. It’s an object. In the intervening time, I have never dared to open it again, superstitiously afraid that the ideas will get out. But I’m doing it now. The sun’s still out, if only for a little while longer.

  5 November, midnight

  is this the blues I’m singing?

  Happy V for Vendetta Day.

  I don’t go to Art Store anymore, and I couldn’t find the right kind of notebook. I knew the one I should have. It came to me a few nights ago. I saw it with my mind’s eye, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I lay there and faked sleep and listened instead to Lise making phone call after phone call. Sometimes she spoke, sometimes she simply began punching number keys again after a few seconds, and I could tell by the pattern of her tapping that she was hanging up, then dialling another number. It was eleven taps, plus one very soft one at the beginning. Long distance. Or, more likely, 1-800 numbers.

  I hear her do this in the evenings before I wake up. I hear the the television, an ad, one-eight-hundred fill-in-the-blank. And then her fingers will start caressing the phone, as she used to caress me. And then the dialing begins again. As soon as I show signs of life, she hangs up and pretends to be cleaning her nails or packing a bowl of dope.

  Oh, I miss her. I miss our life together. I miss the midnight cunnilingus, I miss the baths and the lying in bed too small and too warm for two, I miss the way she used to look at me first thing in the morning, as if I was too good to be true. She’s a million miles away. But she’s right there, six feet away, face down, the quilt covering up all of her except her feet. I wonder if she’s faking it. I should close the door.

  It’s like a private room inside the apartment. I’ve moved Lise’s shoes into a box just outside the door, and swept the dresses aside so I can have room enough to sit up straight, with my back to the wall, knees slightly bent. I can curl up and sleep here. I’ve supplemented the egg-carton foam with a pillow I bought on the same day as I bought this notebook, and a Star Wars sheet. The closet holds warmth admirably.

  Lise is asleep in front of the TV again
. I watch too much TV now that I’m unemployed. God knows what kind of electromagnetic radiation Lise absorbs while she sleeps—I must, too, actually, since I’m usually still asleep when Lise comes home, and she invariably turns on the TV so she can catch the news. She watches the news now. It sickens me. I want to scream to her “What are you doing?!? You’re sucking up what kind of falsified information, what variety of whitewashed propaganda, what kind of lies that your mother and father and MY mother struggled to help you transcend?!?!?” But she’d only look at me like I’m crazy. Once someone is lost, you might as well just deal with it and get on with life.

  Hey, look, it’s a Link-Up commercial! Such lies. Such deplorable lies. “It’s easy!” It’s not easy if you’ve got porridge for brains, which seems to be the case for ninety percent of the customer base. “It’s fun!” Until you see your bills. “It’s the future!” The future happens whether you’re looking at alt.fetish.wet-and-messy or not. They might as well take the simple route and say, “Having an account at Link-Up will either get you hot chicks, or pictures of hot chicks. Either way, your dick’s not big enough.” People think I’m kidding.

  Now the TV is showing an EyePlace ad. I need to go there to get my eyes checked. They called around all over town until they found me here, to “remind” me about an appointment. I never told them where I lived now; I never gave them this number. Yeah, my glasses are being held together with duct tape, and I have to squint one eye to see stuff at a distance, but I’ll get my eyes checked when I’m good and ready. I’m not going to go just because I saw an ad on TV.

  A soda sounds pretty good right now. No, wait, what am I saying? I don’t want soda. It’s cold in here and I’m full of coffee. I can’t handle the electronic hypnosis. Somebody needs to go night-night. —— Better. Now it’s dark but for the street light, and my book light, and silent except for the sound of my exhales.

  God, what a rough night. It went like this: