A Letter to He Who Knows a Large Amount of Small Things
Dear Antonio,
We’ve known each other...for enough time to be well acquainted with each other’s neuroses. Right now I need a third-party perspective from someone who both knows me, and won’t bullshit me. When a person is directly involved in a situation it’s hard to view things objectively, so how about it...would you say that I thrive on emotional abuse? Have other people emotionally abused me or do I just do it to myself by staying in these fucked up scenes? Am I a masochist? You’ve seen the array of people I’ve either subintentionally, or out of sheer stupidity, surrounded myself with (Brando, Bobber Knob, also implied). Are they all as worthless (and/or neurotic, retarded, stupid, silly, fucked up) as I make them out to be, or am I just a prick?
Am I terminally insane?
From your vantage point, yourself surrounded by sleaze and trash of the lower-middle class type (by far the worst, always trying to go up or down the social ladder), would publishing this be an unfair description of a private occurrence(s)? Or would you say that once the patient leaves your office you have the right to say each little slander you wish you would have said in the moment? For example “No, I don’t think you need therapy...I think you need a handgun”.
By stating things as I have, I feel like I am jeopardizing my friendship with Mr. Chris. I wonder if, when he reads this, he’ll flinch...hurt like. Wouldn’t that be the cat’s ass Antho? I have no desire to cause him duress, it just seems like that is the only thing I’m any good at when it comes to this drunken drug-addicted pseudo-relationship stuff.
When someone is very delicate, emotionally, you know, you’ve got to take extra care when handling them, but when you treat someone as a weakling that’s an unfair compromise to both parties. Perhaps I’m being overly protective of him or of myself...but I think that it’s more along the lines that people cannot deal with me for long. Actually, fuck this self defacing bullshit, I’m done with it. Fuck these people I waste so much of myself on. Why should I pretend to not be pissed off? Why should I care about how someone else feels when it’s rather fucking glaring that they’re too fucked up to give a shit about me?
Why do I waste my time with this bullshit? God, I’m so pissed off. Not at him, but at myself for letting things get to this point...for not having some seed of emotional control. I don’t get it, I don’t understand how I can be so emotionally warped and contorted over someone who just “doesn’t feel the same”.
Am I making shit up in my mind? Am I over reacting/over emotional? Am I acting like a thirteen year old? Should I just accept the fact that he does not now, and will not later, love me like that (only fuck me like that) and mve on with my life? On that note...
How do you become friends with someone you see sexually/have only really “known” in that sexual mind state? I mean, it’s not like we were friends first, it all just went straight to fuck...sort of like you and that one chick, what’s her face. The Granola Eater. Would investing in electrodes that produce painful shocks in my privates when I think about him help me in not wanting to be romantically involved with him? Would buying a dog, cat, goat, horse, or sheep help me get over it? Or is the only solution to go through with things and let shit get so out of hand that I cannot take it anymore?
I t’s probably a pretty good thing that he and I live on other sides of the country huh? You don’t have to be a sex worker to know that if love hurts, something like lube is missing. Either way, thanks for listening...although I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than listen to this trite, whiny, bullshit. You know how much I love this kid and if I’m really taking this to an extreme level it shouldn’t go to...just say it. I’m just really glad you’re around to help me out. I just don’t understand why I let these things go on...how I can be so self-sacrificial and basically comply with things I’m uncomfortable with. It wouldn’t be so bad if he and I didn’t get along so well together...but I want him and it’s horrible...the extent to which I’ll allow that want to deface me. How I’m willing to suffer any indignity just to kiss his ass.
-A.M.
P.S. Do you think showing him this piece would be a bad idea? Do I have the right to my feelings, even if they are wrong and fucked up? Do I have the right/should I tell someone the truth when lying is probably the simpler thing to do?
P.P.S. Is it okay for me to make fun of myself? Is it alright to turn pain into laughter, even if it includes verbally destroying someone...word by word?
P.P.P.S. I blame my vagina and every constructed notion of womanhood/if a woman really loves someone she’ll break her own neck taking care of them/idea that has ever subconsciously been imbedded into my brain.
We’re Moving, But Who’s Really Driving This Thing
When we leave the club I start getting a good look at Kathy. A little haggard and roughed up, but not necessarily ugly. She was probably a good looking chick, about 5’8...120...blonde hair, hazel eyes, before the drugs took over and robbed her body of it’s natural beauty. She had on a cute white winter cap, a black leather jacket, it was looking good aside from these pants that just had to go. Talk about fucking sad...this bitch had to be on some serious mind altering shit to put on a pattern like that. Those pants looked like a fashion designer’s attempt at a malevolent joke on mankind. Then there was the boots, ankle boots...you know the kind with the zipper that look like they’re from Payless. What fucking year was it again? If anyone finds out, please let this bitch Kathy know A.S.A.P. so she can update that shit.
But back to what I was saying. We get in her car, which turns out to be her roommate’s car that she is borrowing. (This is important later). Anyhow, we get in and pull up to the curb, where Mr. Chris and Sam are suppose to meet us so that they can follow us to the after douche. There we are on the side of the road and all that crank has her battered synapses flaring, misfiring, and grinding out all types of assorted bullshit from her mouth.
“You really are a beautiful girl”-Kathy
“Thanks”-Me
“Wow, you are just so cute, I love that hat, where did you get it”-Kathy
“My grandmother gave it to me, it use to be hers”-Me
“So do you ever sleep with women”-Kathy as she puts her hand on my thigh.
“Yeah”-Me as I look at her hand and start to feel “odd”.
“Just the other day I was telling myself I didn’t like sleeping with girls, I don’t know, I have an on again off again thing with women, but you, I love women like you, sort of dorky and odd...don’t take offense to that”-Kathy
“Never, I wouldn’t take offense to the truth. I look this way intentionally you know”-Me implying that it usually keeps the weirdo psycho sex freaks away.
“Well, here we are together...”-Kathy
“But we’ve got to meet up with those guys at the club...”-Me
“Where the fuck are they at...hasn’t it been a long time”-Kathy pawing at my leg with a glazed stare on her face.“Not really”-Me, it had only been about five minutes.
“I don’t want to sit here like this, lets go, I’ve got to drop this car off anyway before my roommate gets pissed”-Kathy, taking the car out of park and driving off.
Here’s Jonny
I wrote a letter to my editor, Jonny Little, soon after starting this piece asking him for some heart to heart counseling. I didn’t know if he’d be able to write back because of his severely fucked up private life, but lo’ and behold...Jonny came through for me, just like Jonny always does. A true friend (even if he kind of creeps me out) who I am eternally grateful for...someone who will pick up a phone to check in on me, and keeps me calm when I want to swallow a bottle of pills...not to mention the best fucking editor going right now. Don’t worry Jonny, I’ll never sell you out.
Annie Annie Annie,
So you've come to your favorite editor/serial killer asking for advice on how to straighten out your life. Bizarre decision, that. Have you seen the people I've advised, lately? Have you gone up to them and asked them where my advice got them? Some of them haven't figured out who to blame yet, and some of them are too bighearted to blame the guy who gave them the bad advice, but you take the lives of my fucked-up friends and you'll notice a significant and severe downturn in functionality the instant they decided to listen to me. If the stars are right, I only make them miserable; more often than not, they spend the rest of their lives gibbering with (constantly renewed) 10-inch scars down their forearms. You know this, Annie, and now you're coming to me for help.
On the other hand, upon considering the fucktards you normally hang out with, perhaps my advice is the best that you'll get.
Not that it matters. You don't need it, and you know it. You know the answer to every question that you've asked me. It's right there in your opus, and although I'm flattered that you've decided to include me in such a work, my involvement is pretty superfluous. Oh, wait, I forgot, you write in the hopes of attracting people who don't know how to read. Let me rephrase. You don't need my advice, because you already know what to do.
I question your ability to do it there in O-hi-o, so insulated from your own mortality yet in a constant state of emotional battering. But you surely the fuck can't do it in San Francisco. Rio would be good for you, but I still stomp around there from time to time and I think my presence, and the presence of the crazy "poets" I'm inevitably around, would only fuck up your whole healing thing. And it is healing you need, and it is recovery, and you know it, and you communicate it very clearly to anyone who's listening.
So go walk the Appalachian Trail or something, or be super-clichéd and climb Mount Hood. Get away from the things you're familiar with and seek out the things you know. Go to Asheville, NC, go to Las Cruces, NM, hell go to Schenectady, your old "friend" ain't there no more. Stop talking to poets, stop talking to druggies, and stop talking to Mr. Chris until you're ready to look him in the eye and tell him that love don't count for shit. It will be excruciatingly painful, every day for the rest of your life, and it will be so much better than what you're doing now.
Love,
Jonny
Tidbits of Conversation on the Drive
“I fucked this guy earlier today....”-Kathy
Jesus Christ I thought, this bitch is lost. Out of her mind. A freak of the worst kind. A sexual maelstrom, and not only is she trying to swallow me up in her black hole, but she’s taking me back to her apartment to “drop off the car”...God only knows the number of people she picks up in a day...and with those pants on...what a pity.
“I’ve really got to piss, we need to hurry”-Me, trying to keep things moving.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ve got to go into my apartment for a minute anyway, you can just come in and go”-Kathy, smiling like a loon.
Fantastic, I thought, how the hell am I going to get out of this one? Take one for the team? I was becoming extremely uncomfortable and having a bad day...Some people look at a girl so ready to go for an anonymous encounter like Kathy as a Godsend, I see her as a sign that Doomsday is upon us.
