Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Working

Work. I fucking hate my job. When I started I thought that this was a temporary job. You know, just until I became a rich and famous novelist. I guess for that to happen I'd actually have to write a novel or something. Anyway, five years in and each day begins with me hating myself and ends with me wanting to shoot myself in my fucking ugly face.

Julie is off today. I've got to run the reels for some shitty soft comedy starring a guy who used to be on Saturday Night Live and wasn't funny. I'm thinking about going out after I get off work. There's this club I want to go to. Maybe I'll call Chaz and see if he wants to go with me.

I eat junior mints and wait for the shift to end.

Chaz has a bright green ‘69 Charger and he drives us to the spot. It takes about twenty minutes for Chaz to hook us up with two very drunk college girls. Then we’re in his car. It looks like a mongrel dog with its ass in the air and it’s nose pointed at the ground. When he stomps the accelerator the engine emits a low, guttural animal noise and the car’s entire body vibrates.

We end up at my apartment drinking gin and listening to Joni Mitchell. Chaz’s girl is pretty hot. Mine is okay. She’s too skinny and her teeth are a little crooked, but she isn’t ugly. Her name is Kathi. It’s spelled like that with just an I at the end. She tells me this as if it's something to be proud of. It isn’t as bad as it could be. I screw her on the floor next to my bed. She’s so drunk that I honestly feel kind of bad about it, but I’m not very good at self control.

After we finish I go in the living room to get another drink. Chaz has his girl, I don’t know her name, bent over the end of my couch. He motions to me and I walk over.

He pulls out, points to her ass and says “You wanna try some of this?”

I don’t think she’ll mind so I take his place. He walks to the bedroom and in a couple of minutes I hear Kathi moaning loudly. Between the liquor and what I already did with Kathi this is taking a while. After a while she pulls away and says something about it starting to hurt.

“Sit down,” she motions to the couch. I do as I’m told and she kneels in front of me. She takes me in her mouth and helps me finish. Then we curl up on the couch and go to sleep. I dream about walking in the woods. It's a big conifer forest with trees that stretch up past the sky. At first I think there is a light snow falling on me but after a while I realize that it's really ash. I have the feeling that this particular forest may be the only place in the world that isn't burned.



Drinking Blood


I could drink hot blood and do shit that would make the sun frightened. No joke. Chaz has already split with the girls and I’m having cornflakes and bourbon for breakfast just like Travis Bickle. The phone rings and I ignore it. I take a bath and then get dressed. I could do something before work, but sleep on the couch instead.


Irregular Verbs

I read about how we are losing our irregular verbs. It comes down to math. The half life of an irregular verb is equal to the square root of its usage frequency. That may sound like some heavy shit, but it just means that the more often we use a verb the less likely it is to be transformed from an irregular to a regular verb. The deal is: we memorize irregular verbs. Regular verbs we construct on the fly by applying a rule that we have learned (like adding 'ed' to the end to make a verb past tense). If we can't think of the irregular form then it is natural to attempt to apply the standard rule and thus construct a regular verb. Words that aren't used very often are easier to forget. I guess even the language is evolving. Maybe I'm evolving too.

Flip


"You fucking whore." I snarl this at her. I know that it will piss her off, but that is precisely what I need. She has to be mad enough to tell me to get out, to leave, to bounce. It is what I want, but I am too weak to go without permission. I need her to flip me like a quarter, then I'll see where I land.

I don't know when this happens.