Have Kids, Then We'll Talk

They were fighting again. I could hear their screeching voices seeping through the cracks in the walls like a virus, infecting my ear and raping my mind. It wasn’t anything new to me, to hear them fight about whose turn it was to cook dinner as if to hide the real problem in their doomed from the start marriage. I closed my eyes and took a drag of my cigarette, playing in my mind their fight; it was like a choreographed dance they performed every night. My mom would be pacing in the kitchen, throwing her hands in the air and getting in my father’s face. Dad, in response, would look at her with a scowl and wait for his turn to walk around her- yelling about how he doesn’t know how to cook roast beef- and using his body to gently shove her. She would then start punching his chest like a rabid beast until something….

Crash!

Then the real problem will arise from the broken glass of whatever family picture they broke this time…

“Your son is a whore!” she screeched.

“Don’t call him that!” he said, never denying the fact, but never admitting to it.

Now, the fight was about me. About my conception, birth, raising. About how she wished she never had me- about how much my father hated her for hating me. After that, everything gets blurry. Not that their voices become lower once they start talking about me- because I am pretty sure they forgot I even lived in the same house- but because I personally block it out of my mind. I focus on anything else in the room; the smoke elegantly dancing from my mouth, into the airwaves to distort my vision. Maybe I will focus on posters that decorated my room of fallen heroes whose children are now my best friends or worst enemies. Most of the time, to drown out the vicious fighting, I pulled out my bottle of Bacardi 151 and drank until the alcohol rocked me into a pleasant sleep.

The door slammed; shaking the entire pent house apartment we lived in. I didn’t have to look to know my dad had left, my mother chasing him down the hall- her ear shattering screams would capture our neighbors' attention. Charlie McCracken, who lived only a floor up, would most likely call me to make sure I wasn’t drowning in my own alcohol. Then she will ask if she could join me in self destruction. I loved her, but I wasn’t in the mood for her coy touches and brushing of lips that begged to be caressed. She was a tease, and I think she knew it- I think she enjoyed it…too much.

Instead, I grabbed the obnoxious sidekick on my night table- placing my cancer stick between my lips- and began furiously typing.

To Dan,
Mister hero left the fort; evil rabid beast still around. May I sleep in the comfort of your bed tonight, lover?

I smirked at my message and hit send. Dan was different than Charlie. Dan was too hyper for me most days; and if he was on his medication he was too self-loathing and brooding. If his pills were strong enough, he would lay on the couch for several hours, staring vacantly at the TV. If he didn’t take his meds, or had an energy drink, he wouldn’t sit still. Think…a five year old on acid. Always touching things, and breaking things, or breaking a bone. He was a terror; but if there was ever a time I needed a drinking buddy with ADHD, it was now.

My phone vibrated signaling his return call. I flipped open the capture and read through his little message with a sly smile plastered on my face.

Yes, but no raping me. Bring full throttle to. Did you know that if a butterfly dies in one part of the world, Florida will have a hurricane?

I rolled my eyes: It isn’t rape if you ask for it. And of course I will bring the full throttle if you have the booze. And fuck butterflies; fucking pussies.

I hopped off my bed, putting my sidekick in my jeans. I do not wear skinny girl jeans like my father did/does. I actually have room to get a hardon- and I get those often. Speaking of which, I grabbed from condoms from my dresser in case Dan and I decided to go to a club and find some pussies or assholes to fuck. Or skip the club and just fuck Dan. I haven’t decided yet.

I took another pack of Marlboro that I had been saving for a long walk to Dan’s apartment, and shoved that in my other pocket. Now, if we were going out, I needed something to wear- since ripped blue jeans and a The Used shirt wasn’t exactly clubbing material. I pulled out my school bag- dumping out the books that have never been used- and stuffed it with two Armani shirts, black jeans, a white button down shirt from some stupid designer, and sunglasses. I examined the contents of my bag and quickly wondered when I had become a guido. Replaced the two Armani Exchange shirts with a white shirt from Old Navy and I was in business….

I thought. Nevermind, I took the two Armani shirts.

I walked out of my room and down the staircase where the strangled sobs from a crazy woman echoed through the otherwise silent floor. I didn’t bother to check in on her, since I knew the angel son Jared was aiding her already- and she liked him more anyway. He was the one who saved the marriage. Ha. Of course she liked him more.

I walked out of the apartment, immediately lighting up a cigarette and taking a drag as if I hadn’t smoked in a year. If there was anything I was addicted to, it was defiantly these slim little babies that fit so perfectly between my lips. I ignored all those stupid ads about cancer and death and what not; we are all going to die anyway, I am just speeding up the process. Call it, my very slow and beautiful suicide.

“Put that thing out, Way. It’s disgusting!”

I growled inwardly and swung around to meet the eyes of one Cassandra Lee; her ugly blond hair tied in a tight pony tail, as her bangs lay against her forehead. I scoffed at her horrible choice of outfit before I responded to her funny little demand, “Shut up slut.”

Not exactly the most clever comeback, but a comeback none the less. I puffed my cigarette and walked towards the bright metal elevator; hoping Miss Lee would retreat to her apartment to write a nasty bulletin about me.

“S’cuse me?” However, it seemed like she wasn’t finished with me.

I swung around, still puffing at my cigarette, “I said, ‘shut up, slut.”

“And I said put out the cancer stick. You’re going to kill us all from second hand smoke.” She sounded like one of those stop smoking ads. It was disgusting.

“If I kill you, I could die a happy man.”

“Wouldn't put it past you,” she placed her hands on her small hips, “not with those murderous screams coming from that thing you call a mother.”

Now it was time for our own choreographed dance. “Shut the flying fuck up!”

All logic and decency flew out the window; and she knew that. She loved it. She was some sick freak who just lived to see me pushed over the edge and almost into the crippling darkness at the button of this thing called a soul. I think she just got off on it; seeing me seething mad like a wild beast, ready to strangle her to death- the thought had passed through my mind more than once. I would live to see the day my hands are clasped tightly around her small throat…

“Maybe you should tell that to your parents.”

I wanted to squeeze until I could feel the bones strain against my grasp. “Get out of my face pig. Just because your daddy doesn’t love you, doesn’t mean you can take it out on me!”

“My daddy doesn’t know I exist, so no worries,” she was totally calm through this, which just made me even more pissed at her, “my mommy on the other hand cared enough to raise me.”

I could see her next comeback coming a million miles away, but instead of blocking it from my mind, ignoring her, and continuing my journey to the elevator. I stood there, defenseless, just allowing the insult to hit me in such a way it would cause me to snap. I wanted to snap. I wanted to just let go.

“At least she didn’t neglect me like Mrs. Way.” She nodded to my apartment door with the numbers falling off- as if they were obvious reminders that this family was falling apart. I could have possibly controlled myself…but the need to disfigure this girl was too much to bare; so instead I shoved her very hard into the wall and continued down the hallway. I didn’t bother to watch how her body would hit the wall, because I knew it wasn’t strong enough to do any damage. But in my head…in my head the force of that push was enough to break her back; she would fall limp to the floor. Her eyes would be frozen open as life leaks from them onto the floor. And she would be dead.

“Douchebag!”

And she broke the dream again.

<>

I walked on to the Manhattan sidewalk, diving into the crowd of people that had plagued this city this early evening. It was Saturday night, almost six pm, meaning everybody and their fucking mother was out either finishing their day of shopping or starting their dinner at some high class New York restaurant. I put on my sunglasses and immerced myself into the crowd. The Upper East Side was bustling today, and I had to maneuver myself around the fur coat wearing, Dior smelling, women of faux class; as they glared at me and my not so elegant attire. I purposely shoved myself past the three piece suit business men, whose cell phones seemed to be permanently glued to their ears as they shouted at whichever butler forgot to iron their favorite priceless button down shirt. The kids who were my age were the worse; the girls carrying their little toy dogs in their bags as the yap about the latest fashion and boy toy. The guys would walk in packs, talking about which girl they fucked, who they wanted to fuck, and who the wouldn’t fuck with a 30 foot poll, all in a effort to hide the fact they all fucked each other last night a frat party they weren’t supposed to be at anyway. Those sorry excuses for humans clogged up the scenery that was the Upper East Side, and made it nothing more than a disgusting pool of ignorance and money.

And I was one of them.

I stopped when I saw a crack in the sidewalk. An imperfection on a perfect painting. It was a deep crack to. It was beautiful how it was jagged and stretched across the entire square concrete. It was laughing. It was laughing at us all. I smiled at the crack, looking into the darkness. It was laughing at me.