Stomach of the Ventriloquist

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Lowlife: noun. Rotter, dirty dog, rat, skunk, stinker, stinkpot, bum, puke, crumb, scum-bag, git. A person who is deemed to be despicable or contemptible; “only a rotter would do that”, “kill the rat”, “throw the bum out”, “you cowardly little puke!”, “grimy git”.

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I CAN only recall one instance in my life when I've succumbed to the horrible light and done a good deed for hardly any reason at all.
This single-standing instance was my job at the local drugstore and my department was makeup. Although none of the other staff would admit it, I took ugly people who were willing to have their faces nearly rearranged, found some form of cosmetic that would completely alter their appearances (for the better, at least I'd think) and caked it on thick until they looked either halfway presentable or like total hookers. Then I'd convince them how great they looked and to buy a thirty dollar makeup pallet in three different shades. And I was actually paid for it – more than minimum wage. That was the only good thing about my boss, really.
I think the only reason if any reason at all that I ever did that, helping people become beautiful, is because I know what it's like to be ugly; at least on the inside, and I had too much sympathy for the people who had to deal with it on the outside. Frankly, I thought being ugly was an actual handicap. I couldn't imagine going through my life with any external imperfections because in all honesty, I had none. Of course, that made – and still makes – me a horrible person on the inside, for depending solely on looker-looks, but it's too late to take that back now.
My occupation at Phil's Drugstore – that was what the chain of outlets was called and there was, de facto, nobody named Phil who worked there – was supposed to be by choice; at least, that's what all my “friends” were led to believe. Really, me and my mom were a one-paycheck family and I was a damn shopaholic. It seemed only natural for a sixteen-year-old girl to pick up her shit and get a job so she could waste her own money on hair and clothes and makeup and pot.
I truly abhorred squandering my extremely valuable time on ugly people even if I did sort of enjoy the job itself. I hated knowing that I had a place in society – the working class. On a weekly basis I would keep a record of the ugliest people who waltzed into the store and I would laugh about it, but that was the only good thing about my job at Phil's Drugstore.
My boss was a real creep, creepier than I'd ever comprehend for almost the whole duration of time I had kept that job. I blame his parents, really, for the way he turned out. He was too gangly and tall, and also ridiculously thin as if if I were to pull away his ribcage, there would be a straight void. He had a long face and his eyes were too close together and he had bleach blonde, tangled hair down to his shoulders that made him look like some type of strange albino. It was that grungy type of hair, not that democratic “emo”hair. He never really wore an ugly Phil's Drugstore uniform though he forced his workers to, and instead always wore this ill-smelling plaid shirt I could actually guarantee he'd kept from the nineties. He was young enough, mid to late twenties, and maybe if he fixed his face a little or got a haircut or even bothered with showering, I'd give him a one point five on the awkward-cutie scale. Maybe.
I'm rather convinced he had OCD or some other disorder. The way he had to have every box of Q-Tips or can of hairspray aligned and honourable on the shelf was ridiculous. I even caught him in the pharmacy, picking up boxes, placing them down, repeating, rearranging the boxes tastefully, and then walking away. He acted as if the drugstore were a canvas to be painted on.
Wyatt was his name, and don't I remember it – always had a glint in his eye, a word on his lip, a tune on his toe. His fingers twitched a lot. He looked like he'd sporadically combust into flames or maybe even song and could never quite wait to leave the drugstore. It was through abhorrent occurrences that I discovered Wyatt Bellaire was an aspiring artist, a crazy, scribbling man meant for New York and not any small town in Pennsylvania. He was dangerous to Pennsylvania. Waiting for a masterpiece, for his big break into the prowess of the universe, for a time when people would call him a genius of beaux arts – it drove him mad. It drove him to do bad, bad, beautiful things.
His masterpiece was me. It made him famous in all the wrong ways. I won't tell you how just yet, but however I will let you in on some of Wyatt's glory days which were actually filled with torture and tease; so enjoy your experience with a somewhat decent Wyatt and whatever you do, don't be so convinced. Wyatt Bellaire is not so innocent and pathetic as you think.

//

“Mr. Bellaire, would you like to share what you've been scribbling on that paper this past half hour with the class?”
Wyatt, dorky old lowlife Wyatt, scrambled to stash his drawing anywhere so that it could not be taken from him – so he balled it up and squished it between his legs in two shakes, clamping it there. “U-Uh, no, no thanks. But... Thanks?”
“Then pay attention,” the teacher said, and in a lower tone that only Wyatt heard, “Ya stupid rat.”
Now came the humiliation of pulling the crumpled paper from between his thighs as the altercation drew Wyatt's peers to stare at him and his face as he stuffed it into his desk. He thought they hated him because he was ugly. And, not to mention, nerdy, slow, and he could not hold a conversation to save his life.
In all honesty, they really hated him because he was different. Sort of... marched to the beat of his own drum, perhaps I could say, though Wyatt did it unknowingly. He was the kind of guy who'd do anything just for a laugh; just for his classmates to finally chuckle or even smile at a joke of his, not cackle in his face at his failure and plunge his head into a toilet bowl.
The bell rang and startled poor red-faced Wyatt. All of his classmates slipped out of the door like grains of sand, but Wyatt hung back as he usually did. Now was his next area of combat: the hallway. Being shuffled and shoved and passed around like a hot potato was sadly one of his unchosen pastimes between classes. He navigated quickly through the mass of students, avoiding most of the major jostles and thrusts, and by the time he got to his locker he'd nearly collapsed.
Wyatt pulled off his grimy plaid button-up – he'd sweat through it, again – and tossed it into the messy locker that smelt of burnt cheese and corn-chips. He felt much too shy to rock the white wife-beater look, as was popular back in the day (and coming back around for a second lap in modern twenty-first century fashion, apparently – I blame The Jersey Shore), and he was much too scrawny for it anyway, but he had no other clean clothes to wear at school. Wyatt tried not to breathe from his nostrils, not wanting to know just what his body odour smelt like. He could never control it so he simply stopped trying or even caring for that matter.
Finally, it was lunch. Wyatt wasn't rich. He mostly stayed at the cafeteria during the eighty minute lunch period and ate a homemade meal, which consisted of a banana, a root-beer, and a paper bag he'd pack himself. Mother had never made his lunch with love for him, not even on the first day of elementary school, and it was no big secret that she was ashamed of him.
A mother's pride, or lack there of, always plays an important role when kids get fucked up and grow into horrible human beings – and wouldn't I know best? Wyatt's mother didn't talk to her son, or make meals and eat them with him, or ever sit down and just ask him, “How are you? How's school? Are there any girls in your life? Am I a good enough mother for you?”. She could be heard sobbing in her room late at night, alone, father having died two years ago. That was something Wyatt and I truly had in common, and it was also the only reason I would ever feel sorry for him – which everyone ought not to do, with what he was capable of.
Most times, for lunch, he sat in the corner of the cafeteria with a few friends who he really couldn't consider “friends”; as they were all misfits, hated, with nobody else to bother, they all dealt with each other but did not converse out of school boundaries.
Wyatt dove into the bathroom, luckily unoccupied, and watched himself in the dirty mirror. He tossed his naturally bleach-white hair this way and that knowing whatever occurred, it'd just hang limp like a lifeless dog on his head. His white skin was smooth, like a baby's, but his cheeks were flushed and he felt like a girl wearing too much blush. Wyatt had his mother's stern, ridiculously bright eyes of aqua green, and he felt that when paired with his white hair and matching skin, he looked like an albino. An anomaly.
He just wanted to be something beautiful. If he couldn't do that, he wanted to make something beautiful, which was why he was an artist.
Then Wyatt carefully pulled out the destroyed drawing he was creating in class – his, up until the humiliating encounter, masterpiece of a girl with uncanny looks surrounded in blossomed red roses. That past-the-shoulder blonde hair with the volume of a baby rhinoceros, the happy pink apples of her cheeks and the strong teeth of a girl who'd never had to have braces or a headset in her life greeted him on the paper; though, in reality, the real thing never would have even looked at Wyatt. She was tan, and wore her baby-doll dresses proudly with her stalkings held thigh-high. Her favourite sayings, as Wyatt had studied in last year's yearbook, were “As if!” and “Phat!” – which where pretty much everyone else's, actually, but Wyatt felt that the phrases had a certain atonement when uttered from the glossed lips of Cherilyn.
Wyatt could say her name all day. Cherilyn, Marilyn, Carolyn – if he ever had the fortune or prestige or just fat luck to go out with a girl like Cherilyn, he'd think of all the possible nicknames he could and mumble them with rhyme while cuddling on the couch, watching Clueless on VCR – Cherilyn's favourite movie. Maybe Beverly Hills 90210, too. All that ninety's razzmatazz. Wyatt could deal with the horrible innards the show had if only he could watch it with her. He was so convinced, so sure of himself, that he loved her with all of his surprisingly large heart and that if given the chance to, she could love him back just as much.
He was absurdly mistaken.
She was popular, a bombshell, like I had been. I sort of feel that she was my ninety's counterpart or something. Cherilyn wasn't very smart, though, and all she truly cared about was herself. I could differ, couldn't I?
Well, also like me, Cherilyn wasn't all that nice or lovely in the least.
She was an easy girl to fall in love with, I suppose, but from what I know, she dated like a boomerang. Cherilyn seemed to always be hopping from man to man like a damn game of leap frog. If I have anything against her, it's that I wasn't a serial dater – I'd stuck with Adam and occasionally his best friend.
One of Cherilyn's bouncers entered the bathroom while Wyatt was flattening out his sketch, trying to make her face smooth again. The large male who'd just come in was on the wrestling team and the boxing team and Wyatt didn't want anything to do with him. Hell, he didn't even know his name, and therefore I can't say that I do either.
When the boy saw Wyatt gaping at him, his right eyebrow quirked upward and he tussled his dark mane of hair.
“Don't have an orgasm, I'm just takin' a piss,” the large boy rolled his eyes at the now cowering Wyatt and waltzed up to a urinal. He unzipped his pants and Wyatt looked away, beginning to collect his things, just to attempt to avoid receiving his daily quota of insults.
Wyatt was used to it. Lowlife. Faggot. Douche bag. Queer. Bum. Fairy. Nance. He placed his own money wagering that the large boy would try to insult him with something relating to homosexuality.
“What ya got there, faggot?” he asked, leaning back as far as he could without urinating on the floor to see what Wyatt had stuffed in his hand once more. The trickling sound of liquid hitting the porcelain bowl was ever-present. Wyatt told himself that when he saved up enough money, he'd get a really expensive banana split.
“Nothing. I'll just be going now,” he staggered like the air of a man who would fall in love with a fortuneteller.
“No, wait a second. Can I see it? The drawing?”
“Why?” Wyatt asked suspiciously, sceptical of the large boy's seemingly curious, innocent intent backed by the apparently incessant dribble of yellow fluid on a hollow bowl. His iron grasp on the once again destroyed sketch of Cherilyn loosened enough so that the blood could continue to circulate throughout his arm.
“I heard you're good at art.”
“W-W-Well I-I wouldn't s-say...”
“Really, Wyatt. Are you any good?”
He felt abashed, almost modest at the question. Was he actually being complimented? Or sized up for a compliment? Wyatt didn't truly know what he was worth and he was contemplating it – and even contemplating discussing it with his bathroom buddy – when he made his first cardinal mistake: he didn't notice when the trickling stopped.
So the large boy zipped up his fly like a lightning bolt, surprisingly not having hurt himself or any of his body parts, and grabbed for Wyatt (without washing his hands). Wyatt stumbled backward and hit the wall. Within thirty seconds, the large boy was closing an entire turtle-sized fist around the sketch of Cherilyn.
“Ah yes, I've been looking forward to this all day, ya queer! I saw what you were doing in science, eyeing her, then scribblin'. Ya stupid puke!” he teased, holding the paper high in the air while studying it as even the tall Wyatt struggled to retrieve it, “I wonder how Cherilyn will like this. Hm. She appreciates this artsy-fart shit anyway, doesn't she? Why don't we find out?” he watched as Wyatt whitened. “Why you so pale, you loser? Are you slow?”
Wyatt suffered. He knew he'd always suffer as long as he existed. Therefore he did not want to exist anymore – but he wouldn't bite the bullet, he wouldn't... do that, until he did what he felt he was born to do: create a beautiful thing. And he would do it in any way possible.
The culminating events from that encounter of a ninety's high school hell had later triggered anger, fear, redemption and a fair amount of self-consciousness that later blossomed into Wyatt's uncanny hate and obsession for the “popular girl”.