Life In A Shit Town

I realized these boys meant business when Luke pulled the scrapbook out of the glove compartment. He continued to fish through the small storage space for the Polaroid camera they kept for just this sort of occasion. Kenny passed the scrapbook to me and told me to "check it out". I began flipping through the pages, each one containing "before and after" Polaroids of the bloody remains, with vital information like date and time and location jotted in the margin next to each picture. It was a disgustingly detailed testament to the boredom and creativity of people in my hometown.

Downingtown, Pennsylvania seemed to produce tons of artists and musicians, everyone struggling through their respective arts to stave off the increasing ennui of life in a hick town. I myself was always discontent with Downingtown and what it offered. As a result I was constantly undertaking “projects” as a child, like making movies, drawing comics, writing stories. In essence I was creating other worlds to escape to. Bigger, more interesting worlds. Worlds that didn’t smell.

Upon entering Downingtown, one is immediately confronted with the peculiar odor that hangs over the place. There is something stale and vaguely intestinal about the smell of my hometown. Imagine opening a cedar trunk that you had taken a shit in 30 years ago and never opened since and you’ll have a loose understanding of the sulfurous stench I grew up with. This olfactory assault is provided by the local paper mill and the neighboring sewage treatment plant. On humid nights the acrid airs from these two buildings commingle in an unholy union and cloak the town in a fetid fart fog.

I had just graduated high school and was enrolled in classes at West Chester University. I had to spend a night there as part of my orientation. Kenny Courson, a friend from my biology and art classes in high school, was also enrolled there, but he’d had his orientation the week before. There was a “dance” held in the lobby of the dorm we all were staying in for our orientation. When I saw Kenny and his friends Luke and George at the dance I was surprised. Kenny informed me that they were taking me “for a ride”. Anything was better than standing against a wall all night watching people I wasn’t going to talk to for the next four years hit on each other and drink punch, so I gladly left with them.

We drove around West Chester taking hits from a bowl that George, the driver on this expedition, had stashed in the ripped fabric lining of the driver’s side door. Just cruising around on a boring Friday night, getting high, and telling each other lame stories about what we’d done so far this summer. Then Luke spotted the raccoon.

About fifteen feet ahead of us there was a dead raccoon by the side of the road. The headlights of the car shone on it and its eyes glowed an emerald green.

“Oh shit! There’s one!” Luke yelled.

George started laughing and pulled the car over, slowly creeping up so that the front tire squashed the remains of the dead raccoon. Then he put the car in park.

“Go check and see if we’re on it,” George said.

Kenny laughed and got out of the car.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked.

That’s when Luke began pulling stuff out of the glove compartment. Kenny returned and told George that we were dead center.

“No seriously,” I said. “What’s up?”

Kenny passed the scrapbook to me and I began flipping through the pages. Each page had before and after photos of roadkill around town. The after photos were barely recognizable. Just smears of blood and hair on the road.

George revved the engine and the three of them laughed maniacally. I realized just what was going to happen and let out a chuckle of disbelief.

I’d been pretty bored growing up and I’d done some stupid things like tossing dummies and large sticks off bridges at passing cars, dressing up like dime store superheroes and running around the neighborhood filming my adventures, but this took the cake as far as inane activities done to alleviate boredom.

George threw the car into gear and we could hear the front tire kicking gravel against the underside of the car. That and whatever was ripped free of the raccoon corpse under the tire. We pulled ahead of the raccoon and Luke got out to snap a picture of its desecrated remains.

When he hopped back in the car he said, “Now let’s go to Wawa and get some cigars.”

Hmmm.

Was this the ritual? After hunting down an already dead animal and further destroying it, they kicked back with a few celebratory cigars and recounted tales of roadkill safaris past? I laughed about the absurdity of it all.

When we got to the Wawa market we got out of the car and were confronted with the smell of charred flesh. The raccoon’s scattered parts had roasted and formed a thick slag on the engine. It smelled as if someone had left an uneaten McDonald’s quarter pounder in a garbage can for a whole summer. Perhaps this “game” would’ve been less foul if we didn’t have a car with front-wheel drive.

Other customers exiting the Wawa ran for their cars. People who pulled up to the store and got out of their cars immediately got back in them and opted to drive an extra ten miles to the next store rather than have to deal with the stench. It made the town’s usual stink seem pleasurable.

After that we smoked our stogies and drove back to the university. I said my goodbyes and hurried back to my dorm room. We never really hung out after that night and I lost touch with those guys over the ensuing ten years. I ran into Kenny about two years ago at a bar and I reminded him of that night. He tried to remember the incident but had apparently blocked it out. He agreed that it had probably happened but couldn’t remember it specifically. We had both moved on with our lives and he’d lost contact with George and Luke as well. I moved around to different cities, finally settling in New York, where there’s a little more to do than get high and scout out road kill to run over again. He had finished college and started managing restaurants.

“For some reason that’s the last clear memory I have of you guys,” I said.

“Well, at least you remember us,” he said.

“Yeah but we did a lot of other stupid shit too, right? But that’s the one thing I remember.”

“Well, we were pretty messed up back then,” he said and ordered another round.

Uncanny resemblance

I'm just saying...



I know you saw the resemblance too, as did every Star Wars geek on the internet. Someone referred to him as Pope Sidious, which I found amusing. As a friend pointed out, though, as long as they keep picking withered, crusty old men to be the pope, they are always going to remind people of the emperor.

Battle Over Terri Schiavo Rages On

Bob Schindler, Terri Schiavo's father, tells reporters: "My daughter's not dead. She's just resting. I am fully prepared to go to the courts to demand that the word 'death' be redefined, so as not to include my daughter."

clutter

No new stories. Random photoshop experiments instead. Litter from a humor magazine that never came to fruition.

Rush Limbaugh compared the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib to college pranks:

CALLER: It was like a college fraternity prank that stacked up naked men--
LIMBAUGH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?

We thought the Army should take that fraternity route when looking for new recruits. How about rush week for the armed forces?

Portrait of the Dishwasher as a Young Man

My first brush with the world of employment occurred when I was fifteen. I was "hired" as a dishwasher at a local restaurant, notorious not only for exploiting the services of under-aged kids wanting to scrub plates for a few measly bucks but also for serving those pre-pubescent schnooks alcoholic beverages after hours. My internment in this particularly soul-draining job lasted only twelve hours. And I didn’t even get the celebrated illegal beer that had been promised.

I had been in desperate need of money. I was tired of the embarrassment that came every time I would be out at the mall or at some comic book shop with friends and I needed to borrow a couple of bucks for the latest Spiderman issue or Metallica cassette. See, my friends still got allowances from their parents and would lavishly spend their “earnings” in front of me while I counted the change I’d scrounged from the family room sofa. My parents didn’t really believe in giving allowances. At least not the twenty dollars a week my friends pulled down. I’d be lucky to walk away with a five spot for doing chores that I was expected to perform for free anyway. Guilt was my main bargaining tool. But that didn’t work every week and I would have to ration my guilt trips for special events like concerts or ski trips. No, in order to enjoy my weekends at the mall with friends I would have to find some sort of job.

My father for one was always talking about my siblings and I one day getting jobs. He would boast about the many things you could do if you had your own source of income. A source of income that wasn’t him, that is. With each passing birthday my father would remind us of how closer we were to being of legal working age. Those child labor laws must have been a thorn in his side, but there was always that worker’s permit shining on the horizon. The permit, it was well known in my household, could be obtained at the age of fifteen with a simple trip to the school’s office.

It was a rite of passage I was never too keen on, so I held off as long as I could. But my early teenage financial straits coupled with my interest in buying a videocamera (my friend Matt and I had been toying around with his grandparents’ old VHS camera and I was convinced I would be the next Steven Spielberg) led me to discuss my employment options with my friend Danny Matthews.

Danny Matthews and I had known each other since elementary school. We’d been best friends between kindergarten and third grade and spent most of our time reenacting scenes from “The Incredible Hulk” and/or listening to KISS. Danny had an older sister who got us hooked on the song “Beth” and it was downhill from there. Over the years Danny and I drifted apart. I hung out with guys who never grew out of comic books and read Fangoria magazine, while Danny started hanging out with “the stoners”. Most of the kids Danny hung out with had worked under the table jobs since they were twelve or younger. Danny himself was employed as a dishwasher at this local restaurant The Clam Joint.

When I told Danny I was interested in getting a job he excitedly started telling me about how much money he made. Four dollars and twenty five cents an hour seemed like the Holy Grail of wages to a kid of fifteen. Hell, I'd been raking leaves and mowing the lawn for five bucks a week! I was eager to join him if I could. He said there was actually an opening for another dishwasher, as the other guy had quit the night before. What a coincidence.

"Problem though is," I told Danny. "I don’t have a worker’s permit."

"Oh, fuck that shit," Danny replied. "You don’t need one of those to work here. You just gotta be willing to work."

Oh, that could be a problem. See, as much as I wanted to start getting a paycheck, I wasn’t fully resigned to having to actually work for it. I thought about the situation in a little more detail. I had washed dishes at home after dinner a few times and didn’t find the work all that pleasurable. But then I wasn’t making four dollars and twenty five cents an hour doing it, was I? What a quandary I had found myself in!

After a bit more goading from Danny, I decided to take him up on it. He talked to his boss at work and they said I could start that weekend. I was given Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. Danny would be working with me the first night but had the rest of the weekend off. I would be on my own Saturday and Sunday. I immediately started to rethink this decision. Danny assured me it would be no problem and since I’d be working by myself those days I would get more money because it wouold take longer for me to clean up the place.

When I arrived at The Clam Joint at four in the afternoon on Friday to start my shift Danny was already there to meet me. He was standing outside the kitchen door smoking a cigarette. He asked if I wanted one and I declined. (I never felt any peer pressure to smoke when I was a kid and it wasn’t until I was 24 that I decided to take it up. A melancholic disposition coupled with a touch of nihilism led me to make up for lost time and I chain-smoked for about five years straight.) We bullshitted for a few minutes, then he took me inside to meet the cooks.

The cooks seemed like nice enough guys, a little rough around the edges, but nice. They ranged in age between 20 and 32. There were four of them. Kyle, Steve, Randy, and Brian. They were listening to Iron Maiden and making fun of each other. I thought I’d fit in just fine.

Then Danny took me around as we prepared for the evening, fetching ice, arranging tables and chairs, emptying trashcans from the daytime shift. Mundane menial tasks. No back-breaking work, but work nonetheless.

Around six o’clock the first rush of used dishes came back and we began the process of cleaning them. There were two sinks, each equipped with a high pressure water sprayer, which could shoot varying streams of burning water. Danny dug in and I followed suit, scrubbing the remnants of once-glorious meals from the ceramic plates.

The cooks continued their insulting banter back and forth and eventually incorporated Danny and I in to their fun. Scalding cheese was flung in our direction, along with an assortment of vegetables and leafy greens. A small skirmish began to unfold and Danny and I equipped ourselves with trays to use as shields. Danny seemed to enjoy the camaraderie he shared with the cooks, but I just wanted to scrub dishes in peace and get the hell out of there. I politely laughed as grapes occasionally bounced of my head. It was, after all, part of my job as a new dishwasher to be tormented.

One of the restaurant’s specialties it appeared was French onion soup, because I had to clean a steady flow of bowls whose edges were caked with a thick crust of burnt provolone cheese. These were the most difficult ones to clean, a fact that Danny pointed out when the first wave of them arrived. And he made haste when cleaning them because they were the most crucial he said.

Much of my night was spent scraping the cheese off with my fingernails, which I had chewed down to being almost non-existent (a fact I regretted, because it made the process even more toilsome). The need to constantly shuck these bowls of their protective layer of cheese made the idea of wearing gloves, to protect my hands from the blistering water we used to wash dishes, an impossibility.

The night dragged on.

From six to about 12:30, we never once had a break. The work was interminable. Occasionally a particularly attractive waitress named Carla would come back into the kitchen to pick up her orders and it was as if the sun had broken through, if only briefly. I would watch as she dodged flying plates (Danny was adept at tossing the cleaned plates over to the cooks, a skill which both impressed and frightened me, as I would have to duck as I walked my stack of plates over to the prep table) and traded innocuous flirtations with the cooking staff.

The clean-up officially began at two in the morning, after the last of the patrons had left the premises. It was then that I discovered that the cleaning of the restaurant rested entirely on the dishwasher’s shoulders. The cooks and wait-staff packed up their things and left for the night.

Danny took me on our rounds, emptying trashcans and scrubbing the floors. The smell of quickly rotting food clung to my nostrils. I asked if we could have a beer as reward for our hard work. Danny was reluctant to fetch one from the beer cooler, even though we were the only ones left in the building. He said it was frowned upon and someone might notice. I scoffed at this and Danny saved face by producing a tightly rolled joint from his jeans pocket.

As we dragged the trashcans to the dumpster out back he lit the joint and we smoked. It was then that I decided I would not return for work tomorrow. My first night as a manual laborer had been a complete disaster in my mind. Dishwashing was not my vocation-to-be.

I got home at about 4:30 in the morning and jumped into the shower, scrubbing the filth from my pores. I slept until 3 or so the next day. My mother woke me up and told me it was time to get ready for work.

I began a litany of complaints and reasons why I would not be going in that evening. I had not laid a guilt trip on my mother in over a month and was using this as the grand-daddy of all guilt trips. How could she make me go to work tonight? I had descended into hell for twelve hours the night before and had escaped with only a few minor abrasions. She couldn’t possibly let her first-borne degrade himself further!

After a good twenty minutes describing the horrors I had witnessed she agreed to let me stay home. I went to my room and took a nap. At about six o’clock the phone rang and I was called to answer it. It was the mess sergeant of the restaurant, Randy.

"Where the fuck are you, man?" he scolded.

"Oh, ah, I’m not coming in," I said. "I’m, ah, not feeling well."

"You could’ve fucking called jackass!"

"Sorry."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he demanded.

"I think I’ve got a sore throat and the beginnings of a fever."

"No. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You’re a pussy, that’s what’s wrong with you!"

"What are you..."

"You couldn’t handle it, you faggot."

"No, I just..."

And he hung up the phone.

Wow. I felt really bad and considered going in and actually started to get dressed. I left them hanging and that wasn’t cool. I would just go in late, and stay late if I had to, and

Did he just call me a pussy faggot?

And then I reflected on the ridicule and derision I had endured the night before. The patter of the grapes hitting my head throughout the night. The long walks to the dumpster to empty leaking sacks of garbage. The tedious work of removing cheese from ceramic bowls.

There was no way in hell I was going back.

And then the phone rang again.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Stop sucking your boyfriend’s cock and get in to work shithead." It was Kyle this time.

"Dude, grow up," I said. A fifteen year old telling a twenty-eight year old to grow up. The irony.

"You’re a fucking dick." And the phone hung up again.

I walked to my room. What losers, I thought. Didn’t they have anything better to do than call and berate me, like maybe finding a replacement?

The phone rang again. My mother answered.

"David, it’s for you!"

I picked up the receiver.

"Do you just do oral or do you take it in the ass too?" Steve this time. I could hear laughter in the background.

"Fuck you, man!"

Click.

Ten minutes later the phone rang again.

"Don’t answer it," I told my mother. "It’s those assholes from the restaurant."

The phone rang and rang throughout the night. Occasionally we’d answer it, only to find that it was indeed the cooks making another taunting call.

By Sunday, fortunately, they’d gotten over me and stopped the harassing calls.

The next Monday at school I ran into Danny.

"What the fuck?" he said.

"I’m sorry, man," I said.

"You fucked me over."

"I’m really sorry. I just wasn’t feeling well that night and they kept calling and yelling at me. I couldn’t go back after that."

"They were really pissed."

"I know."

"You fucked me. I recommended you."

"I know. I’m sorry. I’m a dick."

"Whatever."

Danny and I never talked about the incident again. We never really talked about anything. Later that week he picked up my paycheck for me and brought it to school. Fifty one dollars, tax free. In cash. For that one night. I couldn't remember when I held more than twenty dollars in my hand at one time. I thought about the money I could’ve made if I’d had the balls to kowtow to the bullshit of working there. The next week I went and got my worker’s permit and secured a job as a bag-boy at the local supermarket. A significant decrease in pay (only four dollars and fifteen cents), but no one prank called my house if I didn’t show up for work or bounced grapes off my head all night long. There’s always a little give and take with any job I guess.

A Marvelous Night for a Moondance

This was just the sort of thing that was always happening to him. You overlook one minor detail and look what happens! How many times had he made plans with someone only to have to back out at the last minute because of "bad timing"? He couldn't believe his luck.

He tried not to let his miscalculation ruin the excitement he was feeling. As he stood before his dresser, looking into the mirror to straighten his tie, he remembered their encounter.

He remembered the smell of her hair as they bumped heads at the newsstand. He had accidentally dropped his umbrella and bent down to pick it up. The woman behind him had seen his fumble and was bending down to fetch the umbrella as well. Smack! He had apologized, they laughed, he walked with her to Starbucks, they got some coffee, chatted, bam, bam, bam, and then they had set the date for another encounter. A more formal encounter. Dinner and a movie.

It had all been so effortless, that he didn't even think about the details. He enjoyed her company and she his, and when the time came to go their separate ways they instinctively set another date to prolong their flirtation. He was caught off guard. He didn't know that Saturday, today, would be a bad day for their next meeting.

But standing in front of the mirror like this brought it all back to him. Yes. Saturday, the 26th was a bad day. He'd even marked it on his calendar. He marked all the bad days on his calendar.

"Maybe she won't notice," he said out loud. Not notice? How could anyone not notice?! It was crystal clear. He was hideous. She was going to notice alright. She might not notice that it was him, but she was certainly going to notice this little affliction of his.

As he walked to her house for their first date he realized he'd forgotten to pick up some flowers. He noticed a beautiful bed of tulips along the driveway of a neighbor. He quickly ripped a handful from the ground and hurried on his way. What a way to start a date. First with his little monthly problem, then forgetting the flowers...what was next?

He wondered if he should've called to cancel the date. He had missed out on so many opportunities for a meaningful relationship because of his little problem, he could've just added this one to the list. But he felt there was something special about this girl. He could sense it. He wasn't going to let it slip through his fingers like the others.

He rang the doorbell to her house and gently brushed back any stray hairs. He smelled the fresh tulips in his hand. Inside he could hear someone bounding down the stairs.

The door swung open and there she was. She looked surprised. Her eyes were wide. Immediately he launched into an explanation.

"Hello Gail. It's me Tom. I'm sorry about this, um, the way I look, I didn't, you see, when we made the plans, I uh, didn't realize, ha, see I have a little problem, it's medically documented..."

"Tom," she interrupted. "You look fine. I just didn't recognize you at first."

"Really? You're not freaked out?"

"No. I knew there was something different about you. That's what interested me in the first place."

"Oh, wow, that's...I'm just shocked. Most people have a problem with this sort of thing."

"Tom, I'm a nurse. I'm used to people with maladies."

"But lycanthropy dysmorphism?"

She smiled and took the flowers.

"These are beautiful, Tom," she said. "Let me put these in water and I'll grab my coat."

Tom stood on the porch, reflecting on his good luck. Of all the people to meet by accident at a newsstand! Finally he'd found someone who understood and was accepting of his medical condition. He breathed in the night air and looked up at the full moon. This was the start of something big. His stomach growled.

"Are you hungry?" asked Gail as she closed the door behind her.

"Boy am I!" Tom said.

"I know a great Italian restaurant up the street. We'll walk. It's such a nice night."

Tom put his arm around her shoulder and breathed in her lovely fragrance. He leaned closer and she giggled. He howled into the night and swiftly grabbed her throat in his jaws, ripping through the muscles and tendons, and chomping through her spinal cord. Mists of blood decorated the door of her house. He tore a piece of flesh from her abdomen, stood up, and looked at the moon.

Damnit, he thought. This was always happening to him.

The Art of The Mix: Or Misery Loves Company

When I was 21 I moved to New Orleans to be with the girl I loved at the time. It was one of those first-loves that you swear to each other will last an eternity. Your head and heart swell to unhealthy proportions and you start writing bad poetry and don’t change the station when a sappy love song comes on the radio.

In keeping with the bad sitcom structure of the events in my life, my girlfriend Kelly and I broke up the very day I arrived in the Crescent City to be with her. The details of my arrival and subsequent dumping have burned themselves into my mind’s eye.

A few hours after my arrival in New Orleans, Kelly and I went out for dinner. She seemed disinterested at the time, but she told me she was just tired. She had just had her first day of classes at Loyola. She also said it might be the meds she was on. (She had a congenital heart murmur and was taking a form of Prozac for it.) I accepted this explanation, pre-occupied as I was with my own feelings of joy. I also kept thinking about having sex with her. It had been awhile since we’d last seen each other and I thought we always had pretty great sex after any time apart.

After dinner we took the streetcar back to Loyola. As we approached her dorm I pulled her to me and kissed her, but her mouth was closed and unresponsive. I pulled back and she just looked at me with sad eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I just think...well..."

And we spent the next half-hour in front of her dorm discussing it.

We were no more.

She felt she was too young to be in such a serious relationship. Nineteen and she wanted to sow her wild oats. She was a college girl, dammit.

I instinctively said I felt the same and tried to find those corresponding feelings somewhere inside me. I said that I never imagined being so complete and happy at such a young age. I said I was just as scared.

But I was lying out my ass. I was completely happy and content. I had envisioned my future with her, little daydreams of buying a house together, our marriage at a small chapel in the south of France, vacations scuba-diving in the Caribbean, an old couple who looked strikingly like the two of us opening Christmas presents with their grandchildren. I had lived the entire span of our lives together in my head over the last several months. And now she was telling me those dreams were false?!

"You will always be my first love Dave."

That was all she could give me. A year and a half, the best years of my young life, and all I had to show for it now was that I was somebody’s "first love".

I couldn’t respond. I was utterly incapable of stating how I truly felt. I just kept nodding and agreeing with everything she said. She told me she didn't want to lose me as a friend, blah, blah, blah... I just listened and watched everything burn before me. I made it so easy for her to rip my life apart. Why couldn’t I stand up and fight this? Where had my balls gone? They had retreated deep into my body and I stood there taking it all like an obedient eunuch.

And then we hugged limply and said good-bye.

Dazed, I wandered along St. Charles Avenue, rehashing the details of our encounter. I thought of all the rebuttals I wanted to make had I not been rendered mute by the shock and surprise. I began to question the validity of our breakup. There had been no deliberation. The verdict was completely one-sided. I was unequipped to represent myself and should be given a second chance on those grounds alone.

I felt emptied. Like I'd taken the biggest shit of my life and unloaded a couple organs as well. I couldn't think. I sat trance-like on the streetcar, watching the ground flood by below me. It was hot. The air stuck to me. I felt encased in rubber. I was her first love. I would always be her first love. First implying seconds and thirds and fourths and fifths. An infinity of future lovers! I felt like curling into a ball and dying. My center was gone...

But I was not one to give up so easily. As much as she tried to distance herself from me, I just wouldn’t go. I was always stopping by her dorm or calling or emailing. I became a miserable stalker.

I used to make mix tapes for Kelly every other week. If she could hear the pain I was feeling, maybe she would feel sorry for me and take me back. So I filled those 120 minute cassettes with the songs of heartache that I surrounded myself with. I felt a strong kinship to Chris Isaak, that troubadour of the broken heart, and his songs inevitably took up more and more room on those mixes. It was hard not to put them on when they spoke so clearly how I felt.

I remember dropping off a particularly heartfelt mix tape one afternoon. Kelly and her roommate Steph sat in their dorm room watching television and doing their homework. After the requisite "what’s new?" conversations and assorted pleasantries, I reached into my book-bag and withdrew the latest sonic testament to my misery.

"Here," I said, handing the mix tape to Kelly. "I made you another mix. Just some songs I thought you might like."

Kelly looked at the tape cautiously, as if it might have been wired to explode. Her roommate snickered.

"How many Chris Isaak songs are on this one?" Steph laughed.

Kelly burst forth with a loud guffaw.

I immediately wanted to take the tape back and hurry out of the room. Even though there were only three of Chris’ songs on this mix (three of his more upbeat offerings at that), I couldn’t help but feel like a walking cliché. Even my choice of songs was predictable.

I just wanted Kelly to understand how I felt, however lame and misguided those attempts at some sort of covenant between us were. We had spent a year and a half together, both deeply in love with one another. And now she just seemed disconnected and apathetic. I’m sure it was probably the Prozac she’d been taking, but I wanted desperately for her to feel some sort of remorse for her decision to excise me from her life. Instead I became a clown to laugh at.

Not that I was unsuited for that role. I had been a buffoon my entire life. But I had always worked hard to make fun of myself before others could, so as to avoid the sting of being the butt of someone else’s jokes. If I could find the absurdity in my own bumbling actions before the rest of the world did, I could safely cloak myself in "irony" and remain aloof. But now Kelly and her roommate accomplice were helping me revisit the pain of my awkward and confused childhood, by making fun of my emotional weaknesses.

"Actually," I said, reaching for the tape in Kelly’s hands. "I didn’t put any on this time, but if you want me to I’ll gladly remake the mix and give it to you later."

I snatched the tape and put it back in my bag.

"I’m just gonna go now," I said. "You guys look kinda busy. It was good seeing you. Bye." And I rushed out of the room.

It took several more months for me to wean myself from stalking Kelly. I tried the best I could to move forward with my life. She was better at moving on than I was. One of the tricks of successfully moving forward with your life is to have new relationships, new friends and lovers, to help fill the hours of your day. This is usually a lot easier when you are beautiful, since lots of people will want to hang out with you. Kelly had this covered and had no problem moving from boyfriend to boyfriend. I didn’t have much going for me in that area but I had booze and Chris Isaak.