ALONE

Alone

Gabriel Gurdián

“Who ever said that life would be easy? And did you think that society would be good to you? Oh and now you believe you’re special because you won a spelling bee in fourth grade? No man, you are wrong. This whole idea you have about life and death is completely fucked.” William got out of the house, slamming the door. I think our whole conversation had disturbed him in a special way. My words had apparently hit a soft spot. William, or Will, as I liked to call him, was usually an emotional pile of flesh. He was the sad product of a life full of despair and desolation. And because of that, I considered him my friend.

Now I’m not saying that because my relationship with Will was based solely on his random emotional outbursts. No. I usually got a kick in hanging out with deranged individuals. The crowd that interested me was the freaks and the ones that never seemed to fit anywhere. These are the human beings that have something to say, they have the best stories and usually are the ones that make me feel alive.

I reached for the TV control. I turned the machine on. None of the things on television made much sense to me these days. I was jaded; there wasn’t a single drop of innocence in me. All of that bullshit had been lost years ago. Santa Claus didn’t fall down the chimney. I loved to watch the infomercials. People telling other people that they need this product they’re selling. It will help to solve your simple problems, make them easier. Bullshit.

“We are living in a sneaker nation” – I said to myself. “WE ARE LIVING IN A SNEAKER NATION” - I said to myself again. Yes, I had to convince myself about this beautiful fact. It’s hard to explain, it really is. I was sick of all the “have a nice day” bullshit. People don’t care if I have a nice day. They just don’t. Mechanically, I nod back and say “thank you.”

I turned the television off and put a record on. Goodspeed you! Black Emperor. “Dead Flag Blues” came on. Apparently, the whole thing made sense to me.

The car is on fire… and there’s no driver at the wheel…

And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides…

And a Dark Wind Blows.

A government is corrupt… And we’re all so many drones with the radio on and the curtains drawn.

We’re trapped in the belly of this horrible machine… and the machine is bleeding to death.

The sun has fallen down… and the billboards are all leering...

And the flags are all dead. At the top of their poles.

It went like this… The buildings toppled in on themselves… mothers clutching babies… picked through the rubble… and pulled out their hair.

The sky line was beautiful on fire… all twisted metal stretching upwards…

Everything washed in a thin orange haze.

I said, “Kiss me your beautiful, either troy the last days”

You grab my hand and we fell into it… like a daydream… or a fever.

The phone rang. I got up from the couch slowly. Let the motherfucker ring for at least three times. “Hello, is Bill there?” –A female voice said on the line.

“Hey lady, you’ve got the wrong number” – I said impatiently.

“Oh… I’m sorry… I didn’t know who to call… I’m desperate… Would you be so kind in giving me a few minutes of your time?” – She said… in a rather sad tone.

Now this is the part when I can just say no. I don’t usually enjoy talking to strangers… especially over the phone. The whole thing is just too impersonal, too indirect. And as you probably know already, I’m a direct person… I need to get to the point quick. There is always a minimal percentage of bullshit on my part.

This stranger seemed like a nice person and plus, she was a girl. Girls always need someone to tell their sorrows to, it’s something that they need to do, to cry their hearts out. I’m not going to lie; her voice seemed interesting over the phone. I simply told her, “What’s happening?”

After sighing, she began,

“My mom died the other day. I feel it’s my fault because I ended up neglecting her calls. Naturally, I didn’t show up for her funeral… I didn’t answer the door when my dad stopped by my place two weeks ago. My boyfriend, Tim, has developed a habit of hitting me in the mouth every time I tell him to look for a job. Everyday gets longer and my life seems to be the same. The years pass by and slowly the wrinkles are setting in.”

There was a short pause. She continued,

“I leave the television on at night when I go to bed… At first I though it would lull me to sleep. I was correct. I’m so afraid to be left alone with my own thoughts and this piece of machinery is sometimes the only friend I have… I’m dying slowly and I’m pretty sure I’m not enjoying the whole journey.”

After hearing this I had to sit down. It was too much for me. This girl was telling me her life story. She needed help… or so I thought.

I closed my eyes and suddenly I found myself in a desert, at night. I was in the middle of nowhere. Out of thin air, a living room appeared. One family couch, two love seats and a leather recliner. The place was furnished with a big Persian rug.

“Amazing” – I said to myself, completely perplexed at the site. The stars at this place seemed alive. This desert were I found myself was miles away from any human congregation. Because of this, the sky seemed to be thriving with life.

I focused my eyes on the seats and Will appeared out of thin air. He was sitting on one of the love seats. My great aunt Gina was sitting on the leather recliner. I sat down on the couch. No one said a word. After a while, I lit a cigarette and yawned. After I let out my first cloud of smoke, Aunt Gina said calmly, “Another lost, televised soul of middle class America.”

I opened my eyes and found myself in my living room. On the other side of the receiver I heard a voice that said a simple “Hello, are you still there?” It took me a couple of second to realize that I was still talking to her. I urged her to continue her story. This is just what I needed to hear right now, someone else’s problems. This would at least help me forget mine for a while.

“I’m sick of eating all these pain-killers everyday. I have become addicted to them. Everything turns to shit when I don’t have those chemicals in my body. When I’m on pills everything works out great, I don’t feel a thing and it helps me to concentrate on my job. I’m a postal clerk. It’s a pretty good job but basically you have to be a machine to be able to keep up with it. There’s too much shit going around, so many letters that need to be sent to different places. Packages filled with thoughts, feelings and emotions from so many individuals. Basically, the Post Office is a place with too much stuff happening around. They need robots there, not people… and that’s what I’ve become.”

“Interesting” – I said back at her. Here I was, talking to another victim of society. This woman was straight up another freak of nature. “What’s your name?” – I asked, while yawning.

“I’m Rita” – She replied in a fast manner, like a gazelle, or maybe a deer. “What’s yours?”

“Benedict” – I lied. Well come on, this could be anyone talking to me right now… I wasn’t going to give her my real name. After all, I was a man who believed in discreetness.

Rita continued talking for about another half hour. This conversation was taking too much of my own, precious time. I told her I had to hang up because I had to do some stuff for work (another lie again… I’m unemployed and have been for a while). Before we hung up I told her that she could call me back anytime, that she shouldn’t hesitate in giving me a call when she needed someone to talk to.

As I hung up, I heard that someone came in from the backdoor. Will grunted as a bear when he came in the living room. “I told you to come in through the front” – I said to him.

“Hey man, I think I have the right to come in through the back. I’m your favorite neighbor and you know it” – Will said, flashing his white set of teeth at me.

“You’re the only neighbor I know” – I said.

He shook his head slowly. Will had left earlier to get some alcohol. I told him to get some vodka. Instead, he got some Jaggermeister.

I rolled my eyes. “Will… You know that I don’t drink that” – I said slowly to him.

“I’m aware of that. You are drinking this tonight though” - He said back, imitating my slow talking.

Of course I gave in. Alcohol is like candy to me, irresistible. It’s just that some candies, even though delicious, make you go crazy.

As Will prepared the drinks with some Red bull, I proceeded in telling him the story about Rita. He wasn’t listening… he never was. Will nodded and sometimes said “wow” with an uninterested tone. He handed me my drink. I sighed. Jaggermeister had something in it that didn’t mix well with my body. It set off a violent spot in me.

“What’s this bullshit?” – Will said as he approached my record player. He turned off the beautiful Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and put some Black Flag on. If you’ve heard these two bands you may well know that this is a major shift in music. Post-Rock to eighties Hardcore Punk. The atmosphere in the room didn’t change, as both bands are still depressing. Depressing but beautiful…

I yawned and stretched while Will sat down on the couch. The drink tasted sweet. “Perfectly ironic for the moment.” – I thought.

“Hey man, do you have some Doritos?” – He asked.

I nodded… my concentration was being used in reading the mail. “A letter from my mom” – I said back to Will. “Bring me a lighter, will ya?”

He came back from the kitchen with a huge Doritos bag on his left hand and the lighter on the other one.

I smiled as I set the letter on fire. I put it on the ashtray as the fire ate the whole thing. “I’m not even going to bother in reading that.”

Will looked at me… he was worried. He offered me some Doritos. I wasn’t hungry at all. The caffeine in the red bull was wiring me up.

This whole drink was always a BAD idea. Too much sugar, too much caffeine, too much alcohol; it was a complete time bomb. I’m a risk taker though… I chugged the fucker down.

Suddenly, the whole room got cold. The living room became really bright and the music was really loud. I started breathing hard and getting anxious. No, it wasn’t the alcohol, I sometimes get panic attacks.

“I’ve had enough of this Black Flag shit!” – I yelled at Will, who was still mulching down the Doritos.

He gave me the “I don’t give a shit” glance and continued eating.

“Fuck you, man… FUCK YOU” – I yelled at him. His drink was empty. He slowly grabbed my drink, and without breaking eye contact, got up. He turned towards the kitchen and disappeared into it. The phone rang while I was in the living room. Will took the liberty to answer the phone. All the way from the kitchen, he yelled at me, “Hey, a woman called Rita is looking for a dude called Benedict, she’s sure she has the right phone number” – Will said.

“You imbecile! Tell her I’ll be right there!” – I yelled at him. I got up and rushed to the kitchen.

“Calm down man…” – Will said as he gave me the phone. He gave me my drink and left the kitchen. I could hear that he turned on the television in the living room.

“Yes?” – I said.

“Ben? Benedict, is that you?” – Rita said, with a certain air of despair in her voice.

“Ummm… yes…” – I said while I savored my new drink.

“My boyfriend is hitting me… he’s been drinking heavily for a few hours now. He got really angry when the gin ran out” – Rita said, her voice breaking over the phone a little bit.

“What’s your address there?” – I said to her.

“2550 North Henry Road. Hurry up; I’m locked in my car, in the garage.” – She said to me.

“We’ll be right there” - Now these words I said slowly. I wanted to assure her this fact as I had a plan.

I hung up, took a drink, grabbed the fifth and told Will that we needed to go.

“Sure…” – Will stood up, putting on his coat. He looked at the floor for a few second and then looked up,

“Where are we going man?”

Ignoring his question, I said,

“Bring the rope.”

Before heading out I put on the television on an empty channel. After getting the volume as loud as it went, we headed out. Gorgeous static embraced my whole house. You tell me, who would break into a house like that? Only a crazy individual would. In that case, I would allow this deranged person to take all my possessions. Crazy person usually put stuff to good use.

I got in the car and waited for Will to get in. He was outside on my front yard, staring blankly into space. I rolled down the window and said to him, “Snap out of it boy.”

I proceeded to light a ‘cig. The lighter’s flame was bright… it was dangerous and sexy at the same time. Its hotness completely intoxicated me.

“Can I bum one off of you?”- Will broke the silence from the back seat. I didn’t hear the car door open. This frightened me and made me jump in my seat. I hated Will when he surprised me like that.

On the way Will didn’t ask any questions. The inside of the car was quiet. It wasn’t an awkward silence. It was alright to have silence sometimes. Silence didn’t make me feel lonely. I always felt this way about silence… it made me feel safe. My interaction with Will didn’t change this feeling. I never felt that my ideas ever made much sense to him. If they did, he didn’t seem to care.

“Animals”- I said as we crossed the mall.

“Consumerism makes me want to puke” – Will said.

“Vanilla Ice-Cream” – I said loudly.

“Billy Boy eats at McDonalds and buys at Wal-Mart. He loves to keep it real. Mommy never told him about the chinks in the sweatshops that suffer day and night to keep him happy & plump…” –Will said with the cigarette in his mouth.

As we got to Henry road I began to remember a few social events I attended here. These parties would be at one of those big apartment complexes. The vast majority of people here would usually be really loud and obnoxious. The music would be noisy, the apartment would be completely crowded and the people would be too drunk. The only conversations that they would engage in, if they did, would be about four things:

1. Sports
2. Television
3. Commercial Music
4. Sexually oriented topics

As I didn’t like any competitive sports, watched television or listened to radio, socialization proved to be quite difficult. I would usually end up drinking and smiling like an idiot. This got old and boring quite fast.

“That place sucks. How can anyone sane live there?” – Will said, staring coldly at the dead, concrete jungle.

“I’m not sure man…” I said back to him. I really wasn’t.

We found 2550 in about five minutes. The place looked nice outside. Freshly mowed lawn and some pink flamingos stuck on the front yard. “Sweet” – I thought. Rita’s house seemed quite welcoming, as a matter of fact; her house reminded me of the Candy Witch’s house from the kid story, Hansel and Grettel. Small and pretty.

Will didn’t understand why we parked on front of the house. “Another sign that he’s never paying attention” – I thought. He was wondering what we were going to do with a fifth of Jaggermeister and some rope. I told him that he should keep his mouth shut and that maybe he should wait in the car.

I got out of the vehicle with the fifth in hand. Will stared at me from the inside of the car. His eyes resembled those of a calf, innocent and beautiful. I ignored this and proceeded to make my way to the front door. After taking a deep breath I knocked three times.

At first, no one came to the door. I thought about Rita while I waited there, she’s probably asleep in her car at this moment. Or maybe not… maybe she’s really scared in there… waiting for me to save the day. At last someone came to the door.

I was received by a medium sized man, with a badly shaven beard. The buttoned shirt he was wearing was dirty. “So this is Tim” – I thought.

“Who the fuck are you?” – He said to me.

“I’m friends of Rita, she invited me over for a drink” – I showed Tim the bottle I was holding. He smiled and said,

“Nice to meet you man, I’m Tim.”

“I know…” – I said as I stepped in. I turned around to see if Will was still in the car waiting for me. He wasn’t there. “The fucker probably got bored and ditched me” – I thought.

Rita’s house was lovely. It was small but that didn’t matter to me. We sat down on the living room and began drinking. Tim was nice as hell. I was getting along with him quite well. That is until I asked her about his girlfriend. His face changed completely.

“That whore… she’s been saying she wants to leave me” – Tim said while shaking his head. I decided to change the subject… the alcohol was already gone and I needed some more. That bitch Rita could wait. I was really having fun talking to this woman beater. Convinced that ingesting more alcohol would result in other interesting conversations, I asked him if he wanted to come with me to the liquor store. He told me that he was running low on cash and that he wouldn’t be able to pay for anything though.

“That’s fine” – I told him. “Tonight’s on me.”

On the way to the liquor store Tim asked me the usual questions. How did I know her girlfriend and what did I do for a living. I lied both times. I told him that I met Rita at yoga club back in college, we ran into each other at the mall the other day. I supposedly worked at the dog pound, in charge of euthanizing the dogs and cats. “You make me wanna puke” – He must’ve thought.

“Here’s fifteen bucks, surprise me.” – I handed Tim over the money while parking the car. “I’m going to stay here and smoke a ‘cig.” Tim, who was majoring in alcoholism, liked the idea of buying the booze by himself. He nodded back at me with a certain smile and got out of the car.

“Ain’t he a cutie” – I jumped on my seat, completely frightened by Will’s voice. I turned back and found him sitting on the back seat. “How the hell did you get here!?” – I yelled back at him. This was a little bit weird for me because I was a hundred percent sure he had left earlier.

“I was taking a nap in this here seat; it’s been like what… three hours since we left your place?” – He said.

“I’m not really sure; I don’t keep a watch.” My reply was honest at least. Time has been moving slowly for me for years now… An hour always felt like an eternity and a whole breath seemed to last forever. I knew Will was hiding something from me, I could feel it in my gut. He’s the typical individual that loves to keep secrets.

Before he could ask for a cigarette, as he usually did, I offered him one. He said he didn’t feel like smoking a whole cigarette at once, it was too much nicotine for him to handle at the moment. He wanted to share the cigarette I was smoking. Of course I said no! For starters, sharing cigarettes isn’t my thing; there are diseases that can spread that way. And plus, Will functions in strange ways. The day I offer him a cigarette is the day he wants to share one. Crazy bastard.

Tim came back with a bottle of whisky. The phrase “Bad Choice” popped in my head. I opened the bottle and took a sip of it. To me, whisky tastes how wood smells. It’s only in rare occasions that drinking wood sounds like a good idea. Tonight wasn’t. He took a sip of the bottle once I handed it back to him. Tim didn’t notice Will, who was being silent at the backseat.

No one in the car was expecting to see Rita’s house in the state we found it when we came back. People were gathering on the road to see the whole spectacle. The house was on fire, it was the event of Henry Road for the night. The majority of the people watching Tim’s possessions being burned to the ground were college students. Drunken college students. Firefighters were running all over the place with their hoses and their asbestos suits. Policemen were trying to control the crowd, who in their drunken state, wanted to go into to the house and steal whatever they could find.

I noticed that the garage door was completely torn apart. The car was missing.

Tim started panicking; he couldn’t comprehend the whole situation. Two fat policemen tackled him down when he rushed through the crowd and tried to get into his burning house. On the ground and defeated, he started crying. He explained to the cops that his girlfriend Rita was somewhere in the house, that they needed to look for her.

That’s when I got in my car and left the scene. Will told me that the rope was missing. “You must’ve been asleep when someone grabbed it” - I said. No damage was done though; I didn’t have an emotional attachment for this piece of string.

Rita was gone. That’s what I read in the papers next day. 911 receives a call from the burning house, the woman on the other side of the phone tells operator that her house is on fire... after that, she hangs up. Firefighters found the garage door to be torn apart, no Rita or car found on the site.

After a few days of sleeping and trying to forget that life moved on outside the walls I called home, the phone rang. “Hey what’s up, it’s me, Rita. I’m in Reno right now, I love it over here. Gambling is good for my self esteem. Tim committed suicide, did you hear about it?”

“No, I’ve only been reading the economy side of the newspaper for the past few days. What happened?”

“Well, I called him and told him that I would be away for a while. That he shouldn’t look for me. I needed my space and some time away from everything. My life wasn’t working out and our relationship sucked. He was drunk as always, at his parent’s house. He told me he loved me and that he needed me. Eventually the sweet talk turned violent. Tim told me I was an evil son of a bitch for burning all our possession down. I told him to fuck off and hung up the phone.” She paused for a second to get a few breaths and then went on,

“My best friend, Carole, gave me a call a few hours later. She asked me if I was sitting down. I lied, of course, at the moment I was playing roulette at a casino. Tim had been found dead in his dad’s tool shed; he hung himself with a rope. Someone had written all over it the same set of four letters, W-I-L-L.”

“Interesting” – I said.

“Yeah… the weird thing is that I don’t feel bad at all. I’m actually kind of glad that he’s gone… I need to go though, the bathtub is full already and Michael, the bellboy, who I found quite attractive, is waiting for me in it.”

I told her that I was happy for her, which was, of course, another lie. In reality I didn’t give a shit. We hung up afterwards. After telling Will what happened I got into bed and fell asleep. Aunt Gina woke me up at the desert, a few hours later. “Champagne and cocktails for everyone” - Will said while he handed Tim a cigar. I smiled because for a mere second I felt complete… alive… full.