Jack’s Assassination Attempt #27, Marla’s Happy Skin Patterns

Truth always gets you in trouble. Truth is the source of all troubles. Yes, people say lying is what gets to you. But in reality, being CAUGHT lying is what screws you. In other words, if the truth would not have surfaced, there would be no trouble to begin with. So, it is from that fear of truth that fiction is born. But what happens when reality is stranger than fiction? This.

Yes, as you might know, my name is Jack. And this is in no way a clever ploy to avoid being confused with an “Alex” of some sorts.

Stumbling like a pinball.

In less than two weeks, I’ve had 3 hook ups, 5 highs, 14 hang overs, and 2 assassination attempts. Yes, I guess I must be really popular.

Normal people only are threatened to be killed a maximum of 0.5 times in one lifetime. That .5 generally being perpetuated by a random/unknown criminal who wishes to mug them. I don’t sell drugs, I’m not overly good looking, nor overly tall, nor overly buff. In fact, I’m not good looking, I’m short, and weak. Yet, some people after getting to know me, want to kill me. Something in me triggers the “Must Kill Jack” effect.

First assassination attempt I can recall happened in the 7th grade. That winter was the one in which my platonic girlfriend and I got in a fight. My neighbor and I became best friends… for the winter. We would have probably stayed best friends even after my reconciliation with my platonic girlfriend… if it wasn’t for the day in which I get home and there’s a approximately a dozen of postcards and notes filled with Pochacco stickers saying, “I love you”… or other things like our names followed by the words “4ever.” Forever is a long time… a long time if you don’t die young.

Band-aids.

So, this girl with the dozen postcards came to my house wearing only high heels and a sweatshirt. Where are her pants? Where are her flip-flops? I was too young, and God-fearing to go through with it. After that, I stopped answering her phone calls. Consequently she tried to beat up my “actual” platonic girlfriend… followed by her attempt to stab me with one of those blue BIC pens they sell a dozen for a penny. I hid behind a glass door, and I can just recall her tears as her small adolescent hands held that pen, aiming at my cowardly eyes.

Regret.

I call Marla on the public telephone at the mental institution. She sounds distracted. Someone wants to deal her a cigarette in exchange of some matches. She hesitates to make the exchange. After all, those are the matches she uses to burn her thighs every night. Without them, she will have to use wall peelings to be able to create those detailed patterns on her skin.

She doesn’t really pay attention. She actually laughs at the fact peeps want me dead. I don’t see the joke. I think less of her now.

It all started with the events that took place after my diabolical romance with 2cb. Remember my hangover the other day? I showed up to work 5 hours late, and ended up leaving early. Something about errands to run. As I get off my work chair, I leave traces of grass behind and dirt too. I guess I should have looked in the mirror before coming in. Or maybe I shouldn’t have come in at all. Am I sabotaging my own life? Freud would be so proud.

My depression levels are escalating. My bed is empty. No Marla to give a massage to when her body gets overly stiff in the mornings. Damn muscle relaxers… all 900 milligrams of them.

I call every number on my cell phone, absolutely no one picks up. The only person who does though, is my 2cb friend. Yes, the one with the friend who owes him money, the one with the two cigarette boxes. I tell him I’m empty, yet don’t want to go to church, and less get married. He asks for my email address, which I cannot reveal here for the protection of the parties involved. Basically, he adds me to this mailing list, this “Green Fungus” events list. This form of electronic communication would tell me everyday where the next party was happening, so I would never be alone again. How wonderful of this list to keep me informed. I wonder about the person who keeps this database. He must be an entity as knowledgeable as god, or better yet, google.

I become a scenester. Although they all know I’m a newbie. Something about my boring fashion sense, and my love for BudLight. They don’t really serve it here. ‘Hmmm, what are the house beers?’ I ask. “Can you give me something that looks like baby urine, not something that could be the product of chronic kidney failure, please.” I smile. The bartender doesn’t see the humor. He should, he’s wearing an “I <3 Dick” t-shirt and still has a curling iron attached to his wig. Quick hallucination. Everyday they hold a different party. Green Fungus helped me patch up the issues with my loneliness with these “events.” The fact that I was 33, and had nothing in my life to ground me helped me find this shit extremely appealing. Green Fungus would offer peace, and companionship. It wasn’t as good as Scientology, but it worked. I realized though, it was always the same people, again, and again… and again. At first it was difficult to distinguish because they were all wearing different costumes every night. I started asking them, “How were you informed of this event? (the word “party” or “rave” is too overrated) Their reply always the same: “The Green Fungus Mailing List.” The people who would be too embarrassed to admit they had an email address would always say, “Word of mouth.” As if that would make their experience a more dignified one. Soon enough I learned that all scenesters have to throw at least one party a year. That’s how Green Fungus manages to offer daily parties to the needy, and the hungry of spirit and heart. All you gotta do is choose a theme, buy some beer (preferably no BudLight), and the party goers can take it from there. Yes, this is what we call being an “active” citizen. Sickening. My party theme is Marlboros. Cigarettes are my drug of choice, regardless of the coke lines and hash that covered my coffee table, like a kiss of Anthrax, straight from the poppy seeds harvested by Osama Bin Laden himself in the far far (very far) east side of Afghanistan. Ya know, the part where no camera crew can go in, hence no war. The part where all the children play, women in burkas dance, and men wearing turbans fuck goats. Yes, the happy pastoral part. In my party, the walls were covered by Marlboros, and people needed to have at least one Marlboro in their mouth or they would be kicked out of the place by Pakistani bouncers. Soon enough, the house was an inferno of smoke and stink. Casual smokers were coughing, while heavy smokers were fearing the night’s end. The house looked like a firefighter’s drill. Smoke accumulating in the top areas near the ceiling, like a cloud; while the faint of heart would sit in the lowest cushion they could find, to find the purest de-carbonized oxygen their weakening nostrils could take. Why didn’t they leave? Neighbors were complaining about the noise levels, of course. Each hour would bring in an extra neighbor to complain. I guess that’s how mobs come into existence. One person, gets the next, gets the next, gets the next… Word of mouth. And all it takes is for one individual to throw a rock, a fist, or an egg, for a fight to break loose… or for a gun to be shot. I’m smoking pot, hooka, and Marlboro Regulars by myself on my couch… just watching the guests fend off the angry neighbors. Waiting for the mob outside try and fight off the mob that was already inside. Decent humans vs. nihilistic bastards. Wonder who would win? Organized Chaos. A woman sits on my lap, and says she’s been watching me. She seems familiar… but I don’t have time to see who she is, because soon enough she’s kissing me. Also it didn’t help that smoke surrounds us, making our bodies seem like a gaussian blur in a cheap “Photoshopped” photograph. My fingers are digging into the skin that covers her waist, and my mouth is on her neck. She says, “You truly don’t remember me?” She’s the angelic demon from the first “event” I attended. “You…” I smile. Didn’t know her name… but I constantly looked at her picture on my iPhone. That picture that testified to the deceitful nature of drugs. “What’s your name?” I whisper on her ear as I nibble at it. I hear her say “Emma.” Pretty name. As the people evacuate the “Titanic” to continue the fight down the street, Emma and I fuck in the middle of all chaos. In fact, for us, there was no chaos. Just crazy, degenerate, wrong, violent, mad fucking. Sex. Great sex. What I couldn’t do on 2cb, I did tonight on plain old Marlboro overdose. We rolled on the floor not caring about the shattered bottles of imported beer surrounding us. The floor sticky with wine, made it difficult to distinguish if it was the product of our own excitement. Things are often too good to be true. After the smoke clears, after the mob dissolves, and no more neighbors are throwing eggs out their windows (like medieval archers), Emma and I finish up with our fucking. She struggles to find her clothes, and says she doesn’t do sleep-overs. As I slide on my boxers, I say, “Ok… I’ll escort you to your car.” Always the gentleman. We walk out of the building holding hands, and soon enough we stop dead on our tracks. My friend, the one who subscribed me to Green Fungus, the one who has the guy who owes him money, the one with the two cigarette boxes, comes running towards me out of nowhere. He’s being chased by 8 people. I think he’s in trouble. But soon enough I realize I’m the one in trouble when he launches a punch at me. Before I know what’s going on, he’s on top of me, and being pulled off of me, as he clings onto my shoe. His face is bloody, and he’s just screaming “FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, JACK!!” The strength of the possessed. And I thought it was turning out to be such a great night. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know he wants me dead. The girl and I make a run for it… although it is more difficult for me to run now without a shoe, tripping on all the egg yolk. By morning, these eggs would be a feast for the local dogs…. scrambled by drunken feet, seasoned by blood, and heated by the sun. I say goodbye to Emma after the coast is clear, and return to the house only to find her earring on my floor right next to an empty bottle of wine, and a dozen empty Marlboro boxes. And that’s emptiness for you… it is the negative space left by a memory. An empty bottle, that black mass of a black hole, a used condom, the time/space where you throw in all the love, all the chaos, all the galaxies, all the money into, and it still cannot be filled. For emptiness is infinite. Static.