No woman, no rape ( an increasingly tragic comedy)

  "Rape.....like bad rape." (I've always had a shitty sense of humor)

          What the fuck is wrong with me?

    Chari  is on the floor crying hysterically. Rachel is yelling at me to leave. I'm just sitting there,  laughing like a madman.

     Why the fuck do I keep saying rape? I'm some sadists idiot parrot.

    Not being my house,  I'm pushed out into the night,  locks slamming shut louder than the door. They're afraid I'll come back.

  Alone again out in the cold, and I still can't stop laughing.
——------——-------------------------------

       Six hours earlier ....

"Rachel's back in town and wants to get together tonight. "

     Just testing the waters here. Jim knows about our tumultuous past, the multitude of heartbreaks bestowed on each other. 

    It's been nine years since our break-up, but we have seen each other three or four times when she would occasionally move back to town.  Each meeting ending up worse than the last. Still couldn't let go.

   After three years,  I run into her working at a new bar. Many hugs later we exchange numbers and agree to hang.

  "Do you think that's a good idea?  You guys seem to be a bad influence on each other."
  
Sage advice from Jim,  but it will go completely ignored.
----------------------------+---------------+--

   After some pre-gaming to quell my nerves, I walk in the doors of Public House to meet her.  Walking in to Rachel's cackle brings me back to a place I never thought I would be again. (Sworn I would never go to again.)

  Walk in to an empty bar except for Rachel,  her best friend Charlotte,  and the guy she's trying to set Charlotte up with, Derek.

We start downing good beer over claustrophobic laughter and innocent petting,  and I realize right then that I never stopped loving her. The fact she lives with her new boyfriend isn't stopping me, isn't stopping either of us.

As nervous as I was,  the jokes were forthcoming,  and what little wit I do have was doing me justice.  Seems like nothing could go wrong.

The plan was for the quartet to go to Chari's house and smoke until the outside world evaporated.

We get comfortable at the house as Chari grabs her guitar and a bag of weed bigger than even her bulbous head. Three blunts and four pipes are readied as we get her set list lined up. Chari has promised to amaze. Besides her overly large pate,  she's very attractive.

She starts singing her siren song, and I was put into a state of suspended reality. I had never been this close to someone with a voice like that. The only thing moving in that room were the chills up and down my spine. Rachel is laying with her head on my shoulders.  I can't stop smiling.

Derek is on the floor enrapt as well. It might just work out for those two.

I feel happy,  content.  All the noises and voices have ceased except for Chari's. This is all I need.

It was like old times with Rachel,  like our past life being reborn.

It took thirty minutes to change all that.
--———---------------------------------
( let the author now to fill you in about a certain lifestyle.  I, dear reader,  am a pusher. I always have been.  Not with drugs, but with emotions. Through jokes, threats, and stories; everything gets pushed to a point of no return.

This is one of those stories.

-----------------------------------------------

After a few songs, enough to where I had to take a breath( hadn't breathed since she starte, Derek announces he has to take off. Sad to see him go, but the three of us are staying and partying,  so no worries on this end.

Chari walks him and his bike down to the street to say bye, which leaves Rachel and I getting closer on the couch.  Two inches from making a great moment/stupid mistake, Chari comes back in. 

Derek only hugged her, but she's optimistic for the future. She says she likes that he's going slow and is quite smitten.

I start my downfall by saying that he will never want her.
(Collective reader sigh)

At first she's interested I'm my perspective.  Then I go into a different mode.

"You do know he's going to kill you, right"

(Silence. Her quivering lip)

"At least rape you."

( silence fades into sobbing, which is my cue to push it)

  " I just picture him coming up here after we leave and going crazy. I just don't know if he'll rape you before or after he kills you."

Also at this time I start laughing uncontrollably.

------—-*----------------*----------

" Rape .....like bad rape."

Rachel is giving me the shut the fuck up face while Chari's on the floor bawling her eyes out.

My asperger mind finally starts reading the room and I begin to apologize to both girls profusely.  After about ten minutes, the crying subsides and we settle down to hear the rest of the set.

As Chari's grabbing the guitar in the wake of the sobbing, I push again.

   "He will seriously rape you."

Sheer fucking pandemonium.

—----------------------*---***---------/

Out on the street, hands hidden in pockets from the cold. Im still laughing.

Realize how far away I am from home.  Then I see it.  A yellow cab, like a smokers tooth in the cotton mouth of pre-dawn.

On the way home I rant to the driver my story.  Stoically he sits,listens, ponders,  then responds.

  "Trust only two things in this world. 1. Just cause you naked, don't mean you sexy. And 2. You keep pushing,  you're gonna push them all away.

He then tried to sell me speed

Not Like Stone

The cracks in the mirror capture the cliche of flickering fluorescent lights, distorting my face in an array dismal colors.  At least I think it’s my face. Am I forgettable even to myself? I’m shifting in and out of focus, a funhouse mirror bending and twisting me out of shape. I begin to morph into the faces of past messages. Into the stealing business partner, the suicidal investment banker, the cheating husband, the cheating husband, oh and the cheating husband. So many scorned women. Rule of thumb boys,  keep your dick out of that hot, young strange.

  I’m dreaming. Unconscious perhaps. Dead maybe. Dead would be good. Unlikely.

I recognize this place, it’s darker than before. Hellish. It’s the apartment of my first message. My first kill. Tony...Tommy...no, Todd, it was Todd, I think. I remember all of my messages, but names, they’re pointless. Tonytommytodd knew, they always know. My face, forgettable to everyone, but as recognizable as the boney reaper himself when the door opens to receive their message.  

I first put a bullet in each of his kneecaps, take the ground out from under him like he took it from me, then a bullet to each shoulder, remove the ability for him to console his pain, then one to the groin, take his manhood as he did to me, another bloody bullet to the base of his spine and I propped him up in his livingroom chair, leave him to sit and rot, to feel only the pain that pounds against the wall of his skull. Let him feel what it’s like to never move or live again.

I don’t know how long it took for Tonytommytodd to bleed out of this earth, but I’m certain that in those remaining moments he contemplated the worth of all those gin and tonics and rumpy shots the night he wrapped his car around that telephone poll, paralyzing his college buddy from the neck down.  Understanding only in those last moments that to save himself that night, placing his immobile friend behind the wheel to take the fall so he could save his own future would come back on him this way. 

The dried, dead blood of Tonytommytodd pools all around him. The pain has gone from his face. I’m floating in front of him, weightless as a helium balloon. His eyes open, pretty and opaque. Fearless. Free from the paralysis, he tilts his head to meet my gaze. 

“I’m glad it was you, Messenger.”

Every word, like a ball peen hammer knocks against my noggin, come echoing back. 

“I’m glad it was you, Messenger.” 

Louder this time. The room rocks and sways, titling on it’s axis. I’m staring down on the Judge now. His belly agape and spewing a putrid black goo. I feel dizzy and sick. I feel the tickle of vomit in my throat. 

“I’M GLAD IT WAS YOU, SOREN!”

--------------

I scream and smack my head against the passenger side window. 

“Jesus Christ man, you scared the shit out of me!” The Girl says.

“Where are we? Where are going? Whose car is this?” My jaw throbs with every word. 

“Whoa, slow down twenty questions! Relax. You took quite a pummeling back there. You just laid there and took that beating. Why didn’t you fight back?”

“I don’t know.” I mutter. 

But I do, I do know why. I lost control. I’ve missed a step. How could I have? I don’t make mistakes? I’m always careful and meticulous. No...no, something isn’t right. This isn’t on me. I need to collect my thoughts. I need to think. I desperately need...

“Pull over at the next station,” I spit, “I need cigarettes.”

“Here,” she hands me the Bodyguards smokes. It only now that I notice she is clothed, dirty jeans and a tattered Ramones t-shirt. The Judges makeover, smudged and smeared. The thought of his touches still haunting her, though she hides it well.

“They fell from your pocket, I thought I might snag one.” 

I roll down the window and toss them out. 

“Hey?”

“Not my brand. Pull off here. There’s a station up ahead.”

The gas station is lit up like an alien landing pad, E.T. didn’t get this sort of welcome.  Twenty something gas pumps, a Subway at one end and a Dunkin Donuts at the other. We pull to the far end and I start to exit the car.

“Umm, I’m not sure you wanna go in there looking like that.” The Girl says with a snotty chuckle. My shirt is covered in blood. The Judges blood. It sticks to me as I pull the shirt off. 

“No shirt, no shoes, no entrance! Pretty common policy these days.”

She’s right. I need to get my shit together. I gotta think like a killer. Right now I’m pretty much acting like a pussy. I reach in my pocket and pull out two tens and place them in her hand.

“I’m sure they have shirts in there, just grab me one.”

“I would ask for a ‘please,’ but, eh...whatever.” 

She walks inside the store and I want  to run. I am better than this or at least I was. Now, I’m trapped in this Ford Focus, bloody and beaten. Exposed...found out. Where did I screw up? The dream? What was the first message trying to say to me? Was it significant or just my blathering subconscious trying to rub it in. Was it leading me back to something or am I just hoping it will?

I’m startled by the car door opening. The Girl tosses the shirt at me. I put it on. It’s black with bold white lettering, “You Need Jesus Bro, Just Saying.” 

“You’re kidding me, right?” 

“What?” She says, all innocent and shit. Like women do when they know they’ve pulled a fast one by you and you can’t do a damn thing about it. 

“You said...”

“Yeah, I know what I said.” A near death experience can cause a person to act in different ways. I’m grumpy and she’s being a giddy bitch. To each their own. 

I’m back in front of a mirror. This one’s real. This one’s ME. My left eye is all but swollen shut. My jaw looks Iike spring at sunrise, beautiful pink and purple hues. Cuts and scrapes. There’s no other way around it. I got my ass kicked. Plain and simple. My blood, the Judges blood, my attackers blood (probably not though) all of it disappears down the drain in one, slow slug like trail. Someone enters the bathroom. They seemingly float between my reflection and myself. My senses are heightened. My imagination and self are in conflict, battling it out for supreme ruler of my extinction. I need to regroup. I need a cigarette between my fingers. 

A line? Of course a fucking, mother fucking line. I’m six deep, at least, and some old bag is picking out her scratcher tickets one by one. Her frail voice makes me what to strangle what pathetic piece of shit life she has left. Just as I’m Imagining her vocal folds crushing into a soft, pulpy mass, a hand grabs my arm. I jump and coil my fist. 

“We HAVE to go! Like NOW!” The Girl says.

“Leave me be. I need my smokes.” She takes her soft fingers to my chin and slow turns my head sideways and slightly aloft. It takes a few seconds. I’ve been knocked down a peg or three. I am so far out of my game, there’s no one even in the grandstands anymore. A familiar little neon Indian flashes on the screen behind the cashier. BREAKING NEWS: Judge Timothy Marcus found dead. Authorities are on the lookout for this individual. 

There I am, for the world to see. Once a ghost among the living...now, a wanted fugitive. I stare at myself staring back at me. 

“How did you fuck this up? How did you fuck us both?” I know he’s really not speaking to me, I know my lips aren’t really moving from this age old picture, but he does have a point. We have a point. A serious problem. 

She’s leads me out the door, pulling me like a little kid fixated on the candybar he really wanted.

“Come on! Get in the fucking car.” she snarls at me. 

I do so. Zombified, I collapse into the front seat of the Focus. The Girl puts it into drive and speeds away. We hit the highway and all the headlights are a blur. Little bits and pieces are crumbling all around me. 

“I need to think. I need my cigarettes.” 

“Here,” she shoves a pack into my lap. “They’re Reds, take one and shut the fuck up for a second.”

Reds? Marlboro Reds? I open the pack without hesitation. I pull one out and give it a slow drag across my nose. That familiar smell jump starts my brain and my receptors open wide, like mother's loving hug. 

She flicks to the life the BiC lighter in her hand and leans it across to me. I push it away.

“What the fuck, man?” 

“I don’t smoke. Not anymore that is.” 

I need them to think. A habit is a habit. I twirl the Red between my thumb, index and middle fingers. Back and forth and back and forth again, the rotation seduces and relaxes me. Distractions slowly dissipate and my mind is already partly cloudy. Moses with his crooked staff couldn’t part the seas of oblivion with this kind of ease. Then it hits me. 

“Richard!!” I yell out loud. “Fucking dick, how could I be so dumb?” 

“Huh?” The Girl says

“I need to find Richard! Do you have access to a computer?”

“Huh...yeah, I know a guy, but he’s sorta...umm, out there. He’s not gonna like us just showing up unannounced.”

“Just get me there and I will take care of that.”

“Look,” she says and then lets out a sigh, “If we are in this, then we are in this together. I’m most likely as fucked as you are. They didn’t find my body in that Motel, so whomever is doing this, my picture is next to get its fifteen minutes of fame. If I’m gonna vanish from this world like Amelia Earhart, then I like to at least know the name of the last person I’m possibly ever gonna know! My name is Stone.”

Names...I hate names. To name something either gives it power or it can take that power away. I don’t see that I have much choice here. 

“My name is Soren. Now get us somewhere safe!”