Orange Juice
There were some guns. Well, lots of guns. And gunshots and blood. It was horrible. Have you ever seen tragedy? Devastation? Thousands of millions of billions of people with deep, dark crimson dried to their clothes and wounds? It’s like paint, the blood. It turns to a near-black and doesn’t come off, ever. Think World War scenes. Think gray, bloodstained brick in Eastern Europe. Everyone’s wearing earthy grays and greens and browns and blacks. It’s cloudy, damp and the sun is constantly setting. Nothing is bright, nothing is happy-there is no warm sunshine, no energizing flash except the flash of mortar and gunfire. It’s death and loss, depression and dark clouds, and that’s sepia’s realm.
There are panicked men running around, coat tails flapping, arms waving to catch wool flat caps flying off heads. Think explosions, screams interrupted by death, relentless panic and dead people. Dead people in the streets, dead people on the roof, dead people in the backs of military trucks, dead people in piles, dead people in their homes with the front door wide-open, breeze carrying the smell of death outside, where it already smells like dead people because dead people are everywhere. The amount of bodies is overwhelming; they don’t vanish after five or ten seconds like they do in video games. These empty containers stick around-you can still look into their eyes and, what’s worse, they can still look into yours.
Those lucky enough to be alive are running around and shouting orders, men telling women and children to run this way and that, like little gnats just buzzing in circles over the same goddamned patch of grass. Then one of them looks right at you-a person, not a gnat-and he’s shouting something to a child at his hip and he catches your frightful glance. His face is wrinkled with distress and he’s making the most painful, sorrow-filled facial expression in history. You can see it in his eyes, in his mouth, the way his cheeks sag and crease. He’s probably forty-five and knows he’s going to die but he’s trying to save his family or someone or something. A couple of his kids have probably died already and he probably saw the bullets trickle into their body one by one in extra-agonizing slow motion. He doesn’t have time to be indignant, desperate, mournful-only to scream a few curse words in chaotic frustration and grunt a few instructions to those kind enough to survive, as he thinks about where he’s leading them. You catch his eye and he catches yours and just when you’ve connected-when you know exactly what he’s thinking-a bullet rips through his neck and then another grazes his nose, removing it’s tip, and then another whizzes though his eye and he falls dead.
Think war. Think fatality. Think rape. Think torture. Think bullets entering thin, meek flesh and think how that bullet just punctures a nasty, bursting demon hole in everything. In one side and out the other. But don’t forget about the bullets to the head. The ones that shatter a little gap in the skull and then get lost in the brain, think gray matter turning to black matter. To dead matter-nothing. You can’t be afraid when you’ve been shot in the amygdala, the cerebral cortex-you can’t speak when a flying bullet has disintegrated Broca’s Area. You can’t move because you’re fucking dead, instantly. But it’s not all bullets. There are knives too; swords and bayonets and machetes. Think daggers plunging into thighs, blood dribbling and then pouring, clip-pointed combat knives penetrating chests, squirming their way towards hearts, worming through tissue, tendons and arteries like a crooked pirate skive. Think heads rolling and think dark red.
All of this happened to me.
I’m pretty sure there were more explosions than I mentioned though, because I forgot to talk about all the grenades and the napalm and the people just throwing rocks, ready to get shot or exploded or stabbed in the side: so think fire. There are sporadic fires, blazes burning sideways. Some buildings are burning and some corpses are too, but the constant rain is hindering the flames from progressing. It is raining everywhere in the whole world at the same time, forever, and there will probably be a giant flood that no god could subside. The rain can’t rinse the streets of blood because the blood is thicker and dries even though it’s raining. But when the flood comes it will soak that dried blood and the violent waves will clean it all up, like a hand towel swiftly moving over a Kool-Aid covered kitchen countertop. The floodwater will soak up all the blood and the world will be one giant red ocean. Half blood and half salt water. That probably won’t happen ‘til tomorrow though, so I’ve got some time to kill.
Then I got fired from my job at Best Buy. Greg said I was stealing CDs and DVDs from the back when everyone was unloading the trucks. He said I stole two thousand dollars worth of shit in my three years there. I didn’t realize it was that much. His thick, black eyebrows separated and got wide so he didn’t have as much of a uni-brow and his shoulders, which usually slouched forward to bear the weight of his gut, got wide too, pulling his gut up, and he yelled and his neck got red and all the wiry tendons in his neck and elbows got tight and sharp. He said I was a retard for not re-taping the boxes that I opened and took shit from and that I was even more retarded for stealing from unopened boxes, but fuck him ‘cause I never stole from unopened boxes. Think paternal tones and think self-righteous anecdotes. Think voices getting louder, deeper too-think a crowd of employees slowly gathering in the back. Think concerned faces and think condescending, I-told-you-so looks and think wet shoes squeaking on the gray cement floor as they cluster closer. He started to yell and the employees formed a ridiculous circle around us, just like in the movies. Sheila started laughing at me because my face was getting red. “He’s so busted,” she snickered to Pam. But that’s bullshit; my face was getting red because I was getting pissed.
“Fuck you, Sheila,” I said.
“You can’t talk to me like that!” She looked to Greg.
“Fuck you, I’m fired, I can say whatever I want,” I turned back to Greg, “I never stole from unopened boxes, I swear. That was Cole and you fired him two months ago.”
“So you did steal from opened boxes?” Greg said, like the question was the answer to the fucking question.
“Fuck this.”
I didn’t move for a couple of seconds. No one else did either. It felt like a solid minute, but it wasn’t.
“Fuck you,” Greg said-
Think yelling, think twenty people watching two people scream and curse and shout at each other. Think Robby holding me back and think Greg’s elevated gut bouncing up and down, jiggling back and forth as he bends his knees and gets up on his toes to yell even louder. Remember the sharp, wiry tendons? Times that by six in Greg and me, but now it’s in our veins and jaws too, like pink Hulks. Faces are red to the ears, short on oxygen because it’s all leaving as fast as we can shove an insult or a cuss out with it. We’re gasping for more; lips are covered with spit and saliva that’s heavy and muddied with our dirty words and anger. Sentences of vulgar insults concerning mothers, sexual orientation, ancestry, penis size, physical attractiveness and intelligence quickly warp into a slurring of curses and one-word insults bellowed at an increasing volume. Those pointed verbal jabs slowly mutated into deep, jagged throat noises, muffled by the thickening saliva that was flooding our mouths. The more we yelled the thicker it got, like expired syrup whirling off our lips as we emphasized and annunciated p’s and t’s and b’s and f’s and eventually we’re not even making words.
He choked and coughed, catching his breath first so I won. His legs fell beneath him and he brought down Pam and Sheila, who were struggling to hold him up for the last five minutes. He spat an enormous white and yellowish-green glob onto the cement floor and labored to his knees. He couldn’t stand quite yet. I was still standing though, and all that gooey spit was caroming down my chin, but I still felt like a badass. He didn’t say anything, he just sat there, hands on his knees, chest heaving, trying to catch his breath. I took off my blue Best Buy polo, with that absurd yellow tag embroidered on the left breast, and threw it at him emphatically. It landed on his head, rolled off his shoulder and then fell into his pile of spit. He ignored it initially, and then wiggled it off his head, still just trying to catch his breath. I really hadn’t moved much either, but after throwing my shirt I felt like a double badass. Think thinking you are a badass, but then realizing that you have no money for food or clothes or rent or life. Think thinking you didn’t win anything at all. Think why is everyone trying to kill me?
All of this happened to me.
Then my girlfriend broke up with me. Just moved out. I pulled up as she was loading her car. Think yelling, but not like Greg-yelling, like desperate yelling-like crying yelling. But only me yelling. Think catastrophic heartbreak. Think hearts and minds and souls exploding. Think of all your exhausting efforts of commitment and sincerest sentiments gone in an instant. Think a determined, far-off look on her face and think adrenaline and panic and absolute desperation. Think thinking of all the places you fucked up and of all the what-ifs and think that horrible, paralyzing feeling in the middle of your abdomen. Think sitting on the couch or on your bed, the same couch you’d watched countless movies on or the same bed you’d slept in together every night. Think of the spilled popcorn, giggle-filled wrestling matches, wonderful sex, the dinners made, songs sung off key, drunk dances, the late nights and early mornings, coming back from your shit job to something that made you happy, new hairdos, the dogs cats and fish, the grocery shopping, the vacuuming and cleaning, the talking and the arguing. You can’t forget the arguing-can’t deny it. It wasn’t fun or romantic or sexy but it brought you closer and it was heartfelt and, sometimes, it was productive. Think sitting on that couch or bed and think of not moving, just thinking, for hours with that lonely numb feeling throbbing because Marcellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction has been working your gut for the past five hours. Think wanting to tell someone everything but realizing that the only person you can tell just walked out the door. Really, this all happened. Just to me.
There’s more: think crying-oh god, lots of crying. Think tears burning your soggy, red eyelids. Think crying on that couch, on that bed, lifting your head from a puddle of your own salt and water. Think piles of boxes of Kleenex for your now-runny nose. Think wallowing. There was a lot of that, too. Think thinking suicidal things. Think thinking about tomorrow and being even sadder. Think sitting and laying and napping and crying all day long. Think getting pissed at yourself for being such a pussy. Think keeping all the blinds down and the curtains shut all the time, listening to the most depressing CDs you’ve got and crying even harder when that singer screams of tragic romantic pain like you want to scream of tragic romantic pain. Think thinking he knows how you feel, but not exactly because your sadness is so much more complex, real, and uniquely unbearable than anyone else’s ever. Think taking miserable, despondent pictures of yourself but always failing to capture the authentic, rational gloom that is your world. Think walking up to your half-empty kitchen table in pajamas with peanut butter and jelly for every meal.
I thought she was stealing my shit at first; the way she her suitcases were packed up like a thief’s, with articles of clothing unfolded and hanging out along the edges; the way the cardboard boxes went unlabeled and weren’t assorted in any particular manner. “I’m leaving.” She said it like nothing, like she was going to the library or the grocery store.
“But, no. Why? Just stop!” I said, circling around my car, making my way to her. My feet ruffled the gravel driveway and I kicked a few stones as I neared. One of them bounced erratically until her ankle stopped it.
“I’ve been seeing this guy, Ronnie. I’m movin’ in with him.” She shoved the last cardboard box into the trunk, slammed it shut, crushing the box’s corner, and got into her car.
“I’ll forgive you. I love you.”
She just left. She didn’t even miss me or feel bad for me or even think about me at all ever again. And she cheated. For months-assuming Ronnie was the first. Shit. Remember the hearts and minds and souls exploding? Think of those exploded essentials stomped on repeatedly by twenty inch heels and then diced with CutCo knives by Emeril after they’ve been sharpened by Billy Mays with one of those Samurai Shark sharpeners. And then Billy puts Emeril’s choice cuts into the Ultimate Chopper and makes some sort of stew or soup and then feeds it to the person whose mind or soul or heart is missing. So you eat your own tortured, exploded heart-think that.
And she cheated. I mean, I cheated once or twice in the beginning, but I had the heart to stop and not let her know. And Ronnie isn’t the only one. Think your girlfriend sleeping with every dude on your block. Think her fucking your best friend and the mailman and the guy who delivered those flowers you bought for her and her screwing your boss and-maybe not your boss, but everyone ever except your boss, unless your boss is not Greg, in which case she definitely slept with your boss more than anyone, even you. Think of all the looks you get, everyone knowing what you don’t: that she’s having sex with them and with everyone. And she even let them do all sorts of positions and things she would never do with you. Think uncomfortable winks from complete strangers on the street and odd comments; smirks and eyebrow rises from party store clerks, dentists, dog walkers, shoe salesmen, and oil change mechanics. Think them all holding a little piece of your tormented and boiled heart/soul/mind in their pockets, twiddling it between their fingers as they pass you, squeezing it a little as they wink or chuckle or just stare. And then they pull it out of their pocket after you’re a block away and swallow it like a pill and crap it out later, flush it down the toilet, and now your severed heart is soaking in a river of shit below the city. Think of your heart down there, your soul too. You got your mind back because you need it to really think about this, but think of your soul and heart down there just floating around in shit and piss and vomit and tampons and dead goldfish in pieces. And the pieces of your heart know that the other pieces are down there too and they’re trying to find each other to reform and eventually to find you again, but there’s just too much shit in the way and the bacteria starts eating away and all of this happened to me.
Then my cat died. His name was Orange Juice and he was seven. He had a white belly with some gray and black, and some orange stripes on his back.
I woke up and he was just lying there in his usual spot: the computer chair. I used to spin it to wake him up. He would wake in a panic and instantly maneuver into a pouncing position, staying low, holding on to each and every one of those lives as the chair went ‘round and ‘round. When it stopped he would extend his legs, stretch, and jump down, looking back at me in disgust as he walked over to his litter box. And he used to help me finish my bowl of cereal in the morning, licking the milk as I scooped it out with my spoon. It was a race.
Now think of history and everything that’s ever happened ever. Now forget all that and think nothing’s ever happened ever. There were no guns. The world isn’t beginning and it isn’t ending, it’s just been for a long time. There was no devastation, no Operation Iraqi Freedom, no sepia. There were no explosions, no bullets tearing through flesh, no rape or torture and no fire. And that flood never came. There was no angry cussing and no one holding me back. There was no emphatic shirt removal or choking or spitting. There was no couch or bed filled with romantic memories, no odd glances or knowing winks. Ving Rhames and Emeril never showed up. But there was death. There was red. I was never in a war, just some battles. I never had a job to quit, an ally to restrain me, a girlfriend to leave me, people to care enough to give me creepy, fleeting looks. But there were tear-stained pillows, unpredictable pebble bounces, lives lost at my twitching finger, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and dead eyes staring back at me. There were times the only one I wanted to talk to was gone. And there were hearts exploded, chopped and stewed.
I ran over him with my car, backing out of the driveway on my way to the post office. I heard it and I knew what it was. I looked over to the passenger side mirror and saw the little orange stripes turning dark red. I pulled my car forward, running over him again in my panic. I circled around the car, feet rustling over the fucking gravel driveway, slipping, kicking stones everywhere-a couple rolling on top of Orange Juice’s flattened, bloody skull.
There are panicked men running around, coat tails flapping, arms waving to catch wool flat caps flying off heads. Think explosions, screams interrupted by death, relentless panic and dead people. Dead people in the streets, dead people on the roof, dead people in the backs of military trucks, dead people in piles, dead people in their homes with the front door wide-open, breeze carrying the smell of death outside, where it already smells like dead people because dead people are everywhere. The amount of bodies is overwhelming; they don’t vanish after five or ten seconds like they do in video games. These empty containers stick around-you can still look into their eyes and, what’s worse, they can still look into yours.
Those lucky enough to be alive are running around and shouting orders, men telling women and children to run this way and that, like little gnats just buzzing in circles over the same goddamned patch of grass. Then one of them looks right at you-a person, not a gnat-and he’s shouting something to a child at his hip and he catches your frightful glance. His face is wrinkled with distress and he’s making the most painful, sorrow-filled facial expression in history. You can see it in his eyes, in his mouth, the way his cheeks sag and crease. He’s probably forty-five and knows he’s going to die but he’s trying to save his family or someone or something. A couple of his kids have probably died already and he probably saw the bullets trickle into their body one by one in extra-agonizing slow motion. He doesn’t have time to be indignant, desperate, mournful-only to scream a few curse words in chaotic frustration and grunt a few instructions to those kind enough to survive, as he thinks about where he’s leading them. You catch his eye and he catches yours and just when you’ve connected-when you know exactly what he’s thinking-a bullet rips through his neck and then another grazes his nose, removing it’s tip, and then another whizzes though his eye and he falls dead.
Think war. Think fatality. Think rape. Think torture. Think bullets entering thin, meek flesh and think how that bullet just punctures a nasty, bursting demon hole in everything. In one side and out the other. But don’t forget about the bullets to the head. The ones that shatter a little gap in the skull and then get lost in the brain, think gray matter turning to black matter. To dead matter-nothing. You can’t be afraid when you’ve been shot in the amygdala, the cerebral cortex-you can’t speak when a flying bullet has disintegrated Broca’s Area. You can’t move because you’re fucking dead, instantly. But it’s not all bullets. There are knives too; swords and bayonets and machetes. Think daggers plunging into thighs, blood dribbling and then pouring, clip-pointed combat knives penetrating chests, squirming their way towards hearts, worming through tissue, tendons and arteries like a crooked pirate skive. Think heads rolling and think dark red.
All of this happened to me.
I’m pretty sure there were more explosions than I mentioned though, because I forgot to talk about all the grenades and the napalm and the people just throwing rocks, ready to get shot or exploded or stabbed in the side: so think fire. There are sporadic fires, blazes burning sideways. Some buildings are burning and some corpses are too, but the constant rain is hindering the flames from progressing. It is raining everywhere in the whole world at the same time, forever, and there will probably be a giant flood that no god could subside. The rain can’t rinse the streets of blood because the blood is thicker and dries even though it’s raining. But when the flood comes it will soak that dried blood and the violent waves will clean it all up, like a hand towel swiftly moving over a Kool-Aid covered kitchen countertop. The floodwater will soak up all the blood and the world will be one giant red ocean. Half blood and half salt water. That probably won’t happen ‘til tomorrow though, so I’ve got some time to kill.
Then I got fired from my job at Best Buy. Greg said I was stealing CDs and DVDs from the back when everyone was unloading the trucks. He said I stole two thousand dollars worth of shit in my three years there. I didn’t realize it was that much. His thick, black eyebrows separated and got wide so he didn’t have as much of a uni-brow and his shoulders, which usually slouched forward to bear the weight of his gut, got wide too, pulling his gut up, and he yelled and his neck got red and all the wiry tendons in his neck and elbows got tight and sharp. He said I was a retard for not re-taping the boxes that I opened and took shit from and that I was even more retarded for stealing from unopened boxes, but fuck him ‘cause I never stole from unopened boxes. Think paternal tones and think self-righteous anecdotes. Think voices getting louder, deeper too-think a crowd of employees slowly gathering in the back. Think concerned faces and think condescending, I-told-you-so looks and think wet shoes squeaking on the gray cement floor as they cluster closer. He started to yell and the employees formed a ridiculous circle around us, just like in the movies. Sheila started laughing at me because my face was getting red. “He’s so busted,” she snickered to Pam. But that’s bullshit; my face was getting red because I was getting pissed.
“Fuck you, Sheila,” I said.
“You can’t talk to me like that!” She looked to Greg.
“Fuck you, I’m fired, I can say whatever I want,” I turned back to Greg, “I never stole from unopened boxes, I swear. That was Cole and you fired him two months ago.”
“So you did steal from opened boxes?” Greg said, like the question was the answer to the fucking question.
“Fuck this.”
I didn’t move for a couple of seconds. No one else did either. It felt like a solid minute, but it wasn’t.
“Fuck you,” Greg said-
Think yelling, think twenty people watching two people scream and curse and shout at each other. Think Robby holding me back and think Greg’s elevated gut bouncing up and down, jiggling back and forth as he bends his knees and gets up on his toes to yell even louder. Remember the sharp, wiry tendons? Times that by six in Greg and me, but now it’s in our veins and jaws too, like pink Hulks. Faces are red to the ears, short on oxygen because it’s all leaving as fast as we can shove an insult or a cuss out with it. We’re gasping for more; lips are covered with spit and saliva that’s heavy and muddied with our dirty words and anger. Sentences of vulgar insults concerning mothers, sexual orientation, ancestry, penis size, physical attractiveness and intelligence quickly warp into a slurring of curses and one-word insults bellowed at an increasing volume. Those pointed verbal jabs slowly mutated into deep, jagged throat noises, muffled by the thickening saliva that was flooding our mouths. The more we yelled the thicker it got, like expired syrup whirling off our lips as we emphasized and annunciated p’s and t’s and b’s and f’s and eventually we’re not even making words.
He choked and coughed, catching his breath first so I won. His legs fell beneath him and he brought down Pam and Sheila, who were struggling to hold him up for the last five minutes. He spat an enormous white and yellowish-green glob onto the cement floor and labored to his knees. He couldn’t stand quite yet. I was still standing though, and all that gooey spit was caroming down my chin, but I still felt like a badass. He didn’t say anything, he just sat there, hands on his knees, chest heaving, trying to catch his breath. I took off my blue Best Buy polo, with that absurd yellow tag embroidered on the left breast, and threw it at him emphatically. It landed on his head, rolled off his shoulder and then fell into his pile of spit. He ignored it initially, and then wiggled it off his head, still just trying to catch his breath. I really hadn’t moved much either, but after throwing my shirt I felt like a double badass. Think thinking you are a badass, but then realizing that you have no money for food or clothes or rent or life. Think thinking you didn’t win anything at all. Think why is everyone trying to kill me?
All of this happened to me.
Then my girlfriend broke up with me. Just moved out. I pulled up as she was loading her car. Think yelling, but not like Greg-yelling, like desperate yelling-like crying yelling. But only me yelling. Think catastrophic heartbreak. Think hearts and minds and souls exploding. Think of all your exhausting efforts of commitment and sincerest sentiments gone in an instant. Think a determined, far-off look on her face and think adrenaline and panic and absolute desperation. Think thinking of all the places you fucked up and of all the what-ifs and think that horrible, paralyzing feeling in the middle of your abdomen. Think sitting on the couch or on your bed, the same couch you’d watched countless movies on or the same bed you’d slept in together every night. Think of the spilled popcorn, giggle-filled wrestling matches, wonderful sex, the dinners made, songs sung off key, drunk dances, the late nights and early mornings, coming back from your shit job to something that made you happy, new hairdos, the dogs cats and fish, the grocery shopping, the vacuuming and cleaning, the talking and the arguing. You can’t forget the arguing-can’t deny it. It wasn’t fun or romantic or sexy but it brought you closer and it was heartfelt and, sometimes, it was productive. Think sitting on that couch or bed and think of not moving, just thinking, for hours with that lonely numb feeling throbbing because Marcellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction has been working your gut for the past five hours. Think wanting to tell someone everything but realizing that the only person you can tell just walked out the door. Really, this all happened. Just to me.
There’s more: think crying-oh god, lots of crying. Think tears burning your soggy, red eyelids. Think crying on that couch, on that bed, lifting your head from a puddle of your own salt and water. Think piles of boxes of Kleenex for your now-runny nose. Think wallowing. There was a lot of that, too. Think thinking suicidal things. Think thinking about tomorrow and being even sadder. Think sitting and laying and napping and crying all day long. Think getting pissed at yourself for being such a pussy. Think keeping all the blinds down and the curtains shut all the time, listening to the most depressing CDs you’ve got and crying even harder when that singer screams of tragic romantic pain like you want to scream of tragic romantic pain. Think thinking he knows how you feel, but not exactly because your sadness is so much more complex, real, and uniquely unbearable than anyone else’s ever. Think taking miserable, despondent pictures of yourself but always failing to capture the authentic, rational gloom that is your world. Think walking up to your half-empty kitchen table in pajamas with peanut butter and jelly for every meal.
I thought she was stealing my shit at first; the way she her suitcases were packed up like a thief’s, with articles of clothing unfolded and hanging out along the edges; the way the cardboard boxes went unlabeled and weren’t assorted in any particular manner. “I’m leaving.” She said it like nothing, like she was going to the library or the grocery store.
“But, no. Why? Just stop!” I said, circling around my car, making my way to her. My feet ruffled the gravel driveway and I kicked a few stones as I neared. One of them bounced erratically until her ankle stopped it.
“I’ve been seeing this guy, Ronnie. I’m movin’ in with him.” She shoved the last cardboard box into the trunk, slammed it shut, crushing the box’s corner, and got into her car.
“I’ll forgive you. I love you.”
She just left. She didn’t even miss me or feel bad for me or even think about me at all ever again. And she cheated. For months-assuming Ronnie was the first. Shit. Remember the hearts and minds and souls exploding? Think of those exploded essentials stomped on repeatedly by twenty inch heels and then diced with CutCo knives by Emeril after they’ve been sharpened by Billy Mays with one of those Samurai Shark sharpeners. And then Billy puts Emeril’s choice cuts into the Ultimate Chopper and makes some sort of stew or soup and then feeds it to the person whose mind or soul or heart is missing. So you eat your own tortured, exploded heart-think that.
And she cheated. I mean, I cheated once or twice in the beginning, but I had the heart to stop and not let her know. And Ronnie isn’t the only one. Think your girlfriend sleeping with every dude on your block. Think her fucking your best friend and the mailman and the guy who delivered those flowers you bought for her and her screwing your boss and-maybe not your boss, but everyone ever except your boss, unless your boss is not Greg, in which case she definitely slept with your boss more than anyone, even you. Think of all the looks you get, everyone knowing what you don’t: that she’s having sex with them and with everyone. And she even let them do all sorts of positions and things she would never do with you. Think uncomfortable winks from complete strangers on the street and odd comments; smirks and eyebrow rises from party store clerks, dentists, dog walkers, shoe salesmen, and oil change mechanics. Think them all holding a little piece of your tormented and boiled heart/soul/mind in their pockets, twiddling it between their fingers as they pass you, squeezing it a little as they wink or chuckle or just stare. And then they pull it out of their pocket after you’re a block away and swallow it like a pill and crap it out later, flush it down the toilet, and now your severed heart is soaking in a river of shit below the city. Think of your heart down there, your soul too. You got your mind back because you need it to really think about this, but think of your soul and heart down there just floating around in shit and piss and vomit and tampons and dead goldfish in pieces. And the pieces of your heart know that the other pieces are down there too and they’re trying to find each other to reform and eventually to find you again, but there’s just too much shit in the way and the bacteria starts eating away and all of this happened to me.
Then my cat died. His name was Orange Juice and he was seven. He had a white belly with some gray and black, and some orange stripes on his back.
I woke up and he was just lying there in his usual spot: the computer chair. I used to spin it to wake him up. He would wake in a panic and instantly maneuver into a pouncing position, staying low, holding on to each and every one of those lives as the chair went ‘round and ‘round. When it stopped he would extend his legs, stretch, and jump down, looking back at me in disgust as he walked over to his litter box. And he used to help me finish my bowl of cereal in the morning, licking the milk as I scooped it out with my spoon. It was a race.
Now think of history and everything that’s ever happened ever. Now forget all that and think nothing’s ever happened ever. There were no guns. The world isn’t beginning and it isn’t ending, it’s just been for a long time. There was no devastation, no Operation Iraqi Freedom, no sepia. There were no explosions, no bullets tearing through flesh, no rape or torture and no fire. And that flood never came. There was no angry cussing and no one holding me back. There was no emphatic shirt removal or choking or spitting. There was no couch or bed filled with romantic memories, no odd glances or knowing winks. Ving Rhames and Emeril never showed up. But there was death. There was red. I was never in a war, just some battles. I never had a job to quit, an ally to restrain me, a girlfriend to leave me, people to care enough to give me creepy, fleeting looks. But there were tear-stained pillows, unpredictable pebble bounces, lives lost at my twitching finger, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and dead eyes staring back at me. There were times the only one I wanted to talk to was gone. And there were hearts exploded, chopped and stewed.
I ran over him with my car, backing out of the driveway on my way to the post office. I heard it and I knew what it was. I looked over to the passenger side mirror and saw the little orange stripes turning dark red. I pulled my car forward, running over him again in my panic. I circled around the car, feet rustling over the fucking gravel driveway, slipping, kicking stones everywhere-a couple rolling on top of Orange Juice’s flattened, bloody skull.