The Nonconformist Initiative II
Oh, the tension. Locked eyes and bated breath, clenched fists and spread feet. I can taste it. I cracked my neck and popped my knuckles. Flat out honestly, there really was no need to - my opponent was my own mother after all - but I felt it was best to strike fear and intimidation in her despicably evil little mind early for a head-start. It was like having a fresh can of Mountain Dew have wild sex with a Coca Cola inside a backpack for an hour and you couldn't quite decide if you wanted to let those fuckers out or not. It would feel so, oh so very wrong yet oh so very ridiculously satisfying at the same time. I savored the potential. Ultimately, I went for it.
'What the hell do you want?'
'I've been watching how you've been scrubbing that bathtub for the past hour and boy, there is attitude in the way you clean. No, Jimmy, I should be asking you what the hell you want.'
'Leave me alone.'
'Tell me what your problem is and I'll go.'
'You really don't want to go there.' Fair warning. If she wants it, she asks for it.
'I really do.'
'One last one...' I'm feeling generous today.
'No.'
'Why the fuck do I have to scrub this bath-tub?'
'You know your uncle's coming over. They're staying the night. Hospitality and a clean home is all I'm asking for Jim, that's all I want. Nothing else.'
'What is this, like your preemptive blow job to a mental handicap?' I have a tendency of going overboard with my words when I lose my cool. Not a pretty sight, perhaps, but you can't deny the amusement factor, right? 'What, you think your Uncle's going to wonder in the middle of taking his hot fucking bath, 'I do wonder why this bath tub is so dirty!'? It's a bathtub mom. A fucking bathtub. It's supposed to be dirty. I can handle vaccuming underneath the bed, in spite of the likelihood that someone's going to go peeking under there is NONE. I can handle dusting the little nooks and crannies inquisitive little bastards really shouldn't be sticking their damn noses into. I can handle all that. What I can't handle is THIS.'
In my sublime and Godly fit of teenage rage, I seized a bucketful of mildew-y bleach water and splattered it across the walls.
'It's the Devil.' My mother whispered, trembling. 'The Devil is inside you today.'
'Kiss my bologna you vacuum-sucker!' Frankly, I prefer to opt for the logical route myself and reason through these things with a touch of subtle sarcasm just to throw them off guard because it's just that ridiculously easy, but I wasn't feeling so creative today so I used a favorite phrase of mine. What?
'You're possessed. Just like always!' Ho boy, here we go again. Whenever my mother is at a loss for words, she uses the 'ol Exorcist line as her fall back. Her little 'retreat' once she realized she was beginning to lose this little game of ours we would play whenever I assumed she was PMS-ing. Funny, she was usually pulling the usual verses out of her ass before she went there but I suppose she, too, wasn't feeling up to the task. Oh well, easier for me.
'Want some Dentyne Ice?' I screamed in a way Jack Nicholson's Joker would have been proud of.
'What!?' I take it upon my liberty to study the varying degrees of insanity one's face goes through when the say this word once they reach a point of such utter disbelief and stupidity that nothing else comes to mind except this. It really is quite interesting. When the 'wh-' sound comes, her eyes squeeze shut and her lips pucker up and I like to imagine she's kissing a very hideous man - aka her husband. At the '-at' sound, her eyes snap wide open and her mouth is like the vast entrance to some repugnant cave. Now that I think about it, a little like Leonidas. Funny how that works.
'I'm gonna give it to you. I'm gonna give you some fucking Dentyne Ice!'
'You have lost your marbles Jim! LOST THEM!'
It's strange. All of this reckless insanity over her baseless assumption that I had some kind of 'attitude' while cleaning the bathtub. Some people these days. 'No, Mother Mary, I haven't lost them! They've just dropped so fucking low that you can't see them!' I should note here that my mother really is quite a tall woman. 6'6" to be exact. 6 inches taller than my father. Hey. 666. Who's the Devil now?
'Don't call me that!' She screamed, her hands like dieing spiders near her face.
I rolled my eyes. 'Like you're much of a religious woman anyway.'
'Don't bring that in here Jim.' She stuck a finger up. No, you dumbfuck. Not her middle. Her index. Kind of like a warning, you know? 'I've changed and you know that.'
'Yes, you have!' I slapped my hands to the sides of my head and made a face McCaulakay probably would have laughed at. 'I've completely forgotten about your miracle story!' With wide, shining eyes and tears gathering at the corners of my eyes, I sized up my mother's epic tale of loss and love through words of such heartfelt emotion and passion that anyone watching me would have laughed at my terrible performance. 'A woman in her mid-30s! A sleazy alcoholic with a deadbeat husband and an unappreciative son! A cold, cruel, and unforgiving world!' I spoke to an audience that didn't exist. 'Sounding familiar?' Regardless of her outraged cries, I kept on trucking. 'And suddenly, she found God!' My hands clasped in prayer and I dropped to my knees, sobbing. Well, not really. I was stifling a heartless laugh. Such impassionate cruelty rubbed in the face of someone you should love. Man, I really was an asshole. Oh well.
She didn't really know what to say then. Just kind of stood there.
I stood up and tore off my shirt.
Messily scrawled across my chest and my stomach were the words. The Nonconformist Initiative. And then I laughed.