A Carton of Cigarettes and a Bag of Double Bubble

4


Shit, what would Holden do? Damn, what would Holden do? Fuck, man, what the holy hell would Holden do? Actually fuck that, Holden was just as nervous around some girls as I was. What would MacMurphy do? I fuckin’ knew the answer to that and it kinda pissed me off, but what the hell. I forgive you, MacMurphy, just because you were a cool motherfucker. Tina had a nice apartment; I sat on the couch while she was in the shower.
I didn’t know how the hell I got here; all I remember was leaving the goddam club and going to a nearby bar. I remember her sitting there at that bar, smoking a cigarette then walking over to the jukebox. I remember the way the coin caught the glimmer of light and how I started crying. I think I busted a coupla chairs before the bouncer beat me over the head and tossed me out in the goddamned street. I think Tina came over to me and held my head.. Then... I think I fuckin’ passed out. All I knew was that it was four AM and that the sun would be up in a fuckin’ hour. I hadn’t been home since my parents left a fuckin’ day ago.
I thought about how they said they would be coming in Monday fuckin’ morning. Goddam, that seemed like a lifetime away. I woke up lying on a couch when I heard Tina yell that she was grabbing a fuckin’ shower. That’s all fine, but what the hell happened when she got out.
I calmed myself realizing that she wasn’t much older than I was, but neither were the girls in school and that sure the hell didn’t fuckin’ help. I leaned back resting my eyes, popping a few pieces of gum into my mouth to kill the smell of alcohol. Jesus Christ, if only my parents could see me now. They probably wouldn’t be surprised, though, my uncle Rick always predicted I would be a problem. From the time I was four he said I’d end up in the slammer. Uncle Rick: one. H.C.: zero.
I sat there feeling at a loss for words, when I heard the shower turn off. Damn. Well, what the hell. Didn’t matter after all I was an ugly motherfucker in my book. But then again wasn’t Tina used to that for money? Goddamn money. I hated fuckers who thought money made you better than somebody else. Pisses me way the fuck and gone off.
One of the reasons I can’t stand talkin’ to girls sometimes is because of the way they ignore you. More than once I’ve found myself walking through the goddam mall, when I see a pretty girl. I look at her and she turns her headway the hell around and acts like I don’t even exist. All they see is blank fuckin’ air. Sometimes I want to scream, “Hey, man! Can’t you at least smile, nod, frown, give me the fuckin’ finger but anything except act like I don’t fuckin’ exist! Christ! I’m a fuckin’ human, well, at least I was the last motherfuckin’ time I checked, Lady!” Jesus H. Christ that kills me, man!
I lay awake in my fuckin’ bed at night and talk to all these girls in my head, telling them how pretty they are, and being chivalrous as hell, always courteous, that’s me. And I hear them giggle and talk about how nice it is to meet a nice guy for once, a guy who doesn’t fuckin’ wanna get ‘em in the sack, but just sit and talk. Then before I go to sleep, they kinda disappear and I always start crying. I don’t fuckin’ know why, but I always do. It happens to me almost every single fuckin’ night.
Well, I kinda wished I would pass right back the fuck out, but what the hell you can’t have everything, right? Well, I was just as nervous as hell, wanderin’ what the hell to do when Tina walks into living room, in a frilly pink bathrobe, not even fuckin’ tied all the way up for Chrissakes, and flops down on the couch right the hell next to me. I looked straight ahead trying to ignore the fuckin’ fact that she looked so damn good I could scream or the fuckin’ fact that she smelled like strawberries. Jesus H. Christ those scented shampoos play hell with a guys senses.
“I’m glad to see your finally awake.” she says like there is not a damn thing wrong. And there isn’t, its just my goddamn chivalry won’t permit me to look at her. The whole ‘keep your body under you’ routine. All of the sudden I was so damned tired I could have fell through the goddamn floor.
“Tina, its late- um early and I probably should be headed home.” I stuttered and stammered. Which was so fuckin’ funny because I had not one goddamned intention in this world to fuckin’ go home.
She looked at me for a minute, and then she did something I couldn’t believe. She kissed me! Jesus Christ, I woulda expected her to pull outta double-fuckin’-barreled shotgun and blown me to hell and gone before that! So I sat there trying my best to be a gentleman, but I tell you, man it was goddam hard. Her hair was still damp from her shower and she was all but laying on me. Finally, I gave in and kissed her back, after all nothing un-chivalric about kissing her back, right man? I think I just made up another word. Damn.
So anyway I didn’t go home I stayed right there with her on that sofa, kissing. I will say this we didn’t do anything else. After a few minutes we broke our kiss and I asked her why the fuck she did that?
“That’s what you expected me to do right?” she asked. Jesus she looked like a little girl.
“Jesus Christ no! I didn’t expect you to do that!” now there was a brilliant statement.
“Did you like it?” she had this schoolgirl sound in her voice all fun and games.
Hell yeah, I almost said.
“Hell yeah.” OK I did say it but I didn’t mean to. I meant to tell her she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to, and that I would respect her just as much. I meant to say I wasn’t here for anything other reason than that I had passed out and she had brought me here. Which I was.
“I thought so,” she said with this little fuckin’ grin playin’ around her mouth.
“Look, Tina, we don’t have to do this. I would be more than glad to sit on this couch and fuckin’ talk to you, than anything else.” I was blushin’ way the hell and gone by now feeling ashamed of myself. Jesus Christ I’m a madman motherfucker.
“I don’t mind paying you just like we did any other, I have plenty of money, but you don’t have to do this.” I took my hat off to get some money out to give her when she
laid down on the couch by me and closed her eyes.
“You OK, Tina?”
“Yes I’m just tired.” she laid her head in my lap. I kinda sat there wandering what the hell to do. Jesus H. Christ I never know how to fuckin’ act around girls.
“Talk to me, H.C.” fuckin’ great. What the hell was I supposed to talk about? The joys of five bullet Russian roulette? No. How I could never seem to fuckin’ talk to girls without makin’ a fool outta myself? If I could fuckin’ do that I wouldn’t need to talk to her about it! How I get so lonely at night I just fuckin’ sit there and hug myself? About the cuttings? NO!
So I started off, ranting about my childhood. About my parents, my relatives, about my favorite books, about my love for double bubble gum, about my bad habit of fuckin’ cussing, about high school, even about five fuckin’ bullet Russian roulette. I had been ranting for two straight hours when I looked down and realized she was asleep. I looked down at her laying there, she was fuckin’ perfect, man. Her hair was fuckin’ soft as feathers, and her skin was so fuckin’ smoothe I... I swear to Jesus I didn’t fuckin’ have one clue what to do. I just rested my hand on her head and started petting her. I felt like the biggest fuckin’ jerk in the world doing that, but I couldn’t help it. I looked at my watch.
As gently as I could I laid her head on a pillow that was on the floor, then I covered her with a blanket. I left about two hundred dollars on the table so she would find it when she woke up, then before I left I kissed her on the forehead.
“Time to go, Tina, slepp well, love.” I had just turned the lights off, it hit me where I had heard that before. I damn near cried. Jesus H. fuckin’ Christ I’m fucked up.
I kinda didn’t wanna leave, I was standing halfway in and outta the fuckin’ door lookin at her, thinkin’ I would probably never see her again. It was a goddam miracle I had seen her three times in one fuckin’ night. That shit never happened in New York, you pass a pretty girl on the street better look at her hard because in all likelyhood you ain’t never gonna see her again, motherfucker. Well, what the hell, you can’t have everything, right man?
Outside her door I pulled my cap down over my eyes, popped about ten pieces of double bubble into my mouth and headed for the elevator. Holden would be proud, I thought. MacMurphy on the other hand would think I was a fuckin’ faggot. The ride down was slow and fuckin’ tedious. Riding alone in a goddam elevator is about as much fun as eating a fuckin’ bullet, especially with some fuckin' sappy romance song playing over the goddam speaker. Jesus Christ, I was so fuckin’ happy to get outta that fuckin’ elevator I almost screamed, when the doors slid open.
Outta the lobby, and into the fuckin’ street, pulling my cap down lower hoping to hell the goddamn sun wasn’t up. I hated the day. I’m like a fuckin’ vampire, that’s what I didn’t fuckin’ tell Tina. Sometimes at night, I get so fuckin’ thirsty, so I have a knife in my room. I cut my arms or hand or fuckin’ something and drink the blood. I have fuckin’ scras all over my arms from that. My parents think I have demons, I think I am one so it doesn’t really fuckin’ matter much. I always feel so goddamned vulnerable in the day, like when I was in that goddam mall. You walk around in that place and you start to forget there is a door, so you fuckin’ roam here and there never quite remembering what the holy hell you were lookin’ for in the first goddamned place.
Even worse, all these guys and girls are together, falling all around the fuckin’ place then lookin’ around to see who the hell is watchin’ them, of course if you look they give you the fuck off treatment and turn their heads way the hell a-fuckin-round. Fuck that, man, I already ranted about that long enough.
Then you have your goddamn motherfuckin’ groups that are made up of one leader and the rest are fuckin’ lackeys kissin’ his ass all the way up and down the other fuckin’ side. Jesus, makes me fuckin’ sick. I usually go find some Goth motherfuckers and try to get with them. I never do because I’m always laughin’ too loud and cuttin’ the hell up, while their sittin’ their broodin’ about motherfuckin’ dead shit and all this other morbid stuff. Jesus! I’m a fuckin’ misfit among the motherfuckin’ misfits!
I never did fit with the clean kids, because I’m always cussin’ the goddamned paint off the walls, not much Christian about that, man. The jocks already hate me, and that only leaves the girls and the gays. The girls make me so goddamned nervous I start ranting, screamin’ my fuckin’ head off about the goddamned weather and shit, and the gays, well, let’s leave that way the fuck alone, man. I’m depressed enough, as it is.
So anyway I’m just comin’ outta the goddamned building when I run straight the hell on into this homeless dude. I could tell he was homeless; they all have this kinda rugged fuckin’ looks to ‘em. Goddamn, sometimes I fuckin’ envied them. They weren’t fuckin’ expected to fit in, so they did whatever the fuckin’ hell they wanted to. The whole motherfuckin’ world never fuckin’ affected them, man.
“Hey, watch where your headed kid!” the bum drawled in this goddamn country accent. I couldn’t figure out what the hell a guy with this kinda accent was doin’ living on the goddamn streets in New York. He looked like he was in his forties; with a few grey hairs here and fuckin’ there, but other than that he looked OK. What killed me was he was wearin’ a goddamn plastic garbage bag like a fuckin’ cape.
“Sorry, man. Nice cape.”
“Thanks, I thought so.” he looked like he hadn’t fuckin’ ate in years so I led him around the fuckin’ corner to a diner just opening. I looked at my watch, it was little after five. The waiter came, eyeing the old guy like he was a motherfuckin’ bug or something. Jesus H. Christ! That pisses me way the hell off, these motherfuckers with the goddamned money again. And this one was in a fuckin’ diner on top of it all!
“I’m not hungry, but I’ll pay for whatever the hell this old man wants.” I gave the dude a look that said, “Hey fucker, back the hell off!” at least I hope that’s what it said. The old guy ordered and we talked a little, about this and that, then his food came.
He ate in silence, I kinda looked around the diner, there wasn’t a hellova lot to see this time of the fuckin’ morning. The one waiter was being chewed the hell out by his fuckin’ boss about Christ knew what, nobody else was in this hellhole, but us. Well, he finished and I paid and we left.
He was a nice old fucker, talkin about how he used to work on the goddamned railroad and about how he had a son, but his son was ashamed of him, and how his wife had left him, and how he had lost his job in New York. Every since then he had been livin’ on the goddamned streets. He was a nice old guy, so I gave him a little money and the remainder of the Bacardi I had, before I left him.
It was a quarter 'til seven when I walked into a little coffee shop in the Bronx. I had wandered all over New York City, not having one holy hell of a fuckin’ idea where I was goin’. I was drinkin’ and thinkin’ realizing I was going nowhere. There was not one fuckin’ place to fit in, I was like a fuckin’ square bullet in a round motherfuckin’ gun. I was so fuckin’ depressed about the past two days I didn’t know what the hell to do.
I pulled out my copy of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and started readin’ about the deep-sea trip McMurphy pulled over on the Big Nurse. Then I read straight on to the end. McMurphy died. Not from the goddam pillow over his fuckin’ face, but from the fuckin’ operation. I put the book back in my vest and thought. Is that what the hell the fuckin’ answer is? You don’t fit in and fight until they come and fuckin’ drag you way the hell away for not being one of them? If that was true I was just as happy to let John Keese put a bullet in my head, laughin’ all the motherfuckin’ way, before I would be like one of them.
Bastards come and bastards go, but the most important fuckin’ thing you can remember is not to become one of the motherfuckers along the goddamned way. Life is kinda funny that way, one wall that separates the men from the barbarians. And the leaders sit on that motherfucker tellin’ everybody who the hell can come in and who the hell has to stay the fuck out. Somebody shoulda blowed those fuckers off that wall like a goddamned shootin’ gallery, tellin’ them they were gonna be whoever the holy hell they wanted to fuckin’ be. You see people like that sometimes on the news, being dragged off or paraded in front of people like a goddamned caged lion. The motherfuckin’ reporters looks, then points and says, “Look at what happens when we allow ourselves to forget that we are men! Look what happens when we forget we are part of a wonderful society!”
Then the rest of the world licks it up like fuckin’ ice cream. Jesus, I may be a madman psycho motherfucker, but that is crazy.