100 Unfortunate Days (10 page)

That I’ve seen you peeking in

The man I’m with is preoccupied

This problem’s lost on him

I’ve seen you quite a few times

But you didn’t know I could

Now I’ll put you I my pocket

Or turn you into wood

For you can’t continue watching

And they’ll be a repercussion

Oh sorry I upset you

It’s the end of our discussion

So shame on you—you peeping Tom

Stand still and be a man

You’re crying now—you pussy

I think I’ve botched your plan

This time it’s just a finger

Big deal—now go to bed

Sleep tight my little watcher

Don’t tell or else you’re dead

It’s very hard to throw away a photograph. There is a saying that if you discard or destroy a picture, part of the person’s soul is destroyed. It is probably hidden in voodoo or magic ceremonies—if you have an image of the person or a piece of their hair or nail clipping you can put a spell on them and cause them harm. Some people don’t like to have their picture taken at all—some will not smile for the camera and some will not show their teeth. If you bury a picture of a person beneath a place where you will walk every day—you will gain power over that person.

Don’t do the spells that are written in this book because then you will be sending out a personal invitation for the devil to come on in. Don’t do it. This is very hard to stop doing because it is fascinating and fun, and it makes the day less boring.

Today is I will put a disclaimer in the front of the book. A warning for people that in the beginning of the book the devil was here, and I let him be here—but now he is not, so I have to warn people that what they are reading is partially the work of the devil.

Here are some quick tidbits about me:

I cannot finish things a lot of the time—my shrink thinks it is because everyone died on me when I was young. What that has to do with finishing anything is beyond me…but if you have an answer please send me a message.

I LOVE to peel things—especially skin with my fingers and fingernails. I could peel sunburned skin all day long. I love it.

I love getting mail…I don’t think I’ve gotten a letter since I was in fifth grade and my new girlfriend from around the block and I wrote letters to each other. I knew what she wrote but I loved getting it.

I love alcohol.

I love waking up in the morning and driving around when the sun is just coming up and hardly anyone else is on the road.

I love bright lights and big windows.

I collect church relics and rosary beads and crosses.

My dream life…I want someone to pick out beautiful clothes for me, to clean my house and cook my meals, I want to be beautiful and I want men to want me. I want to eat anything I like and never gain an ounce. I want to go to my beautiful home near the ocean and have all the friends I made from all my book tours visit me and tell me I am wonderful. I want lots of money that I earned myself and a red Mercedes convertible with a camel leather interior. I want diamonds. I want… I want… I want… I want…

Well, you call every day and you’re right on time

And I can’t help but think that it’s all by design

Suddenly things become yours, become mine—and I wonder what happened to us.

The excuses I had they are all running thin

I’ve so much to say and I cannot begin

And the angels that wait on the head of a pin are beginning to run short on faith.

Can’t say that I blame you, I bring out your worst

I knew for so long, should have mentioned it first

I’m gasping for air and you’re dying of thirst and we both need to figure this out.

All the time that you spend in the air on a plane

Keeps us separate and quiet and I shouldn’t complain

But you wanted it neat and confined and contained but there’s no room for me in that box.

But I miss how you look when I knew you were mine

You’d smile with your eyes and I’d lose track of time

You’d ask how I was and I really was fine.

A boy I went to school with had cat eyes. He was smaller than everyone and the pupils of his eyes were vertical slits. He was the nicest boy in the school but I could not look at him for very long. He had brown hair and light skin and was normal in every other way. He had many friends and it seemed they did not notice his eyes. Maybe they could not even see those eyes. Maybe I was the only one who could see them.

At lunch in school I could feel the boy staring at me. Although I did not look at him, I knew he was looking. He would stare and stare at me and his stare burned and I knew he was smiling bigger and wider and his teeth looked too big for his mouth. His eyes grew wider and he looked like a shark. I would quickly look up, sure I would catch him in the middle of this horrible stare, but he was never looking at me. I would think of him when I was at home at night in the dark and I was convinced that he was staring at me, but even in my imagination he knew when I was going to look, and stopped before I could glance back.

We went to my aunt’s house after she died and realized the house was going to be torn down. It was dark and dismal and there was a room on the second floor that was filled with dolls. Dolls with cracked marble eyes and dolls whose eyes never shut. They were scary dolls in a scary room and I knew when she shut the lights off at night that the dolls got up and walked around the house. The room next door to the doll room was filled with miniature furniture. A tiny kitchen and a tiny dining room and living room. A perfect itty bitty tea set. This is where the dolls live at midnight.

I believe I am somewhat of a spider and trap whoever I can in my web. Once I have them, I never want to let them go. However, I do let them go. Usually one at a time. If they do escape, I will try and find them and try to get them back, all the while wondering why they would ever want to leave in the first place. This is a problem. I want one person to be all mine…but then I scare them and they leave. So I hunt them down.

I want everyone to see how close we are and how wonderful our relationship is. But it is not wonderful at all. It is me afraid they will leave—and yet knowing they will leave and almost wanting them to go. Because it is far too much responsibility to have them for myself. There are special ways you can keep them forever. You can lie to them and tell them they are so wonderful and that you saved yourself just for them. You have not been with anyone like them and they make you feel so good. It isn’t a total lie—because you have actually forgotten how to tell the whole truth, so it really doesn’t count. It is much easier to be all alone and not worry about other people—since they are going to leave you anyway and find out you are really a spider—and it really does not matter anyway because everyone you love dies.

I was born in Venice on the Fourth of July—which means nothing to anyone in Venice. I was born with jet-black hair and very light blue eyes. Then all my hair fell out and grew in very light blonde. My eyes have remained light blue. I was left on a ferry boat when I was three months old—I don’t know if it was on purpose or not—but I was raised covertly by the Queen of England until I was five, then she could not keep me under wraps anymore because I moved around too much and she felt I should be going to school.

I was sent to stay with the Queen’s illegitimate sister who lived in France. She taught me how to play the guitar and wear makeup. I stayed there until I was eight and then I worked in a coffee shop and slept there at night next to the picture window that had a toile cushion beneath it. No one minded. I ate small sugary biscuits with tea or coffee every day for breakfast and wrote sad love songs until I kissed a boy. I got a tattoo of his initial on the underside of my middle finger and never told him. I left the lyrics to a song on a table outside the coffee shop one afternoon and could not find them later that afternoon. I heard a song on the radio a year later that used my lyrics. I never told anyone.

I took a train to Germany and dyed my hair jet-black again. I had five children in five years and gave them all away to charity. I worked in a guitar shop and met Jimmy Page and we spent the night together. I got a tattoo of his initials on the underside of my middle finger of my other hand and swore my love to him eternally. He said he would love me forever too.

I stayed awake once for three days because I was sad. I moved to Spain because I needed to be warm and painted my front door a different color every day. My skin loved the sun and the black faded from my hair. I wore jewelry with diamonds and flowers in my hair. When I looked at the sky at night I could see the face of my true love who I knew I would never meet. Sometimes I see children with light blue eyes and jet-black or light blonde hair and I know they are mine. I never say anything.

When you leave the living room to my grandmother’s house there is a door to the stairs that goes down to the front door or up to the attic. There is also a door on the same level as the living room that leads to a storage room that has a window that leads to nowhere. You can look out the window, but you will see only black. The upstairs attic has a home-made radio and drawers that hold thousands of files and saw blades. There is a window to the front of the house and a window to the back of the house. There is a space beneath the window that looks out to the back that contains the head of George Washington, and you can see his eyes staring at you when you go in the attic at night.

When you play darts in the attic, you may accidentally hit yourself in the back of the head with one of them. If you try and solder something you will pick up the wrong end of the iron. Only one person is allowed in the attic at a time, or else these things keep on happening. When you are up there by yourself, you know you have to go downstairs fast. And you have to scream as you run down the stairs or it will get you.

Most people don’t leave my grandmother’s house through the front door—they enter and leave through the side. If you leave through the front you have to pass the sometimes invisible door on the left that has the bones of my dead grandfather chained in the corner. Then you have to exit through the cold corridor and past the light on the ceiling where the snake lives wrapped around it. But you eventually make it to the light of day outside on the front porch…and you wonder if you enter through the side next time if there will be anything waiting for you that used to live in the coal bin behind the furnace.

Recipe for Love.

3 ounce of rum (can be spiced, coconut—anything—I like coconut) that has been left in the moonlight for three nights. If you leave it in the waxing moon, the person will notice you, if you leave it in the waning moon, the person will leave, if you leave it in a full moon the connection will last forever—whether you like it or not.

3 leaves of fresh mint

3 grains of salt

3 grains of sugar

3 ounces of club soda or seltzer

3 ice cubes

3 tiny pieces of a fresh basil leaf

Put all ingredients in a metal or glass shaker (no plastic because it will steal the energy) and shake very quickly to a slow count of three with your eyes closed. Serve immediately. Do not serve more than one person this drink—you would pay for that mistake for the rest of your life.

I think we die because our hearts have been broken too many times and we can’t recover anymore. When we are little all the kids are mean to us all the time, but we get over it very quickly. Then we start to make friends and date and our hearts are broken less often, but more deeply. We marry, and the person we marry breaks our heart and we almost die for the first time. Sometimes we feel better and our hearts heal, but sometimes they don’t.

Having a broken heart affects everything. When other people smile we don’t understand what there is to smile about. We feel so sad because we have nothing. So we find things to think about other than our broken hearts, but these other things are not important and our hair starts to turn grey because there is nothing left inside with color anymore.

Your skin starts to get wrinkles because you don’t smile anymore—not really smile anyway. We wait for someone to look at us the way they did at the basketball game at the college—wait for their eyes to sparkle only for us and we wait to feel so warm and alive. But we never feel that way again and every time we have a little bit of hope, so we can feel that basketball game feeling, but we don’t—we die again. Sooner or later we run out of the ability to rejuvenate and we are finished.

Some popular superstitions and my interpretations:

A black cat crossing your path is bad luck. I think any cat crossing your path is bad luck because they are familiars of the devil. The black cats are the worst because they are the most evil. Their souls have been charred and they are diseased and if they scratch you, you will most likely die.