I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 (10 page)

Legend has it Donna used to have the Clinker clan tripping over their tongues back in the golden days, before age, the gravity of liquor, Xanax, and innumerable abusive relationships made her a dull afterthought. The boys tossed her aside like a napkin they just blew their noses on for the new generation of promiscuous, perkier, and tighter college asses that populated Clinkers. Yet Donna stuck around waiting for “Mr. Right,” or what I liked to call “Mr. Right Now.”

If only I had a nickel for every time one of the ol’timers said, “Jesus, will ya look at dem tits! They didn’t build them like those in my day!” That’s because back in your day, you guys were still using hammers and chisels. These days, a couple of hours at the doctor’s office and those babies get a new lease on life.

“Talking Head” Ed was the one with the comb over mullet and Canadian tuxedo singing along and playing air guitar to the AC/DC and Bob Seger songs blaring on the jukebox in the back. Trapped inside a psychedelic time capsule, Ed had the irritating habit of chewing your ear off whenever he did an obscene amount of coke.

“Hendrix was a pioneer, man, don’t get me wrong, Jimmy Paige was cool, but Hendrix was my fix, man. He was God, ya know what I mean? There will never be another Hendrix, man.

All these guys today, they SUCK. They don’t know what licks really are, man. Come on, man, ‘Voodoo Child,’ are you kidding me?’

He’d go on about how he jacks off to Hendrix while I thought how nice it would be to shove the broken end of a beer bottle into his windpipe when he invaded my space. 

Ed’s fiancé Henrietta, who the boys at the bar nick named “Blumpkin” aka
“Garlic knots,” would chime in and try to sell you on how great Ed’s “band” was and how shitty others were. She was a troll with a loud mouth.

Her voice could cut through a crowd of people and music like cats and screws in a high-speed blender played over a loudspeaker. She and Ed were going to “take the world by storm”—even though he was 42 and they both still lived in her mother’s basement in College Point.

Blumpkin would get so belligerently drunk and insecure about herself she’d try to kick the shit out of all the pretty girls in the bar and have herself thrown out because they were “sluts” and “whores.” She accused us men who never tried to fuck her fat ass of being “fucking pigs” though she acquired a reputation for giving head in the men’s bathroom—hence the nickname Blumpkin.

There were also the weird, tense guys, the lone wolves who sat at the end of the bar with the faraway eyes watching the wreckage unfold in the rearview mirror of their lives. Jerry and I called them “jumpers.”

They probably sat there dreaming up ways of checking out while nursing the sauce and working up the courage to do it. Never socializing with anyone unless it was with the bartender, and that was always short. How could you send out a distress signal without looking too desperate for a shoulder to cry on?

Why make friends now? “I’ll leave a generous tip; it’s almost over, and who’s coming with me?” When they stopped coming to the bar abruptly, it wasn’t a stretch figuring out what happened. It’s closing time. You don’t have to kill yourself, but you can’t stay here.

Tommy Maroni, my dad’s best friend, was always there before the whippersnappers took over. He was a stand-up guy—old fashioned and good looking like Dean Martin, and he wasn’t a prick like my old man. He would give me booze on the sly when I had to come drive my dad home from the bar every night. I was freshly 16 and had gotten my driver’s permit but only was allowed to drive to the bar and back to pick up my father.

The bartenders would call the house in the middle of the night. That was our cue that dad had had one (or more) too many.

My father was a loving man around his friends, but if they only knew what an asshole he was on the home front. The only one who ever had a hunch was Tommy, and he’d give my dad shit whenever I tried prying him out of the bar.

Tommy would sit there with his cigarette magically and dangerously dangling from his lips, hair slicked back like a bullet with pomade, yelling,…“Whoa, Charlie’s a good fuckin’ kid, Seymour. Why you always breakin’ his balls? Come on, amirite? Go home, gedouttahere!”

Tommy had children of his own and was a proud father. He gloated about his two little girls all the time. He would pull out his wallet and take the time to show you the latest picture of the kids, no matter where he was or what he was doing—“Aye, an’ dis one here,” Tommy would say, happily prompting your attention and pointing to his youngest daughter  in the wallet-size photo.

“You’d lose your mind, fuhgedit, she’s fuckin’ brilliant dis one. She made that macaroni necklace in school, and I was like, Get outta’here, you made dis ‘ting? It’s fuckin’ bewtiful! you know what I mean?”

Unfortunately, Tommy spent a lot of time at the bar because his marriage was failing—or his marriage was failing because he was spending too much time at the bar, like the rest of us. Either case, Tom always looked out for Stewart and me. He became very concerned when Mom became sick.

“Aye, how’s yo’mom, good? Tell her I said hello, arite.”

Tommy would discretely slip money into my pockets because he knew my father was a cheap, penny-pinching bastard. I never understood why he was always so kind to us
until later
.

I prayed for him and his family when the Deviant circus came to town, hoped they didn’t get ripped to shreds. The trick is not to think about it.

 I’d rather be wrong about someone being dead than alive.

XXX

CHILD’S PLAY

Monday, January 20
^th
, 2014

I nodded off underneath the fig tree on the lawn at St. Christopher’s church one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, after washing down a painkiller or
two
with half a case of beer. I don’t remember where I was going, but I know I never got there.

I heard something coming down the road in my direction: a clicking
of feet and something bouncing and skidding along with it.

“What the fuck is that?” It took all my strength to lift my groggy head and adjust my vision.

Little Elizabeth Holton was strutting, dragging what looked like a large dirty bouncing softball attached to a long jagged spindly thing—no, it was a human skull still attached to the end of its spine.

I brushed the grass off my clothes and decided to follow her. I was always curious as to what these things did in their spare time, so I went in sluggish pursuit without drawing her attention.

There goes that broken skull still skidding along the sidewalk looking back at me—Dink! Dink! Dink! Dink!

Elizabeth turned the corner on Murray Hill where she joined two other Deviant younglings, happily grazing on a pool of blood that streamed from someone’s head like a fresh geyser. Fssppt! Fssppt! Fssppt!

I watched from behind a short bus as Elizabeth slowly knelt beside them and lapped away like a dog that’s been in the sun for too long. Occasionally looking over to the others agreeably, making a creepy baby giggly-gurgling sound from her body, smiling as the blood stained her mouth and teeth. (Mmm, Mmm, good) Suck it up, kids. The iron will be good for your bluish-green complexions.

I couldn’t stop myself from watching.

The woman slumped over the curb with her brain particles tossed all over the ground should have never underestimated the children. Big mistake. The Deviant children are far more mischievous than the adults. It begins with the puppy eyes and the tears; when you get close enough, that’s when they get you. They were like gremlins, sneaky little fucking gremlins.

I wanted to call out to Elizabeth, but there was no reason. I didn’t want to have to force myself into killing her and the other little bloodsucking imps.

Now I avoid children at all costs so I’m not reminded of Kate. It breaks my heart to even have to look at those little bastards knowing that they’re sick or if Kate was.

UNEVEN STEVEN SINGS THE BLUES

Monday, January 20
^th
, 2014

2:44 a.m.

It was a haunting melody, one I would later curse for being stuck in my head for so long. Steven stood beneath the streetlamp in the dark, in a sentimental trance, eyes glazed over, singing the blues for hours after midnight—every night. Uneven Steven was a name I gave him because of the way the left side of his body disassociated from his right. It did its own thing sometimes, but mostly, it did nothing at all. He sang his heart out with that tune every damn time, until both Jane and I started singing along with him in bed—it was contagious.

Black night is falling; it sure is, Steven.

INSIDE YOU

Wednesday, January 22
^nd
, 2014

“Feeling better?” I asked Jane as she sat up in bed this morning.

“Yeah, a little better—just tired.”

“How’d you sleep?”

“Fine,” she answered, immediately putting her wall up and turning her face to the window.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I didn’t,” she groaned and clenched her jaw.

“How about you?”

“Okay, I guess, except for the part where you beat me up at two in the morning,” I smiled—she didn’t. I might have embarrassed her, but I wasn’t going to let her run from me
this time
.

“Sorry about that,” she let out a deep sigh, again turning her face anywhere else except my direction.

I held her hand and tried to get her to look me in the eye—the bruised one. “You don’t need to apologize, I ain’t mad or nothin’. I’ve been hit by women, bigger and much uglier than you, though you do have a pretty mean right hook.” I wasn’t kidding; she slugged me pretty good. There was a side to Jane that reared its ugly head during those violent fits.

I kinda’ like it when it hurts, maybe for the same reasons she does too—the rush of pure adrenaline. It’s like an undercurrent that surges and spikes when a switch is flipped on, and then you detonate. KA-BOOM! You’re suddenly free from the chains of restraint.

She goes somewhere
else,
panics, and when it all falls into place,
she becomes hard-focused and fights her way out bare-knuckled
.
I know that place—it’s untapped rage, aftershock from the scarred recesses of your mind.

The muscles in her face tighten, her eyebrows scrunch down, and her eyes scream
bloody
survival
.

I met the Jekyll to her Hyde face to face. I found the crack in the glass. She implodes in her sleep only to pull it together and sleep it off within a few short minutes. It’s hard to determine which half made up the true whole; was she the psychotic parading around as the normal girl, the normal girl trying to subdue the psychotic, or maybe they were a tug of war of equal parts?

“You understand I don’t know what I’m doing when that happens, right?” she said meekly in defense of her nightly outbursts.

I knew she was sincere because she looked me hard and clear in the eye—which is something she never does.

It must be hard for someone who constantly looks distracted or anxiously stares at her feet to snap into focus that quickly.

“I know. I just want to get inside you. I mean, you know what I mean. Not
inside you
, but inside…You. I did say I’d take care of you, and I meant it,” I reassured her not to upset her. “Let me help you work through this, whatever this is.”               

Mild agitation grew over her face and then seamlessly into a smile. I realized I was dueling with the duality of personalities: Jane who was normally timid and shy, and the fierce alter ego that came out at night...or when she was cornered.

“Charlie, I don’t want you to worry. I’m fine, I swear. If I need to talk about something, I promise, you’ll be the first to know,” she said, and kissed me on the forehead before hopping out of bed.

“You’re not a very good liar, but I’ll be here if you need me.”

PILLOW TALK

Friday, January 24
^th
, 2014

I gave Jane something to help her sleep last night because she still complained about seeing glares and lights and had trouble sleeping. Her foot healed quite nicely, but her mind? Not so much.

“No,” she cried, whimpering and tussling in her sleep.

Her words were faint and soft, but I braced myself in case she elbowed me in the face again like she did the other night. I gently rubbed her back, not wanting to startle her. Jane had explosive outbursts, kicking and screaming, whenever she woke from a nightmare until she finally came to her senses and cried herself back to sleep.

She would shut down and became quiet whenever I’d ask who “They” were.

It sounded as though she was speaking to someone in her dreams, if not more than one person at times. I found myself staying up half the night carefully trying to decode her ramblings.

Who are the skeletons in your closet, Jane?

The paranoia keeps me on my toes. Lack of sleep, pain, and paranoia is a strange brew.

I looked forward to when Jane opened her eyes in the morning revealing those cool baby blues. I wanted to dive in and swim. I wanted to go deep. I wanted to sink to the bottom because she made me feel calm like Morgan did when she held me. It’s unsafe, but I can’t keep painting over my feelings for her.

 I will disappoint. I will crush her when I tell her what awaits us out in the world or mine—maybe she already knows.

Pain.

I am toxic.

There is no question about it.

Pain isn’t as bad until it finds its way into the heart. It will corrupt the trust or it will strengthen it. She can run or she can stand with me. I still didn’t know how to keep her safe other than keeping the truth from her for just a little while longer, but then what? Out there, the world is cold and dead. In here, I put my arms around her and I feel alive. It’s selfish, and it’s cruel. So, instead of telling her the truth—I made my move on her in bed this morning.