I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 (20 page)

You’re on your own, scumbag.

Okay, she was still upset, I understood, but when she cooled off, she’d come running back home, I just knew it—
or I hoped
.

An awkward silence lingered between us before she asked me, “How much have you had to drink tonight, Charlie?” her voice teetered between indifference, caring, and boiling. The drinking was one of the reasons she left me, and here I was confirming it on the phone.

“Uhhh, not much,” I lied. “Not much,” but I poured more vodka into my glass to fend off the dry, heavy knot that formed in the back of my throat.

“Well, we’re getting ready for bed, so I’ll give the phone to Kate, okay?” I sensed she was annoyed, and any chance of her second-guessing her decision to leave died with this phone call.

“Okay then, well, uhh…Morgan…I…uhh…I love you.”

“Yeah, you just take care of yourself, Charles. Here’s Kate. Goodnight,” she answered, as that knot climbed higher into my throat.

“Hi, Daddy!” Kate yelled into the phone.

“Hey, baby girl, how ya’ doin’?” I said, steadying my voice.

“Good, Daddy. I miss you.”

“Yeah, I miss you too, sunshine.”

“When am I going to see you again?” she asked, and by that time, the tears and snot gushed their way out of my head in streams.

“I don’t know, darling. That’s up to Mommy and when she’s feeling better.”

“Uhm, okay, I love you, Daddy. Mommy said I have to go to bed now, but…I’m scared,” she whispered into the phone as if she was telling me a secret.

“Scared? What’s the matter?”

“The boogieman.”

 “Oh, Baby, you remember what daddy told you about the boogieman, right?”

“Uh-huh, he’s not real, I know,” she exhaled.

“That’s my girl. Go get some sleep now, I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Okay, Daddy, I love you. Goodnight!”

“G’night, sweetie. I love you too.”

I waited to hear Morgan’s voice again, not realizing she had already hung up several minutes before.

If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again. If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again. If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again.

The booze couldn’t hit the bottom of my stomach soon enough. And I kept them drinks coming all night long. The initial buzz wasn’t doing it, and I needed something to chase the painkillers. Before I knew it—I melted into the bowels of the couch and faded away.

At times, objects, especially the television screen, would shrink and then appear closer before my very eyes. I was lost in
TV Land
for hours, talking life with the likes of
Ralph Kramden
,
Mr. Belvedere
, and the gang from
Cheers.
When my mouth dried out, I drank more. When the pain attempted to fight its way back through the sedation, I took another pill and repeated steps one and two over again. It was my birthday after all—
Fuck the World.

When I wasn’t blacking out, I was binging. I was drinking, throwing pills down my throat, eating processed foods, and jerking off to 80s starlets out of self-loathing.

I guess the shame subdued my sense of abandonment for all of two minutes before smearing my junk off on the side of the couch and falling back asleep. It’s not weird to want to cry while masturbating, is it? I was my own lousy lover and didn’t need anyone else here to prove it.

Drink. Pill. Smoke. Jerk off. Cry. Sleep. Drink. Pill. High. Low. Smoke. Blow out the candles. Black out.

I vaguely remember Jerry stopping by weekend and the phone ringing, but can’t recall who was calling, or if I even picked up. It might have been Morgan, but the memories came in short bursts of squiggly distorted images.

I can’t remember showering, taking a leak or a shit for that matter. I know I didn’t shower because I stunk up the joint, but not from using my pajamas as a toilet.

The only evidence of me eating was the empty pizza box on my kitchen counter and the encrusted badges of marinara sauce on my shirt, but I don’t remember eating at all. I know I smoked more than a Russian prostitute by the trail of empty cigarette packs scattered across my coffee table and cigarette butts spilling over the ashtray in heaps.

My breath smelled like old piss in a rotting stomach. And this…this is what I had to offer Morgan and Kate, to come back home to.

WILD FIRE

Thursday, February 6
^th
, 2014

Bryce said we were all just waiting around to die, and those words ring truer now than ever. The Deviants breached the schools, churches, and bingo halls that had been converted into shelters for families.

The Crusaders had to torch the middle school last week when they discovered hundreds dead inside. Hoarders broke into the school to steal supplies and had left the doors open letting the Deviants to get in while everyone was asleep. Good job, assholes.

“Adapt or die,” they say. Adapt and then what? The virus must have reached all boroughs, widening the death toll like wildfire by now.

The people used to talk about an exodus, walking up to the city gates and kicking its doors down even if it meant dying to get there. Hell, it beats dying here.

The radicals talked about an all out war against the enemy and who exactly is the enemy? What are the alternatives? Live long enough to die by a Deviant, become a hero and join the failing chivalry of the Crusaders, become a hoarder, scavenger, mole person, beggar, rapist, murderer—I’m already half those things on the list.

There are no HEROES or VILLAINS here. You’re either one of two things: dead or alive. It’s that simple. You do what you can to survive.

More neighborhoods have gone dark, and fewer remain with power now. At night, the natives set buildings and homes ablaze; the fires light the skies. I have seen them burn out of control, jumping from one house to the next, burning an entire street to ashes.

SHMEGURT WAS A GAGGLE

Friday, February 7
^th
, 2014

Jane was the first to discover “Shmegurt” a couple of weeks ago where he sat atop the shed looking around aimlessly with his wild, haggard eyes, queer feathers, and sharp talons.  He looked like a crazy chicken.

Most Gaggles appear that way. Some are flightless birds who prey on smaller animals like vermin and rodents. They aren’t very good at catching their food unless it’s already dead.

Every morning since then, we are jolted awake to the sound of quick and repetitive tapping from the top of the shed. That was Shmegurt the Gaggle.  He sat there every morning, quickly striking down, puncturing holes in its roof with his odd, splintered beak.

“What’s that on the roof?” Jane asked that morning looking out the kitchen window.

“A Gaggle, they’re like mentally retarded birds that can’t fly, I don’t know.”

“Oh, what’s his name?”

“How would I know?” I said. “Why would I care?”

“He looks like a Shmegurt!” Jane clapped, happily naming the hopeless bird tearing up my roof. Looking out through the slits of the bars of the kitchen window, I thought—sounds about right.

“Don’t get attached. If he keeps putting holes in that shed, I’m going to have to take him out myself.”

And that’s when Jane asked about Peter. I was hoping she’d forgotten about him.

“Do we really have to talk about this now?” I asked.

“Yes, Charlie, you’ve had a dead body in your shed for weeks now. Don’t you think it’s time to get rid of it?”

“Yes, I know what’s back there. I put it there, remember?”

I suppose she was right, but I keep forgetting. I didn’t mean to snap at her, but the thought of going back in the shed where Peter’s body remained unnerves me.

“It smells in the yard, Charlie. The grass is growing wild. You should cut it, too,” she added.

“Yes, dear, is there anything else?”

“Just one more thing,” she said.

DOWN THERE

Friday, February 7
^th
, (cont’d)

“Where’s this door lead?” asked Jane from the kitchen, curiously jerking the knob on the door that lead to the basement.

“The basement. Stop! Stop, and get away from the door!” I said, forcefully pushing her hand away. It was an overreaction on my part; the kind that would make the other person jump back and say, “Whoa, what’s your problem, crazy person?”

“Sorry, we don’t go down there, ever, just leave it alone. There’s nothing down there. I didn’t mean to yell at you, I just don’t want you touching this door, ever,” I said scrambling to build a blockade, putting a chair and flowerpot in front of the door. As if it would have ever stopped anyone from getting by, but I had to get my point across…no one is to go down there.

“Okay, the basement, sorry I asked. Let me guess, another dead guy,” she snorted.

“No, smartass, not another dead guy. A lot of bad things happened down there when I was a kid that I’d rather not talk about, so don’t ask,” I said, scooting her away into the living room.

“Okay, I won’t ask.”

“Fine. My grandfather died down there.”

Jane spun to face me, “Charlie, oh my God. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?

“I said I didn’t want to talk about it, and plus my uncle touched my kid brother down there too, so I’d rather not talk about the basement, if that’s okay with you. It’s just a bad place.”

“You’re the one talking about it. You had to touch the door!”

“It’s a door. I touched it, so what?”

“You don’t get it. The door was closed and you didn’t need to touch it, that’s all I’m saying. You don’t always need to go snooping around people’s stuff.”

“I wasn’t snooping, and for someone who doesn’t want to talk about it, it you’re saying a lot here. What did your uncle do?”

“Hello, here we go. I said what I said, but it doesn’t mean I was about to tell you my life story. Christ, Jane, my grandfather died going down the stairs because that’s where my grandmother hid his candy, in the basement, okay?”

A queer look came over Jane’s face. “Your grandfather died going
down
the stairs to get candy?”

“Yes. Well, he was a diabetic so she would hide it from him. He would go through a whole bag of butterscotch in one sitting. His blood sugar would go nuts, and he’d have an insulin attack in his chair. My brother and I used to think he was being electrocuted and we would laugh.

He was sneaking around the house looking for those stupid candies while Nana was out shopping and died on the stairs. Dumbass. It serves him right if you ask me. He shouldn’t have been doing what he shouldn’t have been doing,” I answered.

“Why did your grandmother buy them if she didn’t want him having them?” That is a valid question, and thank you for asking, Jane. For a moment there, I wondered the same.

Why the fuck did Grandma buy two pounds of candy every time she went to the market if she was just going to hide them in the basement from Mumford anyway?

“I don’t know. Go ask her yourself, she’s out in the yard beneath the tree over there. She’s all ears,” I said.

“You can be a real dick, Charlie—and mean, you know that?

I’m sorry I touched your stupid door!” Jane said, storming past me to go upstairs. Locking herself in the bathroom was a natural reaction for her whenever we argued, but I stopped her.

“Hey, all right, okay, I’m sorry. Listen, my Uncle Richard would come over on the weekends, take my brother down to the basement where our model train set used to be, and make my brother touch him—inappropriately. Of course, I didn’t know until Stewart and I were both in the basement one day and he asked me if I wanted to touch his
noodle
. I thought he was joking. Why would he want me to touch him? I knew he was serious when he asked me again. I said, ‘Stewart, who taught you to say those things? I don’t want to touch you down there. You’re not supposed to ever, ever, play with it without Mommy’s permission or you’re gonna break it, okay?

No one is allowed to touch you there without Mom or Dad around, you hear me?’

It was as if someone had plunged a knife into my heart. My brother had no clue what I was talking about. He was just following protocol. I pulled him close to me and asked—‘Stewart, does Uncle Richard touch you funny when you come down to the basement to play with the trains?’

Stewart shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head. ‘Show me what happens when you and Uncle Richard are alone in the basement together.’

My brother took a step back and began showing me with his little fingers, on himself. Clearly, Richard liked to finger his own asshole to the dirty magazines he kept hidden behind the furnace while my brother watched.

My Uncle made my brother watch him cum, that sick fuck. You believe that sick bastard? My brother asked me what that was, the white stuff, I mean.

I told him that if it was something that ever happened again someone was going to die and that he should never, under any condition, be alone with Richard again.”

“Oh my God, did you ever talk to your parents about it?” Jane asked, with a deep sadness in her blue eyes.

“I sure did. I went straight up to my old man the next day and said, ‘Hey, dad! Richard made Bubba touch his dick,’ and wham! Fireworks! He cracked me upside the head with the back of his heavy hand. I had a fat red welt on the side of my face days after.

I don’t remember how old I was, but I tell you what, that man’s hands took years off of my life, that’s for sure.”

“What did your mom say?” asked Jane.

“I never told her. I couldn’t tell her. Not that I couldn’t tell her, but my mom had a way with dealing with things or not dealing with things. She would coddle us too much or not coddle at all.

She would treat minor scrapes like a broken neck, and my father would come down on her because we were going to grow up to be…forget it, you know what, it’s behind me now. Sorry about the door, it wasn’t you. I just don’t go down there anymore. Just don’t ever open that door, okay? It’s just a bad place. I don’t want anyone going down there.”