LW&W (12.23.04)
When I was younger, like around 8 or 9, I think, me and this girl used to play house where we were the husband and wife. She would be the husband, which was fun because usually I am the boy, so with her I was the girl. Her dad had the shop next door to my dad's hardware store for a while. I don't even remember it ever actually opening up, but they were there that one summer, and we would play in the store because it was all empty, with just a lot of display shelves sitting around and a lot of empty space. Her dad and my dad would go have lunch and beers at San Souci, the bar across the street, and we would play in their non-store. Daisy's, it was called. It had a sign, but no actual merchandise or store part. I think they were hippies, her parents. Her dad looked like Sonny from Sonny & Cher. He had a VW bus, too.
But Sonny & Cher remind me of Sally & Roger, because I used to watch that at their old house when I spent the night, and that reminds me of Roger and what is going on and the reason I thought of the girl at Daisy's in the first place.
We used to play husband and wife. There was this one part of the store where it was sort of dark, in the back, and this display shelf was almost pushed up against a wall, so there was about a foot or two of dark space in there. That would be the bedroom of the husband and wife, and we would wedge ourselves back in there, laying down like, and then we would move around and sort of hug each like husbands an wives do. Okay, this is embarassing, but what we would do is squeeze each other's butts. I'm pretty sure now that this is not what husbands and wives do, but we thought it was pretty close, and it felt grown-up, what we were doing. My whole point is not even that my dad walked in there one time an caught us and humiliated me for life or that I can't even ever think about this memory because I'm worried it makes me a pervert, but that even back then when I was really liking playing grown-ups laying in a bed together and doing that kind of stuff, even though I did that, I never never never pictured what Roger looks like right now laying across the room on his back with his thing sticking out. It doesn't make any sense, I know, that I more picture a young girl as the grown-up man than I do an actual one, but it is true anyway that it makes more sense to me than this. I think Roger's thing is so gross-looking. And, I don't know, just scary, I guess. Like it is a world I never want a part of. It makes me sick and disgusted and scared and what is wrong with me. I just don't get it and I don't know what to do but it is like an ashtray of cigarette butts in your drink of 7-Up, that is all I can say. Puke, dirt, stink, top of a roller coaster, top of a skyscraper on the ledge outside with no open windows, evil gut-me-like-a-fish in the shed behind the cabin in Houghton Lake, too late too late too late.
My feet are moving because what other choice is there and Roger is getting closer and closer and I am not looking between his legs but I can see it anyway and it's all I can see and the world feels dirty and sickening and I am part of it and I want to die. I am so sorry.
Now I am back on the couch under my blanket. It is my Raggedy Ann and Andy sleeping bag, which I really do not like all that much, but my mom thinks my Love one is too old and raggedy to bring out of the house anymore. This one, the Raggedy Ann and Andy, is yellow, which is just okay, but the outside has this weird coating or covering that sort of seems like paper to me. It is just not that cozy or comfortable, and if you have dry skin on your feet, it will stick to the inside, too. I am back here on the couch and the world has faded to shadows beyond this small spotlight of me, the cards, and Roger. I would give anything to go back to just the phone call to my mom, because back then I thought there might be a way out. But now I know there is not, and this is my life and this is what I'm going to be doing and there is no other choice about it. It feels like getting punched in the face while your head is backed up to a steel wall; there is just nowhwere to go. No room for flex or cushioning the blow.
***********************************************
SIDE NOTES:
Girls with average intelligence are immenseley more date-able. I am listening to them recount marriages and divorces and annulments and children and past boyfriends who made them tapes of love songs and who they should've married. This is the stuff of a real life, the kind they can look back on as old women and feel full. Men have loved these women, largely, probably, because they've let them. I could learn a thing or two here. But then, I'm not like them. I dread the looking back over my life one day. I hope I get my knees knocked out from under me and my head cracks and that's that.
************************************************
It is dark in the house now, and very quiet. I have been pretending to sleep for at least half an hour, I think. I am pretending so hard that I hope it convinces me that I am sleeping. Because I need to have this night be over. I just need to wake up and have it be morning and have there be sunlight and Sally home. Because then I will be closer to leaving here and having this all be over.
"You sleeping, Jen?"
Roger is in the hallway. I didn't even hear him leave his room. It is too dark to see him even if I opened my eyes, but I am not opening my eyes. I am stiff as a board under my sleeping bag. I am breathing slow slow slow, trying to breathe slow because that's how sleeping people breathe. I don't care if I pass out because it's too slow. It feels too slow. It feels like I'm not getting enough oxygen.
Please go away.
There is a shuffle sound from the direction of the hallway. It is his feet on the carpeting. There is a creaking of a bone that sounds like a knee. He is coming closer. Oh god oh god oh god, I honestly can't be alive right now. I honestly have to kill myself somehow. I can feel reality caving in upon itself, collapsing in the middle and right down into my mind, and I am glad for the avalanche that is burying me.
But Sonny & Cher remind me of Sally & Roger, because I used to watch that at their old house when I spent the night, and that reminds me of Roger and what is going on and the reason I thought of the girl at Daisy's in the first place.
We used to play husband and wife. There was this one part of the store where it was sort of dark, in the back, and this display shelf was almost pushed up against a wall, so there was about a foot or two of dark space in there. That would be the bedroom of the husband and wife, and we would wedge ourselves back in there, laying down like, and then we would move around and sort of hug each like husbands an wives do. Okay, this is embarassing, but what we would do is squeeze each other's butts. I'm pretty sure now that this is not what husbands and wives do, but we thought it was pretty close, and it felt grown-up, what we were doing. My whole point is not even that my dad walked in there one time an caught us and humiliated me for life or that I can't even ever think about this memory because I'm worried it makes me a pervert, but that even back then when I was really liking playing grown-ups laying in a bed together and doing that kind of stuff, even though I did that, I never never never pictured what Roger looks like right now laying across the room on his back with his thing sticking out. It doesn't make any sense, I know, that I more picture a young girl as the grown-up man than I do an actual one, but it is true anyway that it makes more sense to me than this. I think Roger's thing is so gross-looking. And, I don't know, just scary, I guess. Like it is a world I never want a part of. It makes me sick and disgusted and scared and what is wrong with me. I just don't get it and I don't know what to do but it is like an ashtray of cigarette butts in your drink of 7-Up, that is all I can say. Puke, dirt, stink, top of a roller coaster, top of a skyscraper on the ledge outside with no open windows, evil gut-me-like-a-fish in the shed behind the cabin in Houghton Lake, too late too late too late.
My feet are moving because what other choice is there and Roger is getting closer and closer and I am not looking between his legs but I can see it anyway and it's all I can see and the world feels dirty and sickening and I am part of it and I want to die. I am so sorry.
Now I am back on the couch under my blanket. It is my Raggedy Ann and Andy sleeping bag, which I really do not like all that much, but my mom thinks my Love one is too old and raggedy to bring out of the house anymore. This one, the Raggedy Ann and Andy, is yellow, which is just okay, but the outside has this weird coating or covering that sort of seems like paper to me. It is just not that cozy or comfortable, and if you have dry skin on your feet, it will stick to the inside, too. I am back here on the couch and the world has faded to shadows beyond this small spotlight of me, the cards, and Roger. I would give anything to go back to just the phone call to my mom, because back then I thought there might be a way out. But now I know there is not, and this is my life and this is what I'm going to be doing and there is no other choice about it. It feels like getting punched in the face while your head is backed up to a steel wall; there is just nowhwere to go. No room for flex or cushioning the blow.
***********************************************
SIDE NOTES:
Girls with average intelligence are immenseley more date-able. I am listening to them recount marriages and divorces and annulments and children and past boyfriends who made them tapes of love songs and who they should've married. This is the stuff of a real life, the kind they can look back on as old women and feel full. Men have loved these women, largely, probably, because they've let them. I could learn a thing or two here. But then, I'm not like them. I dread the looking back over my life one day. I hope I get my knees knocked out from under me and my head cracks and that's that.
************************************************
It is dark in the house now, and very quiet. I have been pretending to sleep for at least half an hour, I think. I am pretending so hard that I hope it convinces me that I am sleeping. Because I need to have this night be over. I just need to wake up and have it be morning and have there be sunlight and Sally home. Because then I will be closer to leaving here and having this all be over.
"You sleeping, Jen?"
Roger is in the hallway. I didn't even hear him leave his room. It is too dark to see him even if I opened my eyes, but I am not opening my eyes. I am stiff as a board under my sleeping bag. I am breathing slow slow slow, trying to breathe slow because that's how sleeping people breathe. I don't care if I pass out because it's too slow. It feels too slow. It feels like I'm not getting enough oxygen.
Please go away.
There is a shuffle sound from the direction of the hallway. It is his feet on the carpeting. There is a creaking of a bone that sounds like a knee. He is coming closer. Oh god oh god oh god, I honestly can't be alive right now. I honestly have to kill myself somehow. I can feel reality caving in upon itself, collapsing in the middle and right down into my mind, and I am glad for the avalanche that is burying me.
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