Cola Diet Other, Chapter 1: Numb (Rough)

 

 

By the thirteenth squirt of foam soap I have transcended from drawing parallels between her features and my faults into a land of illusion where the only concern is germs and I don’t have to worry about anything other than clean. Nothing else matters when I get to where soap takes me. 

 

 

Soap is my outlet, my addiction. It‘s an anti-bacterial, 12-ounce lifesaver. The only thing that can get my mind away from my deep, intense loneliness, my yearning so bad for social interaction, my undying want of having her. The first bell sounds, an alarm that refuses to allow me more than an instant illusive vision of clean, friends, girls, and other daydreams of unobtainable desirables that I must live without. I rinse the now-massive mountain of purple generic lavender foam hand soap off of my hands, leave each hand under the boiling-hot water for 15 seconds, pull the paper towel dispenser handle down three times with my elbow, grab a paper towel, dry my hands, place paper towel over the sink handle, and turn the hot water valve back 90 degrees. Throw the paper towel away, hit the giant metal handi-cap button with my knee. Get my silver purity ring from my back rear pocket, put it back on my left ring finger, wait 3 seconds for the door to fully open, and I’m off to first hour.

 

 

“Hi”, “Hi”, “Hello”. Treading down the hall I swear to God every single living human body in the entire school says hi to me. Emo kids. Mexicans. Stoners. Band geeks. Nerds. Jocks. Preps. Hicks. Teachers. I can say hi to all of them, but not much else. Most of them I’ve met through facebook, a preferred means of social interaction for me so that by the time we first spoke in real life there wasn’t any ice to break, no fears of embarrassment or rejection. There were few things I could handle conversing about in person, face to face. Small talk? I knew that routine better than Slim knew Shady, front to back. From the dull “hello” to the horrifically uninspiring “how are you,” I knew exactly how to guide a real life generic conversation full of questions nobody really cares the answers to and as much depth as the kiddie pool. The minute somebody asks me why my hands are bleeding or why I open doors with my elbows, however, I’m out of that conversation faster than you can say the word “awkward”. It’s not that I’m embarrassed or shy, I’m just too damn terrified of how the person will react when they hear what I have to say. 

 

 

My past failures haunt me as well and affect my public poise. It’s hard to go up to a beautiful girl and say anything when all the beautiful girls I’ve ever had any kind of word exchange with have always ended up with them brutally denying me of any mercy to their savage exile. Girl after girl I would attempt to have conversations with over the years, but what pushed me over the edge and into my current state of seclusion and alienation is when someone I had never seen before walked up to me and ever-so-casually asked, “Hey, is it true that you’re bringing a gun to prom!? None of my friends are going because they think you’re going to massacre the whole place!” Now I can handle Kenny Jacobs telling me daily, which he does, to do everyone a favor and go home and kill myself, they’d all throw a party afterwards. But that was different, the prom gun thing hit me hard. My tears started pushing against my eyelids and I ran past the kid, out of school, as far away as I could. 

 

 

Since that day I have had a hypersensitive reaction to rejection, consequently making me too scared to attempt creating any new relationships in person. Of course all of this is in addition to my more recent diagnosis with Asperger’s Syndrome. The intense stuff I could sometimes talk about online with people I trust, because I have time to read and comprehend what I am saying before I let it out for them to read, instead of having to act on impulse and hope whatever my aspie mouth mutters is acceptable. I’m not good at acting on impulse, which may be why I prefer to do all my communicating on the Internet. It also helps that I don’t have to look the other person in the eye, a near-impossible feat for me. And if you tell somebody something deep, intense, tangible online and they think you’re a creep, taking care of that is as easy as avoiding them the next few weeks at school. Sometimes I dream about what it would be like if I confronted people in person, if they would feel for me and start having a conversation with me, but the all-consuming thought of rejection quickly empowers that fantasy where I know how to talk to people and swallows every last foolish thought. 

 

After maneuvering down the hallway past dozens of forgotten acquaintances and masses of unobtainable relationships I have treaded from the 300 hall Men’s Room to my first hour class: Psychology, with only five minutes left before the late bell rings. Psychology. A class I took to satisfy my curiosities about my own depression, social issues, obsessions, compulsions, and this thing called assssssss, Asperger’s. Only to discover on the first day of class that the course was taught by a tall, intimidating 25 year old blonde bombshell. Just the breed that does it to me: clammy hands, eyes on the floor, voice mumbling, feeling of utter worthlessness, all before even talking to the woman. This complicated things: my grade, my psyche, and this class. 

 

 

I walk into the room, head to my seat in the front row, right next to her already up at the front of the classroom in all her enticing glory, ready to start today’s classroom activities. I sit down to an unsuspecting “Hey, James, how was your weekend?” Mrs. Bennedict’s kind and gentle voice asks. 

 

 

“Good”, I lied as I attempted to look into her eyes to appear respectful, with my pupils shooting straight down to her feet the instant they got within a foot of her captivating face. A lie, because in truth my weekend was hell, as was every weekend. Thirty-seven hours of sleeping, a habit prescribed by my manic depression. Compulsive gorging of food: halfway thinking I might find happiness in the fried batter and the sweet tastes, and the remaining hours are spent searching for fulfillment in videogames and media, alone. All alone. Vastly different from the typical weekend of my fellow 17 year olds: drinking, smoking, fucking, getting shitfaced, socializing together. All together. 

 

 

The uncontrollable; my social handicaps, OCD, and ass-to-the-burgers couldn’t be fully blamed for my loneliness, a fact that haunted me constantly. This was 2008, a time when morals didn’t exist and if you had any you were about as rare as they came. That was me: refused to drink, smoke, or have sex and it exiled me from everyone else, cast me far away from any social opportunity. Temptation was a bitch and stood present 24/7, constantly telling me to give in to what my morals forbid. It promised friends, popularity, girls, and happiness, the very things I’d give my life to have, the things whose absence rip me apart every second that goes by without them. Maybe I was classy and old-fashioned, maybe I was a stubborn dumbfuck but either way there was something in me that persevered time after time that believed that sex was between a husband and wife and that the drinking and drug scene wasn’t for me. 

 

 

“Well that’s good!” she replied to my lies. Class would continue and I would occasionally talk to her when I had to, but she was gorgeous. Teacher or not, my mind could not get past the mental block of her body, her face, her hair, her skin, her eyes. She was a woman, she was all woman. No matter their relation to me, their age, their marital status, I had trouble with these kinds of women. 

 

 

If I got within a 10 foot radius of them I’d turn into a shy, rambling idiot on the outside and a massive storm of incoming fucked up thoughts on the inside. 

 

 

“Look at her – look at you! You’re short, fat, ugly, pale, and fucked up – the exact opposite of her!” 

 

 

“Were you about to talk to her? Seriously!? What would happen then? You’d creep her out, you know she wants nothing to do with you, she hates you and hopes you die. You should die. What the fuck are you even doing looking at her you sick fuck???” 

 

 

and “You’re a fat retarded douche bag faggot fuck, and she is smoking hot, nice, and has lots of friends. You don’t deserve to even be near her, you’re a piece of shit, she’s perfect. You gonna talk to her? You have no right, she’s so much better than you, you’re such a piece of shit. You should just go fuck yourself and jump off a cliff. Her life would be better, everyone’s would. That’s what you could do for her. Remember what happened with Erin? Christ, remember what happened with Christie!?” 

 

 

…Are among the common things I say in my mind when around attractive females. I suppose that’s why I’m still single. Still alone. Still isolated. 

 

 

“Hahaha, can you even believe her!? I mean my God!”, interrupted my thoughts as the group of popular, pretty, and bitchy girls stormed into the classroom toting AE, Hollister, and Aeropostle logos from head to foot. But in the middle of the bitches there was something rare, something different. Desiree Marshall, far kinder and smarter than any of the people she hung around with, or anyone else I’d ever met for that matter. She was perfect. I’d do anything to have her but yet the contradictions inside of me wouldn’t allow me to speak to her, even if she were to throw herself upon me. No, I am the piece of shit and she is the angel, if she had anything to do with me it would taint her. I don’t deserve to even look at or speak to her, and she doesn’t deserve the hell of having me look at or speak to her. 

 

 

It wasn’t until I had gotten my thoughts away from Desiree that I noticed Mrs. Bennedict’s outfit. A cute little v-neck vest on top of a long sleeved dress shirt with… oh God, with the top three buttons unbuttoned, unveiling one or two inches of cleavage. The unrelenting, enticing thoughts began: 

 

“What treasures lie along this godly crevice?” 

 

”I wonder what a real-life breast looks like!?” 

 

“Nipple. Oh sweet lord almighty in heaven, dear sweet Jesus NIPPLE.” 

 

followed by the occasional “You sick bastard! You pervert! You don’t deserve a woman you sick fuck! Go to hell!!!” 

 

 

With my virginity completely intact and cobwebs starting to form down south due to my OCD inhibiting me from touching myself my threshold for arousal was very low. I needed to think unsexy thoughts to tame these frequent outbursts of sexual urges. After envisioning Amy Winehouse taking body shots off of the fat guy from Borat (2006) I had finally cooled down and was ready to start class just as the last bell rang. 

 

 

“Good morning, class! Today we are going to start learning about one of the founders of Psychology, Sigmund Freud.” Mrs. Bennett said while sketching notes on the chalkboard. It took all of my concentration not to look at her nice, firm butt in her knee-length, neatly ironed skirt while she wrote information about a 19^th century Psychologist on the board. She continued, “Freud is famous for coming up with the Penis Envy Theory. After interviewing hundreds of women, he found they thought vaginas to be inferior to penises and that they envied men for having them. He-” 

 

 

Oh God. Dream girl to my right; hot blonde five feet in front of me that just said the P and the V words, her breasts just ready to pop out and poke me in the face. I needed to get out of there, there was no way the thin plaid shorts I had on could conceal anything. 

 

 

“Yeah, I’ll bet you envy not bein’ on this penis! Get some, get some!!!” I hear from the back of the room. I look back and see my nemesis motioning his hand toward his groin. 

 

 

“Kenny Jacobs, to the office NOW!!!” Mrs. Bennedict shouted, pointing at the door. So naïve, she thought he was just another stupid, immature kid. She didn’t know what he’d done, or what he’s capable of. He gives his pals some high fives before strutting out the door. 

 

 

“God, I can’t believe that kid. This isn’t middle school!” That kind of ruined the mood for the “penis envy” lecture, so she put in a video on the salivating dogs experiment instead and went back to her desk, obviously quite upset. With the lights dimmed and everyone’s focus on the screen it was my rare chance, and I let my temptation take over. I snuck a look at Desiree, trying to be discreet.

 

 

I just wanted to catch a glimpse of the perfect girl, but ended up getting hypnotized by her beauty and stared at her for over almost the entirety of the horrid video. Eventually she saw me staring at her, and that’s when the unimaginable, the impossible happened. She smiled at me a little, and then turned back to the TV. Time froze, fireworks exploded, confetti fell from the heavens, angels sounded their trumpets… and then the bell rang.

 

Walking to graphic arts, I couldn’t figure it out. The thoughts begin again. 

 

 

“I violated her. I looked at her. She’s so much better than me. She’s a goddess. If justice prevailed I’d be hanged by morning. She saw me. And what does she do? She smiles!? What the fuck??? Wait, I sat by the wall, right below that Ziggy comic strip. She must have been reading that when she smiled. Or she must have thought of something really funny at the same time. Or maybe she was envisioning me getting my throat slit. God, I’m so stupid!”

 

 

I get into graphic arts and Mr. Mac calls me into his office right away. I walk in and he tells me to close the door. 

 

 

“James, listen to me” he says, “We both know you’re good. Damn good. I’d even say that you are one of my most talented students. So why are you getting an F? You need to hand in your work. This stuff is elementary to you, James. You could easily get an A+ in this class if you’d simply hand in your work! I know what you’re capable of, and if it were up to me I would just give you an A and be done with it but unfortunately you have to meet the same requirements of every other student. You’ve been working on some of these things for months, I’ve given you so much extra time, and I’m still willing to accept any late work for full credit. I know it’s hard with your OCD and everything, but if you keep listening to what it’s telling you, you’ll never finish anything. Stop being such a perfectionist, that magazine cover you did is the best one I’ve seen in my 23 years of teaching! And that cereal box of yours? That was so clever, so well designed, I think everyone else was a little jealous to tell you the truth. Screen printing, movie poster, I’ve seen your work on all of these projects but you need to hand them in! They don’t need to be perfect, just hand them in and I know you’ll be getting an A. Pull it together and you might have a shot at that scholarship!” 

 

 

Bringing up the scholarship was a low blow. Every year he gave out one scholarship and recommendation letter to one of the best graphic design schools up north to his top aspiring graphic design student. It was one of the leading schools of graphic design in the country and his Alma Mater. It was my dream, and he knew it. But he didn’t understand, none of my work was good enough to submit yet, they all looked like shit, each had hundreds of flaws. There’s no way I could hand them in as finished pieces yet. There was just no way. 

 

 

“Alright, yeah. I’ll go wrap up all those projects right now and put them in the basket.” I lied as I walked out the door into the computer lab, the second time today I’d lied to a teacher. That little meeting left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I was too pissed to work, so I just messed around the rest of the class. Photoshopped my face onto a picture of Borat in a thong stretched over his shoulders, and then transferred the image onto a mouse pad. The bell for lunch rang soon after the buzzer sounded on the ironing press, letting me know the image had fully melted onto the rubber base.

 

 

I rushed through the door to lunch, trying to avoid Mr. Mac on the way out. I was halfway to the cafeteria and in the hallway with glass walls allowing you to see into the weight room on the other side. I glanced up for an instant and saw a girl I’d never seen before with dark brown hair, jogging on a treadmill dressed in sweat pants and a sports bra. Luckily she was fully immersed in her iPod and didn’t notice me. Who was she? God, I didn’t know if my hormones had gone apeshit or the lust demon had it out for me today, but either way I needed to get away from all this poon.

 

 

The treadmill was only feet from the glass, and this was the first time I’d seen a girl’s unclothed stomach up close and in person. In movies and magazines every navel looked the same, it all got so boring but this time, in person… it was so beautiful, so elegant, so intoxicating, it was, it was…sublime. Screw butts, forget nipples, the tummy is where it was at. But what I felt that hit me like a brick wall this time was not arousal, but a great depression. A depression, because I was bluntly reminded of the fact I’d never get to see, or lay claim to such a thing. My thoughts were then drawn back to Desiree.

 

 

“You’ll never get with her. She hates you, James. She’s so much better than you. She’s better, better than you, she’s better than you.” And that’s when it began. I was lucky; it was only my first tick of the day. I needed to get to a bathroom, and fast. “She’s better. Better, she’s better than you James. She’s so much better than you; she’s better than you. She’s better, she’s better. Better.”

 

 

600 hall men’s room: same shitty foam soap as everywhere else, wobbly sinks, and only a chance of getting warm water, usually full on coarse paper towels though. But no handi-cap button. As only the ninth best bathroom in the school, it wasn’t the Ritz but it was close and would have to do.

 

“She’s better than you, James, so much better. Better, she’s better. She’s better than you, she’s better.”

 

 

I storm in, turn the hot water valve of the closest sink 90 degrees, and squirt soap onto my hand like a madman until I lose my fingers in the suds. I scrub vigorously, every square millimeter as I slowly start to feel the relief of a great burden being lifted off my shoulders, and the haunting thoughts starting to vanish. I look up at the mirror to check my teeth, still scrubbing and – oh, shit. Winter must have come, as I looked down to see the white porcelain sink turn red. I take a look to find a small gash on my right hand along the crease on my palm that ran from beside the index finger to the side of my hand. It was getting colder, and not at all surprised I pulled my little bottle of alcohol sanitizer out and dumped it all over my hands, stinging like a bitch but also taking care of the blood.

 

 

In a week I’d have a series of minor cuts along most of my knuckles, in a month my skin would be scaly and crevices would start to tear deeper into the skin, in two months a large number of cuts would start to form a little zig-zag grid pattern between my thumb and pointer finger, seeping blood when stretched too far, and by the end of winter they’d look like raw hamburger meat that got pounded to shit by a meat tenderizer. Yes, winter was very painful and quite bloody, but it was a routine I’d gotten used to over the years.

 

 

I finally reached my normal table in the lunchroom at the front of the cafeteria, one of the circle 10-seaters. Victor and Victor were already at the table with their food. I sit down and I’m greeted with a series of smiles from the regular band of hispanics I spent many lunches with.

 

 

“No conozco hombre, es extraño. ¿Por qué no come alguna vez nada?”, Victor says.

 

 

“Sup,” I say, sitting down without any food and not understanding a word that had been said. It was Pizza day, but I still denied myself the food, the fear of eating in public had haunted me along with my germaphobia. Not to mention the law of transference: Less than 50 percent of men and 60 percent of women washed their hands after using the rest room. Knowing that, it becomes clear that any time you touch a doorknob, keyboard, or anything else that those who don’t wash their hands have touched, it means that the germs have transferred and you’re practically touching their wieners and buttholes. They touch their wieners and buttholes, don’t wash their hands, and then touch the door knob, transferring the germs to the knob. Then, you touch the door knob, and then touch the food you’re eating, and then put it in your mouth – By the law of transference, you’ve more or less just given all those people blow jobs. And people called me crazy for washing my hands so much.

 

 

“Sup man,” Victor says, one of the few english words he spoke to me. I used to sit by myself on the ground by the front doors for the first three years of my high school career before I started sitting by the Mexicans. They were silent for the most part, and they tolerated me because I was the only one that talked to them when they moved here from Texas in sixth grade, or tried to talk to them rather. Before long I felt at home with the Mexicans, they didn’t know much of my language and I didn’t theirs, but that didn’t matter, they took in my wayward self anyway when I really needed it. No matter the language or skin complexion we were the same: outcasts who didn’t fit in at any of the other tables.

 

 

“¡eh!”, They say as Edgar and Cecilia sit down: the twins. That’s when I notice Kenny Jacobs headed my way with a lunch tray. Was he just passing through or was he coming to give me shit? Who’s to say, but either way I was out of there, headed straight and swift to the nearest rest room. 

 

 

In the middle of my cleansing ritual I was relieved to hear the bell ring to end lunch. I waited a while to leave, ensuring that the crowds –and Kenny- would have cleared. After sufficient time I sulk over to my usual spot at the round table by the soda machines and sit my fat ass down onto the uncomfortable plastic chair. Senior release: an upperclassman privilege every high school kid looked forward to, a two-hour break in the school day to do whatever the hell you wanted. While everyone else was off squeezing in a quickie, smoking a bowl or just chilling at Taco Bell, I sat in the front lobby and read. Watchmen, Blankets, Fight Club, or anything by the great Stephen King: this is what I used during my senior release to escape for a while.

 

 

“Hey big boy, I really like those shoes.” I hear from behind me in a dumb, bubbly voice, unmistakably that of Melanie Ritchie, the class slut made infamous school-wide for snorting blow off some college guy’s wiener. She walks over and sits down next to me, wearing her usual outfit: tighter than tight denim jeans fringed at the bottom, dental floss-like straps from her g-string on her hips, tiny pink tank top accented with gaudy necklaces, and flip-flops that plop, plop, plopped on the floor as she grew closer. She was very pretty in her own right, but most defiantly had some kind of funk going on in between those long, perfectly tan legs of hers and I didn’t want to catch her stank. She really seemed to enjoy cock-teasing me and messing with my mind and I had no idea why, but it helped pass the time. To tell you the truth I enjoyed it, she was the only person my age with a vagine that I felt comfortable talking to, as she was different. She was extremely outgoing, and when she interacted with me she took charge.

 

 

“How are you doing? Still against sex?… Why is that by the way, it’s the tits!”

 

 

“Ummm, well. It’s-… Ummm. There is-… Let’s see. You see… Cheeseburgers! Yes, cheeseburgers. Sex is kind of like cheeseburgers.” 

 

 

“…Cheeseburgers?” 

 

 

“You know… You go on living your life, throughout the years eating all kinds of cheeseburgers of every shape, size, color, and tenderness. You eat good cheeseburgers, bad cheeseburgers, burnt cheeseburgers, rare cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers with mayo, cheeseburgers with lettuce, and cheeseburgers with bacon. Hell, you’ve even had cheeseburgers with pepperjack. So eventually you get married, you eat your wife’s cheeseburger, and it tastes just like every other cheeseburger you’ve ever had, you’re like “This ain’t too special, in fact I think I even had a better cheeseburger back in ’07.” There’s no special bond there, and your marriage is just waiting for problems. Now, imagine you go your entire life without even looking at a cheeseburger, and then you finally get married and eat your wife’s. It’s the only one you’ve ever had, it’s so special, so sacred. It’s so amazing, you’re on top of the world, you want to eat your wife’s cheeseburger for the rest of eternity. That kind of bond and specialness with spouses can only be achieved with no sex before marriage. That’s what I’m doing.“ What the hell was I talking about? 

 

 

“Ummm… Haha, James you’re so silly. But there’s lots more things that you can do besides sex. Like with your fingers, hands, mouths and things. What about that?” It was too much. I got up and walked to the office as fast as I could, Melanie laughing at me the whole time.

 

 

“More headaches again today, James?” The secretary greets me with.

 

 

“Yeah” I reply, trying to sound as pathetic as possible.

 

 

“Alright, come on back and lie on the cot for a while, see if that helps.”

 

 

I walk back into a room no bigger than a mop closet, spray the whole cot down with my mini Febreeze disinfecting spray and lay down.

 

 

“James. James… James?” Desiree whispers to me in her gentle angel’s voice. I open my eyes and see the school nurse towering over me, repeating my name. 

 

 

“Huh, what?” 

 

 

“School’s done, you’re about to miss the bus.” 

 

 

Oh, shit – I miscalculated the dose and missed my gym class. Probably for the best, I wasn’t in the mood for the daily sausage fest. I got up, grabbed my bag and power-walked to the bus, just making it in time. I lived far away in the country, and the bus was the only way back there. I hated it, but it was my own damn fault. I was always too depressed and unmotivated to get my license. All the middle school dweebs, sticky floors and germ-infested seats, my iPod Touch was my savior and the only reason the bus didn’t drive me insane. I always had it on shuffle, I liked to be pleasantly surprised at the next song, randomly picked from my large selection. Selections like Eminem, Taylor Swift, Ice Cube, Ciara, Buddy Holly, Snoop Dogg, Queen, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga and then some more Eminem.

 

 

I was halfway home and really getting into Teardrops on My Guitar when I looked up and saw a tiny, sixth grade girl in the seat ahead of me standing up, facing me and just glaring into my eyes. She was different than the rest of the little ones, she seemed more mature and was always alone on the bus, curled up reading a Twilight book. You could see the kindness in her eyes, the same found in Desiree’s and my mom’s. I took my ear buds out to see what was going on, but before I could inquire she drilled me with a question that had obviously been weighing on her mind. 

 

 

“Hey, um, how come you always look so sad?” Her voice sounded puny, pathetic, and a bit sad itself. 

 

 

“What? Um… I don’t know… I don’t, I mean I’m not.” She takes a deep sigh, smiles at me, and then disappears back into her seat, her eyes locked onto mine the entire time, like she was searching for something in my pupils.

 

 

I couldn’t figure out what that was all about, it had to have been attributed to all the shitty literature she read. I pitied her, all of them: while I grew up with Star Wars, Rugrats, Doug, Pokemon and Full House, all they had was bullshit Twilight books about vampires that could come out in sunlight. I mean, even Helen Keller could tell you that that’s impossible. I put my ear buds back in and listened to Richard Cheese’s classic rendition of Get Down With The Sickness for the rest of the way.

 

 

Finally, we pulled up to my big, blue house. I walk in and, as always my Mom, my morbidly obese cat Oscar, and my dogs Juno and Cleo are all there to greet me. My Mom was my best friend, and my pets were all I had, the only things that kept me going. 

 

 

“Hey James! How was your day?”

 

 

“Good.” I mutter in a tone in complete contrast to her cheerful, loving voice. I didn’t deserve her. I deserved a Mom that beat me, told me what a piece of shit I was every minute of every day, and how much she wished she would have had an abortion, I deserved Debbie Mathers. Did she know what she meant to me? The woman was the single thing keeping me from slitting my throat and ending it right then and there. The word “love” did not suffice.

 

 

“That’s great! I made some cookies, would you like some?”

 

 

“No thanks, not right now anyway. I’m gonna go upstairs.” I pull off my glasses and purity ring, set them on the kitchen counter and head for the stairs.

 

 

“Wait, James – are you coming to Daddy’s concert this Sunday?” 

 

 

“Noo, I don’t think so. I don’t really like those praise and worship concerts. Everyone standing and singing with their hands in the air, it’s so weird. Why can’t he just have a normal concert where we just sit and watch him?” There was nothing else I could say, she couldn’t possibly understand the real reason I detested those concerts.

 

 

“James, you know the focus isn’t on him, it’s on God! And he would love it if you’d come to see one of his concerts sometime. Oh, and anyway James – do something useful up there, you can’t sleep your life away. I’m worried about you.” 

 

 

“I’m fine, Mama. I love you.” I say, trying to sound as sane and comforting as possible as I ascend the stairs.

 

“Wait!” I’m stopped midway up the staircase.”I know you’re going to fall asleep up there, come take your pills.””Ugh, fine.” I come back down and go into the fridge and grab a purple Powerade as my Mom drops the mass of pills onto my palm: Prozac, Clamipramine, a drop of Lithium and a few more mystery capsules. I take them down like a champ with a gulp of Powerade and my daily zombification was finished.

 

 

“Goodnight, I love you.”

 

 

“Goodnight, I love you too.” I finally head back up the stairs, Cleo not far behind. It was a long, stressful day and I needed to unwind. I went up to my room – Cleo my ever-faithful companion following me the whole way, grabbed a Dr. Pepper from my mini-fridge, laid down on my couch and grabbed the TV remote. Before turning it on I was stopped, caught off guard by the sight of it: The large, flat-screened LED HDTV, the surround sound, the MacBook, the Wii, the Xbox 360, the PS3, the DS, the PSP, my large array of hats and shoes piled neatly in my closet, and the shelves. Shelves containing hundreds of games and over 600 blu rays and DVDs. I thought to myself “this is it. This is life. This is life, and I have surely reached the peak of it.” I took a deep breath and flipped on my HDTV. Hoping to find an old re-run of Boy Meets World or Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, or maybe a good act on Comedy Central I was pleasantly surprised to find 300, one of my favorite movies based on one of my favorite comics playing on HBO. After double-checking that the volume amount was on a multiple of five I flipped to it, and it was right at the beginning of a scene I’d halfway forgotten about: The night before they set out to battle and King Leonidas is on his stone balcony, overlooking the town he’s about to give his life for and he is totally naked, just letting his dork hang out and everything. 

 

 

It’s not until he walks over to his bedside to talk to his also completely nude wife when I realize that this was the scene I closed my eyes at for the five times I saw it in the theater. But this time I was mesmerized, I couldn’t look away. After briefly talking Spartan politics with her he then sticks it to her, and does things I didn’t even know what they were. So dirty, so sweaty, so deliciously disgusting. The moaning, the thrusting, was this really what it was like? I could never picture myself doing any of this. They touched each other’s parts and had to have touched their own, the very thought of it made me cringe. But yet I couldn’t look away. I mean, what would a girl think if I asked to wear plastic gloves during, and burned all of the bed sheets after? The movie cuts to the morning after in the wheat fields, with the families saying goodbye to the soldiers. I snap out of it, and start to become overwhelmed by an immense feeling of guilt and self-loathing.

 

 

“Sick, sick, sick, you sick bastard! You’re such a pervert James, what would Desiree think if she could see you now, getting your jollies off watching Queen Gorgo’s mammaries jiggling in the pale moonlight? Just die James, that’s what everyone wants of you.”