Why I Committed Suicide (4 page)

Jenifer’s even comfortable enough to enjoy a little mild flirtation with me. Last night while I was working the front counter like I always do on Thursday nights, Jenifer’s friend Jill Moppingworth came into the store and said she saw Jenifer making out with some guy outside. Now I had already seen Jenifer that evening and I knew she was lurking around outside socializing giggling and goofing around with Jill doing girl things so I knew that Jill was just fucking with me. Still, even though it gave me weird pain in the heart to hear the words, I knew it was the joke that all girls get around to playing on their boyfriend to see if he really really likes them. Melanie did it by saying she was pregnant and observing my reaction. My slight empathic abilities always let me know when a situation is serious and I know the right way to respond to these things so I puffed up my chest and said “I don’t care” in my best I-don’t-give-a-shit-voice. I knew that this would even out the playing field a little bit and accelerate the relationship between us for the good or bad. Sure enough two seconds after Jill went bouncing outside in her giggly girlish manner Jenifer came in pretending to be mad and said “So you don’t care huh?” in her best pouty/hurt voice. Then we both cracked up and just smiled at each other. It was such a small thing but it made my heart soar. I knew Jenifer knew I really loved her and for the first time and that it was not repulsive for her to imagine me caring that much. The playfulness in that exchange made me so happy. I don’t know how I can explain it here, only extreme love or intense anger can drive the words from an intellectual man’s mind. I had an old grade school “check this box” confirmation that she liked me back. It made my whole night.

I am so self-conscious about her and Kristoff hanging out together because I am scared of him taking her away from me. I now know that if it weren’t for Kristoff stringing her along the way some men magically have the ability to do, Jenifer and I would be together. I am such a stupid silly slave of love. I wonder if I could get away with killing Kristoff? That would just make him into a martyr though. You know, the same way popular girls talk about their best friend and hang up pictures of a boy they never even spoke to in high school after he dies tragically in some drunken binge. If Kristoff died now, her heart would be buried with him.

On a lighter note, my swim class is still a joke.

Auuuugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I can’t take the depression that comes with this newfound love. I am now thinking of Jen all the time and I get depressed when I am not around her. I have started getting these stupid suspicious feelings even if I know what the score is and that I have no right to feel this way. I follow her on my bicycle and see her at the Karma Kafé most nights. I feel like I am overcrowding her and this is going to be a turn-off point in everything we have built. I even try to play it cool, like I am just going out for a casual evening bike ride in the 100-degree weather.
Right.
I am such a loser sometimes. I’ve done that a couple of nights recently but today was the worst. I talked to her on the phone this afternoon, which is a weird bonus because she hates talking on the phone almost as much as I do. I am beginning to see the telephones advantage in alleviating loneliness though.

She was at her parents’ house here in Denton and in her sexy southern way she said she was sunbathing naked on the roof and would be there all afternoon. Well, the thought of that made me swoon and there was some definite swelling in the loins from the mental visualization I got of her supple sexy body on the hot gritty shingles of her house. Now there was no invitation in the slightest for me to come over. In fact I think she hinted that she wanted to be left alone for a while and any decent person would have respected that. And being the indecent person that I am, and that I vaguely remembered flying past her parents house on one of our back-road pot-smoking cruising sessions in her car, I got the notion to go for another bike ride. It’s only about
130
degrees during the hottest part of the afternoon on a cloudless day and I decide to casually ride a couple of miles over to a place I only vaguely remember.

Smart.

I didn’t even take the time to think about what I would do when/and if I got there. I just hopped on my bike and pedaled off like a dumbass. Visions of a glistening body lying in the sunshine. Sunshine would be my friend. It was one of those plans that I was sure would work out as long as I didn’t take the time to think about the next step, like a cartoon character that falls only after he acknowledges the lack of ground underneath him. But I’m in love and these sorts of things work themselves out all the time right? Well, sort of. I found the place pretty easily and I rode casually back and forth in front of it for a while trying to work up the courage to approach the house or capture a glimpse of her naked body on the roof, fully realizing the stupidity in my lack of planning.

Sweat is pouring off of me in rivers. I am flushed with heat and the blood is in my muscles not my brain as she answers the door and looks none too thrilled to find me there. Plus I stink now too. The only thing I can think to do is ask for a glass of water which she casually gives me and shows me around her parents’ awesome house. There are all these craft things everywhere, and not the painted wooden duck and “bless this house” crafty shit, but high society genuine craft shit. Her mom has a giant loom on the second floor that she’s used to make these really great rugs and wall hangings. I think this is neat because I’ve seen looms in history books, usually with pitiful pre-child-labor-law children slaving over them, but I have never seen a loom up close. I have a million questions, but Jenifer thinks I am being a dumb boy and bullshitting her. The loom is a wondrous wooden creation with its thousands of threads and tentacle arms. It has probably been sitting up there her whole life and she hasn’t thought twice about it in years. Her dad is a potter so they also have a giant walk in kiln in the backyard for firing his creations and it’s also perfect for disposing bodies if that’s your thing. The way she describes her father sometimes I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s been kidnapping and torturing people, searing away their flesh and bones in his giant kiln while he casually makes his pottery. Her dad has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which generally makes him an asshole I guess, but he is probably one of the best potters in the whole world. He’s sort of a mad genius always configuring his own glazes, trying to perfect a piece or else out on the road selling his dish sets at art shows. He’s not the ashtray and vase maker kind of potter if you get my drift. All of their dishes and glasses in the house are his work. As well as the bird feeders in the yard, the birdbaths and their sink basins. She even showed me a dildo he made and kept hidden that her parents didn’t think she knew about. Yeah that’s weird. But I digress.

Like I said, I showed up uninvited and felt sort of uncomfortable and dumb for being there. I saw a lot of Jenifer’s ballet pictures. I knew she was in ballet but I just thought it was the typical girl “my mom made me take ballet when I was two” kind of thing. Apparently she was very very good at it. You have to have the right genetic stock and balance and natural intuitiveness to be great at ballet, which is a rare combination. I must admit I don’t have a lot of appreciation for the art, but I understand a little better now why it is a cultural mainstay. The body mutilation alone that the girls go through to attain the highest levels is crazy. It’s similar to the stamina and training of a martial arts master. The way she talked about ballet with me before made it seem like she just got tired of doing it and quit after 13 years, but today she told me how she actually made it to the point where she had to decide whether ballet was what she was going to do for the rest of her life. She said professional ballerinas often get their feet broken and reset so their feet walk ‘naturally’ on the points of their toes and that all of them have to do it in order to achieve the perfection of the dance. She reached the point where she would have had to do that and basically said no way.

I’ve never heard of anything so fucked up in my life. I mean I could cut off my ears and that
might
make me swim faster but you don’t see anybody doing that. She also said that they have old bitter former ballet ladies who are responsible for overseeing the “whorehouse”, giving the girls whatever they need to stay as thin and light as possible. They walk around and constantly berate them for being too fat then encourage and teach them how to binge and purge.

Now I know where she got those wonderful long legs of hers, I was smart enough not to say that out loud though. For some reason she’s insecure about them. Go figure. Eventually she warmed up to me being with her at her house and she showed me some pictures of her in Australia and all sorts of things from her childhood that I soaked up. Her enthusiasm was innocent and contagious, she felt relaxed and at home here, but I started feeling creepy after a while. Everything in the house was so purposeful and organized, totally unlike the Jenifer I am used to. She wasn’t out of place among the luxury, if I had the means I would shower her with it, it just threw me for a loop because everything I know about her is the antithesis of this. I guess I got the feeling that the Jenifer I knew was only a role she was playing for a while and I would never measure up to what she was used to and deserved.

Eventually I left but I was glad I went over to her house. I definitely know I should be more respectful of her privacy and I fear that I love her even more than ever because of these new mysteries.

Sometimes I’ll catch her looking at me out of the corner of my eye and when I turn to look she’ll give me a little rueful smile. I expect that she’ll turn away, embarrassed to be caught in the act, but instead she gazes harder with an intensity that’s unnerving. It’s like a tiger sizing up a tasty meal.

It’s very sexy but also kind of unnerving at the same time because it is in those moments I feel as if she controls my entire future and destiny. Then I feel like I have to grin or do something goofy to alleviate my perceived awkwardness. It makes me wonder though if I can really handle being with a mate that is my better, or at the very least, my equal in intelligence. People don’t
really
look at each other anymore, but we do.

I have no doubt that if we were to have a child, he or she would grow up to rock the world down to its tectonic plates. I feel as if our genetics would combine and mutate to the next level beyond anything normal coupling could ever produce. If that responsibility is ours, do I even have a choice or control over what happens? Who still believes in predetermined destiny? Maybe we should join a cult.

I have to admit it’s getting butter,

A little butter all the time

Have to admit it’s getting butter,

Getting so much butter all the time

It’s getting better all the timebutter, butter, butter,

It’s getting butter all the time.

—Buatles

“…the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue”

—N. Hawthorne

I had the most amazing, strange and magical evening. Last night was like one of those bizarre artificially contrived Penthouse letters that never actually happen in real life. Maybe my serendipity lies in lustful accord with her universal harmony, for I notice when she moves the stars seem to sway in her wake.

Everything started with a dream I had the other night. I used to write down all my intense dreams during the middle of the night, scribbling furiously in the notebook I kept by my bed, deciphering the lettering later and trying to make sense of it all. I guess I thought the key to my waking mind might be given to me in clues deeply tucked away in my subconscious. After a while I just realized I have a lot of fucked-up vivid dreams that don’t make any sort of sense most of the time. The side affect of my experimental project is that I can remember my dreamscapes much more vividly and the retention period is extended by a few days. If I don’t write them down within a few days the inspiration runs out of gas and the thought is given back to dreamland for someone else to pick up on. I’ve heard of people being able to pick up radio waves with their braces or through metal plates in their head, so I wouldn’t be surprised to discover there are dream waves on an existential plane that we all universally tap into during our deepest sleep periods.

This dream I had the other night though would not have required any special abilities to remember, in fact it would be hard to forget now. I was walking with Jenifer hand-in-hand, without a care in the world, across the UNT campus, right where they have that big square courtyard that is used for absolutely nothing, in front of the RTVF building. It was nighttime, and we were both barefoot. I could feel the dew from the green grass soak between my toes as we left the concrete sidewalk behind us and stepped into the trees. The campus lights were shining down like multiple scattered full moons from their tall poles with their odd neon anti-rape glow, lighting up the trees and buildings, creating deep weird shadows in places that made the world feel abstract. She was wearing a thin blue summer dress that glided up and down her smooth legs as we walked. For some reason I was wearing a button-down collared shirt and khaki pants. Why I was dressed like a prep school boy from the “Outsiders” I have no idea. There were people around as if class might still be in regular sessions this late at night, and I think I was supposed to be escorting her someplace but she was pleasantly leading me by the hand instead. Leading me to some surprise with a seductive smirk on her face. Her long blonde hair practically is caressing her shoulders as we move and she keeps tossing it back only to feel it move forward with its light touch again and again. Every so often she would stop and kiss me deeply, making me very aroused, and then turn to continue leading me again before I had a chance to react and return my own advances. We finally get to some school building that I can’t identify in my mind, and even though I spot some people still going in and out, I know what we are going to do.