House of Cabal Volume One: Eden (9 page)

I lost my erection once, and she said it was
okay. It really wasn't. She wants me to be open, to be vulnerable.
What the hell does that mean? My confidence is fragile enough
without bringing feelings into it. What does she want me to do, cry
while we’re having sex?

Porn can't reject me. I can't fail at
porn.

God, I'm such a loser.

A knock startles you. I just sit in my
Laz-E-Boy and wonder why you jumped. It takes a second pound for me
to recognize the sound as knocks on my front door.

“Be right there!” I slowly get up. It must be
Carrie. I unbutton my pajama top and adjust my boxers, centering
the fly. She likes it when I answer the door in my underwear. It’s
about as sexually adventurous as I’ve been able to push myself.

I grab the skin mag from the coffee table and
shove it into a drawer.

I look through the peephole to make sure it’s
her.

No one’s there, just a fish-eye view of an
empty porch and rain in the glare of the porch light. The hair on
the back of my neck prickles.

I don’t want a stranger to see me in my
boxers. They’ll escape if I don’t open the door. I’ll miss my
chance.

My chance for what? My chance at being
assaulted?

Stop analyzing this, I tell myself. Stop
thinking.

I fling open the door to the rain and the
cold and ask more loudly than I intend, “Who’s there?”

Cassette Tape Two:

Something Different

Dolphin wind chimes hang at the side of my
porch and jingle as if panicked. I hold my pajama top closed and
clutch the chimes to silence them.

Branches and leaves rustle in the wind beyond
the light. Across the street, seemingly deserted houses give no
relief from the darkness. Down the hill, at the end of the block,
floodlights illuminate St. Agnes cathedral. I don’t see anybody
around.

Wind blows rain onto the floorboards, and
raindrops light up against the night sky as the drops fall and
darken the wood. I imagine the precipitation as flaring meteorites,
pummeling Portland’s skyline. This normality is killing me. You
already know that, don't you? The only person in this whole stupid
world that knows I’m suffering isn’t even real.

Back inside behind my locked door, my nerves
or the cold from outside causes me to tremble.

It feels like my life is about to change.
It’s wishful thinking, I’m sure. I’m too much a coward to do
anything. I lead a quite, safe life and so this is what I get.

The front room windows reveal little but my
reflection. Rain pelts the glass. I’ve been a coward my whole life.
This isn’t some new development.

I had this horny college roommate named
Randy, this uninhibited jock who would masturbate to
Hustler
while I was still in the room. I can’t believe I’m telling you
this. Anyway, the first time he did it, I was on my side, on my bed
studying, and he just started pulling away as if it was no big
deal. The hysterical thing was I had no idea what he was doing. I
heard the stroking, but the magazine blocked my view, so I’m
staring at him, trying to figure out why the hell he has this weird
expression, and he sees me watching and says without missing a
beat, “Hey, fag, mind if I blow my wad?”

It’s hard to express how embarrassed I was. I
don’t remember much after that, just confessing I’d never done
it—jacked off, I mean—and him laughing in disbelief. I remember him
laughing for a long time and telling me that he’d started in grade
school.

It became this running gag. He would ask me
if I wanted a jack off lesson. One time he brought back this
freshman girl—they were both pretty trashed—and he asked if I
wanted to join them. At the time, I was still a virgin abstaining
until marriage, and I laughed it off and went for a walk.

I thought of him as a sinner, but deep down,
I wanted to be him. He was respected, he won football games, he
didn't take crap from anyone, he brawled and came out on top, and
he used women like they were objects and they loved him for it. Who
was I? Just some coward, freaked out by college hedonism. Because
of my looks, no shortage of girls came onto me. All I felt was
anxiety. Religion was an excuse. The truth was they scared me. I
was a little boy in a man's body, and Randy's effortless
masculinity humiliated me on a daily basis.

Sex should be easy for me. I’m in peak
physical condition. People find me attractive. Most of the time sex
is this anxiety-fueled nightmare.

I need some ice cream and trudge into the
kitchen.

I dig into a pint of Chocolate Obsession
frozen soy dessert. In two years, I’ll be married. A house with
three bedrooms, a minivan, a dog, a kid. Everything will go
according to plan. I’m insane not to be happy.

The rich chocolate velvet melts in my
mouth.

I’ll be living the ideal: what most people
would consider the only kind of paradise one can hope for in this
life. And I’ll feel trapped and half dead. With the spoon pointed
at you, I add aloud, “Nevertheless, I’ll act happy.”

I laugh. If my life doesn’t go according to
plan, if it all goes to hell, the only difference in my life will
be that I won’t have to act happy anymore.

Instead of this ice cream, I should have
grabbed a knife and ended it all right here, right now. A knife
shoved through that little hollow spot below my Adam’s apple,
that’s all it would take. Easy.

You tell me not to even joke about that.
Besides, that’s a tracheotomy, not suicide.

I’m just depressed. I couldn’t do that to
Carrie or to my parents. I take another spoonful of chocolate
comfort. My life is fine, and if it’s not, what’s the big deal?
People never feel complete; nothing is perfect. So I’m suffocated
by my job, by my girlfriend, and by my existence, that doesn’t give
me the right to be a little bitch about it. Nothing is wrong. So
why am I about to snap?

I stab my spoon into the soy and want to cry.
I hate myself all the time.

The masculine archetype is unobtainable, you
tell me. You stop yourself from continuing, thinking maybe you
shouldn’t be giving me council. You are an observer, after all.

Continue. I want to hear what you think.

You tell me I look like the masculine ideal.
Men aspire to be me. Trying to live up to that image has created
insecurities. Especially when it comes to sex. I've shut off my
feelings to appear invulnerable. This has created barriers that
keep me from being able to form meaningful connections. No wonder
I’m depressed.

When did you become my shrink? Right, I asked
for it. But where does that leave me? Do I just accept that I suck?
How does that help?

Another knock pounds the front door and thank
God! Now I don't have to talk to you. I grab the door handle,
clench the handle harder to still my shaking, and fling the door
open.

“Excited to see me?” my girlfriend asks from
behind a cardboard box in her arms.

As I take the box, I smile a bit too
aggressively. “What’s up? Come in.”

The perky blonde enters with a red envelope
in her hand and a ring on her finger. You recognize her from the
picture on the mantel, only now she wears jeans and a raincoat. You
wonder if the ring signifies engagement.

I try to maintain a happy front; she has
little tolerance for my low moods. “What’s with the box?” I close
the door with my foot.

She lightly kisses me on the cheek. “I’m
moving in next week, silly.”

“I know, but that’s like, seven days
away.”

She giggles. I’m not joking. I lay the box by
the door. All this time and I still don’t know if her constant
cheerfulness is an act or not.

“I found this on the porch.” Carrie waves an
envelope back and forth above her head as if she just scratched a
winning lottery ticket. “Your very own super-secret-stalker
slut!”

"Don’t say that. You know how I hate that
word. We agreed, no sex shaming."

“Guys can't even
be
sluts." She
notices my serious look. "Fine, your secret admirer. Happy? I don't
want you regressing back to celibacy. You're so sensitive.”

When not making light of my inexperience,
she’s making fun of my conservatism. I finally had sex with her to
prove I wasn't gay. I was committed to her—I was too scared to ever
have sex with other people—so abstaining until marriage started to
seem pointless. After sex, marriage seemed pointless too, but I
proposed anyway. That’s what a respectable Christian does.

The envelope is glossy like a dark red apple.
I try to snatch it from her. She pulls away and dashes over to the
couch. I stay where I am, not in the mood for games.

“Remember the time that fat girl at the gym
had a crush on you?” She takes off her coat and straightens her
angora sweater, passing the envelope from hand to hand.

I trudge back into the kitchen to put away my
ice cream. She doesn’t bother to follow.

“Then she started going to the gym every day
so she could see you. You’re quite the diet plan.”

After putting away the ice cream in the
freezer, I press my forehead against the cool stainless steel of
the door.

“Who do you think this one is?”

Taking a deep breath, I come back into the
living room. “You know I’m not good at that.” Suddenly I feel like
crying. Normally I'm numb. Right now I’m an exposed nerve. “I don’t
care," I snap at her. "Throw it away if you want.”

"Oh, you're no fun when you're like this.
What’s wrong? Talk to me." She puts a hand on my bare chest. It
makes me angry for some reason. “I should have known. You always
eat that soy crap when you get depressed. Aren’t you even
curious?”

“No.”

She slides her hand down my abs to the hair
below my navel and twirls a finger. My balls tingle. I don't want
to respond to her; I want to be pissed. She gives me her mock
innocent expression.

I stand firm, my hands at my sides. “I’m not
opening it.”

“Look, it even has a riddle on the front.
Listen to this: ‘My veiled face is my face itself; unveiled it is
annulled. I am hidden and concealed, yet if you discover me, I will
disappear before your eyes forever.’ You’re good at this kind of
stuff; what is it?”

“What do you think it is, Carrie?”

“I don’t know. Riddles are
your
thing.
Just tell me.”

“It’s a riddle.” I snatch the envelope.

It’s sealed with wax and branded with the
letter A.

“I know.”

“That's the answer, Carrie. Riddle. Riddle is
the answer. It was made famous by Galileo… the explorer.” I break
the seal and slide out a handwritten note.

“I know who Galileo is. You don’t have to act
like I’m a retard.”

The note is in black calligraphy on rice
paper. You read it over my shoulder.

*>0<*

For the one who is yearning and turning for
that which is not him

And is not afraid of the original Sin,

The one missing something from his life,

And is not against horrible strife,

A chance is here for you, a chance to
transact

With your deeper curiosities and your need
to interact.

The puzzle is simple for one such as
you,

With your knowledge of enigmas and of each
Portland avenue.

Just run to the corners of seven streets and
feel an unquenched desire,

For in the headlines of today will be the
key to conspire

To create the rest of your life
fulfilled.

You have the double count of six hundred
sixty-six.

Carrie is irritated by the wait. “Well, who
is she?”

Cassette Tape Three:

Lovely Portland

Well it’s a simple enough riddle.

Okay, Chuck, I have twenty-two minutes to run
to the newspaper box on 7
^th
and Pine. It’s just a prank,
but I’d rather be gullible than miss my chance. A chance for what?
This is crazy. I can make it though; it’s only six blocks.

I turn to get dressed. Carrie grabs my arm.
“What are you doing?”

I’m not sure how to explain. “I don’t have
time for this.”

“You’re not going anywhere, not until you
talk to me.”

"This is my chance!"

"For want?"

"Let go of me! I'm not happy!" I'm shocked
the words came out of my mouth. But it’s out there, and I’m not
taking it back. She should know how I feel. She’s my fiancé. "I'm
quitting my job."

"No, you're not."

I didn't even know I wanted to quit my job
until the idea came out of my mouth. But it feels right. "I want
more than this."

"So what?"

How can she say that? "I’m not happy. I’ve
forgotten what it feels like."

"Well tough shit! I'm moving in next week,
Everett! You can't just quit your job. Man up."

"I'm not going to be your perfect boyfriend
anymore. I can't, I just can't do it."

"Who said you were perfect?”

I'm crying. I want her to hug me and tell me
we’ll get through this together.

Disgusted, she releases my arm. “Pull
yourself together. God. What is wrong with you?"

She wanted me to be open and now that I am,
she can barely look at me. I want to die.

There’s a knock on the front door, and we all
turn. I look out the peephole but can’t see. I blink to clear my
eyes. The storm churns beyond the porch light. If people are out
there, they’re hidden from view.

Wait. What is that?

There! Propped against the railing at the
edge of the porch is a second red envelope.

I open the door. She grabs my sleeve, and I
slip out of my shirt so I can get away from her and outside. I feel
exposed wearing just my white boxers. Raindrops carried by the wind
prick my hot skin. This new red card (not an envelope) feels
glossy. You watch Carrie’s posturing silhouette in the doorway. Her
hands clinch in fists around my shirt.