Please Don't Go (16 page)

Go ahead. Write for me.

He nodded, sputtering away into the rhythms and gyrations of his dancing fingers, taking his time when called upon by the formulation of the perfect wording and speed through the parts that were something closer to his hopeful ataxia than his reality:

Dear Hell Bitch,

It is with great dread that I write you this hateful letter. You ask, and so you shall receive. I have no other choice in the matter. You have made this quite clear to me.

Things are well here, so thank you. Thanks for sending those cookies! They were effective and delicious, especially the oatmeal ones. I traded a few of them to one of my bunk mates, this fat kid named Alberto. He gave me a Spiderman comic and I gave him four cookies in exchange. What a fantastic deal that worked out to be. Hope you’re not cross at me. It’s not that I don’t love the cookies, it’s just that I find great thrills in the ups and downs of trading my personal effects!

Have I told you lately... that I loathe you? I think that one is by Rod Stewart. I bet you like Rod Stewart. You seem like that kind of scum. I picture you with Rod Stewart hair sometimes. Oh, what a hoot that would be! You in a Rod Stewart wig? Come on, it doesn’t get better than that. You ever hear the story about how they pumped all the semen from his stomach? That sounds just like you.

For more than thirty years you’ve been my master and commander, you bumbling whore. And in each and every one of those days I have sought to tell you how I feel, but I am punished for such free thought. What would George Orwell say of you? I cannot say for sure, but I bet he would look upon you as an oppressive sow with a penchant for venomous spew. You disturb my good grace, and I write these “love letters” with a dim-witted sarcasm, a hateful click of my typewriter keys... I punch each key on my keyboard as though it was your face, were I to ever see that face.

I would never say aloud how much I despise you, for that would give you a sort of pleasure that I have not felt for years. I’m miserable and you are the river of misery that flows through me, like boiling vinegar doused with spit and feces.

You claw me. You tie me down. You bash me about the head and neck and legs and arms, but I endure. I endure. I endure, you rotting harlot. You push me as far as you can without breaking my back, without reverting me to a manic shell of a man. You walk the line with me, dragging me along just between the worlds of life and death, and for all of this I will rape your soul when I find myself on an equal plane with you. If there’s an afterlife, and you are in it, then I will hunt you down. I will hunt you down like the mangy bitch you are. I’ll remove your head from your body and urinate down your throat when that opportunity arises. This doesn’t end in this world. I’ll bring it to the next.

I have seen my friends and family die, from afar, with you at my side like a bitter old wife that I never wanted. If you could see what you have done to my heart, I am sure you would cackle your evil sounds of rapture. Your picnic of torment is eternal.

I find it quite unfortunate that you don’t have the mental or physical ability to read this. So very hilarious, so much so that I often lay awake at night, in my bed, chuckling so hard that I can’t fall asleep on my own, without the aid of pills. You lay above me, looking down from the ceiling, and you must wonder what I am laughing at. You will never know. You will never know what pleases me, because you are a selfish decaying prostitute, a trollop without a heart. You BITCH.

You bawdy tart.

You perverted piece of trash; hot garbage on a hot day in a hot oven.

I often wonder what would happen if I expressed such thoughts aloud, and read to you the way I really felt, that which you have effectively stomped free of me in the name of fear. Surely, you would string me up like a back-talking slave. You would toss me into the walls and bludgeon me with common household items, you uninventive piece of shit. You would pinch me and bite me and grasp me where you could do sufficient damage, for you are a sadistic cunt.

In closing, let me end this “love” letter like so many before it, in saying that I detest your very being and hope for you to spend a lion’s share of eternity in the bowels of a hell that I hope to one day send you to.

With nothing but abhorrence,

Mr. Charles Rattup

“
All done,” Charles stated, his face stony and stern. He pulled back in his chair and fed the paper from his big black monster. Jessica offered up his love letter with twittering enthusiasm, spitting it out on to the rickety old desk. Gathering it in his hand, Charles perused the letter for a moment, nodding in satisfaction. She would be pleased.

Read it to me.

“
I have a sore throat,” he responded, pointing to his neck. He was toying with her to gauge her reaction. On some days, she may have responded by grabbing that purportedly sore throat and squeezing until he felt as if his eyes were on the verge of popping free of their home in his skull. But on other days, she would only feed into his game, arguing via harsh harassing whispers into his ear, pleading with him to abide by her wishes. Such days, though, were few and far between.

Today, she clutched his earlobe, pulling it away from the side of his head. He shrieked for a moment, but quieted her rage in a moment of acquiescence, “Okay, I’ll read.”

I won’t ask you again. Read to me. Tell me you love me.

“
You know I love you.”

Prove it. Read me your letter and prove it. Read it to me now.

He succumbed to her demands, beginning to read, “My dearest and sweetest lover. You are the wind, the moon, and the stars. You are the pinnacle of delight for a man with nothing but himself to give. The very sight of you makes my heart plead to the gods above and below for but a morsel of mercy. I pain at the thought of losing you, at the thought of never again feeling your balmy breath upon my neck. I quiver at the thought of your breast. My lover, my lover, my tenderest lover. I pine for you when I cannot be in your midst. You hold me close, by your side, for all eternity. And that is what I hope for, that is what sets me free!” At this line, he shouted with extra feigned bravado, hoping to drive the point home. Total horseshit.

He continued, “My knee is softened as I kneel before thee. I smell the fragrance of your path, as you waft through my world, an angel uncaged from her earth-bound stature. I follow with warmth in my heart and pleasure in my sight. I am here to serve you, my lady. I am here to bring you into my heart, as I hope you would do the same for me. My kisses are not long enough for you. My hugs are not big enough. My passion is not strong enough, but I strive to that measure in all that I say and do. My sweet, we are forever and that is all I pray for.”

At this, he placed the note on the desk. He could hear her pondering the words. She moved a foot or two to his side, and he could detect her looming presence, staring over his shoulder at the note on his desk. With a sudden gust, the love letter took to the air, hovering above the desk. It fluttered for a moment and drifted away in a steady stride, bouncing on the air like a feather. She would take it back to her prized collection, beneath their bed.

It doesn’t say that. I know that you’re lying to me.

“
Yes. I am.”

You’re such a snake
, she said in his ear.
And
I just love that about you.

18.

Jackie fiddled with her now-mangled dinner, poking at the mushrooms in her lo-mein as though she had a personal grudge against them and was airing that dissatisfaction for the rest of the components on her plate, setting an example to the broccoli and the water chestnuts of what they could expect if they fell out of favor. “They must go purposely out of their way to pick the slimiest mushrooms they can get their hands on,” she stated with a lukewarm feigned grin, plopping one of the mushrooms on to the napkin beside her plate. By
they
, she had of course meant the faceless cooking staff of The Jade Castle, her previously purported favorite dining establishment. On her birthday, two months earlier, Zephyr had asked of her where she would like to eat out in remembrance of her “daring womb escape,” as he had so called it. She had churned through conflicting thoughts on the subject and settled on The Jade Castle. “It’s the only place around here I can stomach. They’re usually pretty good,” she had stated.

So on this, the day that Zephyr had at last talked himself into a next massively daunting step in his unfolding life, they ate their chow-mein and lo-mein above the table while he unknowingly tinkered with the ring below. He had settled upon a strangely crafted diamond, in an irregular shape that even the clerk at the jewelry store could not have explained with any single solitary word. He had only called it
very unique
, and at a considerable discount in accordance with its oddity. It looked, to the casual onlooker, as though it had not been properly cut. Most women, Zephyr affirmed to himself, would have scoffed at the obtuse asymmetric stone, but Jackie would be undoubtedly enthralled. There was a certain natural unequivocal charm to the misfit ring, and even Zephyr could not deny that truth, though he knew little to nothing of jewelry as a whole. This aspect of his lacking knowledge set, though, made him wonder thereafter if he had been taken for a diamond-studded ride, that perhaps the salesman (a greasy-haired gap-toothed schlep named Tommy) had seen him coming from a mile away, preying upon his absent trinket-education and green face.

“
I like the broccoli,” Zephyr announced in order to fill in the perpetual silence that had so quickly engorged their evening. He forked a steaming spear, dripping with spicy garlic sauce, into his mouth. He smiled at Jackie, but she only responded by wrinkling up her face, withdrawing another diseased black mushroom from her plate in disgust. “Do you want to send it back? Have it redone without the mushrooms?” Zephyr asked, hoping to bring her into a more pleasant state of mind for the earth-shattering surprise he was readying himself to drop upon her. He felt the sweat on his left hand, slick and warm, where he held the ring beneath the table, fearing that he would drop it if his hands became too perspired.

“
If I send this back, things might get ugly,” she stated as he observed the brown flecks of islands in the planet of her eyes, searching the tiny red veins for a toasty sign of cheer. The white had been almost vanquished by these strained red spots. Had she been crying?

“
Are you okay? You don’t seem like yourself. Come on... It’s more than just the food, right? You’ve never been this picky before. Spill it.”

“
Well,” she whispered, ready to say something pertinent but altering her intentions at the last minute, what his football-loving father might have called an
audible
, “Just a shitty day. A shitty, awful, terrible kind of day. Nothing went right, no matter how hard I tried. Everything I touch turned to shit. Can’t a girl have a shitty day once in a while?”

“
Of course,” replied Zephyr. “School? Bad grade? It’s that psychology paper, isn’t it?”

She shook her head, closing her usually warm eyes from Zephyr’s sight. It was worse than a bad grade.
Not good
, thought Zephyr. Grades were her largest stress inducer, the vex of her sweet serenity. During the previous semester, she had cried for hours on end as a direct result of a B minus grade on her final exam in astronomy. She was an English major, like he, and so astronomy had no real effect on her major—though it affected her cumulative GPA, it was small potatoes of a matter. But still, the thought of a B minus had almost put her into the padded walls of a mental ward. An A minus was acceptable, even a B plus. But anywhere below B flat was an epic tragedy the likes of which she would never allow herself to live down, not even by a self-inflicted knife wound to her neck. The real-world implications of her slipping education were nothing compared to the self-induced inner turmoil that she wrought upon herself.

“
No, it wasn’t the psychology paper. I aced that one,” she answered, tossing her head from side to side again, hoping to shake away the subject of her foul demeanor. She shoveled a new mound of lo-mein (sans mushrooms) into her gullet, believing that if she could not speak then she would not have anything personal dragged out of her, no matter how important or inane. “New subject,” she mumbled through a heaping mouth full of partially chewed food.

Zephyr made a conscious decision to not allow her problem to be swept beneath the rug, as it would hang over their heads like a blood-red moon for the remainder of the evening.... if he did not stomp into that darkness, head on. Were he to avoid clearing the air, it would certainly ruin his planned evening and the intoxicating surprise therein. In fact, it was a ridiculous notion to propose marriage to Jackie in such an environment of palpable displeasure. Based on the rare progression of Jackie into her self-made misery (why had she even agreed to go out and about in such a funk?), it was not feasible for Zephyr to do his matrimonial deed by evening’s end. If he pulled her back from the flames of despair
now
, though, all could be saved. “Come clean. What’s going on here? You can’t say it’s
nothing
, either. That’s the oldest trick in the book. It’s always
something
. And it’s definitely not mushrooms.”