THE OUTSIDER: October 2009

I wrote this story in 2002 I think. It isn't that good, there are some bad lines. The girl in the story Angela was based off of a person named Ashley Monroe. Ashley Monroe killed herself Wednesday.

Bedroom Scene

During the cold of the Ohio winter two people just finished having sex. The boy’s name is Jack and the girl’s is Angela. They lie naked under the sheets of a single bed. The room is small and has shit scattered everywhere, because Angela earlier that week had a panic attack and threw everything in her room around.
Jack is in his early twenties, while Angela is only nineteen years old. Both are slightly attractive, but not exceptional.
They talk slowly and calmly while smoking cigarettes.
“Angela, why did we just have sex?” Jack said.
“Because we both needed it.” Angela said.
“I didn’t need it; I had no interest in having sex tonight.”
“Men always want to have sex, if they know it or not.”
“I keep having sex with people, but I find no love”
“Because you don’t want love, you just want a fast kick… You don’t anyone to be around for a long time, you can’t handle anybody being around for longer then a couple of days. You get tired of them and want to move on.”
“I know, it’s frustrating… You’re the same way though; I’ve never seen you have more then a three week relationship.”
“I know, because I get tired of them… Boys can get so annoying, the last boy I dated for more then three weeks began telling me how much he loved me, and how we would be together for eternity. I don’t need that shit, I’m young, I just want to party, and have sex with whomever I feel like.”
“Yeah, I don’t feel like loving anyone either. I just want someone to go to sleep with, it gets lonely at night.”
“I don’t go to sleep until ten in the morning sometimes, I feel so lonely… You would think if you felt lonely, you would just go to sleep and forget it. But no, you stay up and dwell and dwell and dwell.”
“It’s winter, it’s what one does in the winter, they dwell.”
“I’m tired of dwelling, that’s why I do drugs, so I don’t have to dwell.”
“I’m on medication and it’s not helping. I still dwell.
“I’ve had sex with so many people this winter, just to forget that it’s winter, just to avoid being myself… Life wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t have to be somebody.”
“I’ve forgotten what life was like… I wake up at five pm, go to Denny’s, and just sit there in a miserable state until I feel tired enough to go to sleep.”
“I get up every morning and get stoned, or take a pill or something. Anything to make me forget.”
“There is too much to forget.”
The night collapses down on them. The sustaining of the night impairs them, drives them into a frenzy.
“I forget sometimes, then it returns, the horrible pain of human existence floods into me… Then I’m trapped, I’m trapped in my own mind, fighting a war that I’ll never be able to win.” Angela said.
“I was once a strong person, I went to college, I had a job, I traveled all around America. And now look at me; I can barely get to Denny’s. For two summers in a row I saw both oceans. Last summer I didn’t see either one, I didn’t see shit last summer. I spent the whole summer with Cindy, God what a waste of time!” Jack said sadly.
“You loved her, didn’t you?”
“I loved her, but that’s over now.”
“I’ve never traveled, or really ever held a job… I’ve spent my life living off of other people, I don’t really function good in a work setting.”
“Nobody really does function well in a work setting… People just put up with it, they struggle through each day of work, they hate work, they hate themselves for doing it, but they do it anyway.”
“People are insane for doing the work America wants them to do. What normal person with a good self-esteem would work the drive-through window at a fast-food restaurant, it’s absurd. The jobs that America offers are absurd”
“My first job was being a caddy at a rich peoples country club, what kind of human would make another human carry a golf bag for them, and what kind of human would lower themselves enough to carry it for them. It’s madness!”
“Let’s stop talking about all this sad shit, let’s talk about something fun, something to make ourselves feel better. Something that is beautiful, can you think of anything?”
“Hmm, when I was little my dad and I used to go to the batting cages together, I always enjoy that memory.”
“I don’t have many good memories like that, I have no father, and my mother never did anything but bitch me out. I don’t start having good memories until I started doing drugs, but I really can’t remember those memories, so it kind of sucks”.
“I used to do drugs.”
“How come you don’t anymore?”
“Because they make me feel guilty, on drugs all I feel is desolation.”
“That’s horrible, I feel great high, I could spend the rest of my life high.”
“I don’t know how I could spend the rest of my life, but I wouldn’t want to spend it high, I know that… I’ve realized no matter what you do in life, it some how comes to be a mistake, that no matter what you do, you end up in desolation, you end sitting there in some coffee house drinking coffee staring out the window, wondering what happened, where did it all go… And then you have to start over again; another season of your existence begins… Which usually turns out to be a mistake, and a memory that makes you feel even lonelier… I don’t want to make anymore mistakes, I don’t want to have to try anymore, because I know, I’ll just end up sitting in the coffee shop wondering how I got there and where did it all go.”
“I thought we were going to stop talking about sad shit.”
“I can’t stop talking about sad shit; it’s all I know at this time of my life. When I look back on this winter, I know that I’ll laugh at myself, I know that what I’m thinking now is just the chemicals in my brain screaming that life sucks, when life doesn’t actually suck… But right now, it’s all that matters; it’s how I must be. I didn’t choose this reality, I didn’t choose to be myself, I didn’t choose to be negative. I’m just me, and this is what my brain tells me, this is how my brain forces me to act and feel… I have no choice in the matter. All my body is, is a physical representation of how my mind feels.”
“But one day, you’ll snap out of it.”
“Of course I’ll snap out of it, I’m always snapping into something. I’m always doing and feeling something that doesn’t make sense. Because I’m always snapping in and out. I have accepted that I have no control over who I am… I am what the chemicals tell me I am.”
“Doesn’t the medication help it all?”
“Oh yeah, the medication helps, but not really… Nothing really helps, and now that I don’t care if I live or die, it really doesn’t help… It’s like I’ve killed myself, but I’m still alive, I still have to go on, which to me, just means to eat… It’s the only thing I can really do during the day, eat… Anything more is too much trouble.”
“All I can do is eat and get stoned.”
“That’s more then I can do.”
They embrace for a few seconds, and kiss each other on the lips. Angela gets another cigarette out and lights it. Jack gets up and goes to the bathroom. He stands there pissing wondering why he had sex with that girl. He never had the urge to fuck her before, why did he do it tonight. Is this love he thought. He goes back into the bedroom and slithers under the covers.
“You know what I did today?” Angela said.
“Woke up and got stoned.”
“Besides that, I laid in my room in my underwear for five hours watching PBS.”
“Why’d you only watch PBS?”
“It’s the only channel I can get… I can’t do anything anymore that requires real functioning… I no longer can live in the real world.”
“Neither can I, it’s not worth it.”
“I would like to be a real person, and do real person things. But I can’t care; I can’t bring my self to care about this world and what goes on it… I sit and watch the news sometimes, looking at the screen wondering what the hell is America doing… Why are we going to war against a country thousands of miles across the world that poses no threat to us? It’s not even a good excuse why we are going to war with them, they say they’re a threat to their neighbors, but China holds Tibet hostage and half of everything in America is made there. I once saw a little American flag pin made in China. Why don’t we fight China, that would be a real fight? America is going into debt more and more everyday since September Eleventh, we can’t afford a war. We can’t afford to care about countries on the other side of the world. Our government doesn’t make any sense, so I don’t see why I have to.”
“Governments have never made any sense, they don’t have to, they have guns.”
“It’s like the American government is holding us hostage with guns and the media… I no longer want to be some retarded American, I want to make a change, I know this world could better then it is, and before I die, I want to see it get at least a little better.”
“The world isn’t going to get better, America might, but the world won’t. Look at Africa and Latin America, those places are shitholes, and they’ll be shitholes until the end of the world.”
“That’s another thing I don’t understand, why doesn’t America care about those countries, those people deserve to be cared about as much as people in the middle-east.
“No, they don’t, they don’t have any resources we need. So why should we care about them.”
“Because America has the power to care, it has the power to help people in need. America has so much money; we don’t even know what to do with it. I don’t see any good reason why shouldn’t help our fellow humans.”
“Don’t you understand the American ethic? It’s only do things for people that can help you, and soon as they can’t help you anymore, you leave them for dead. That’s the American dream, to get millions by shitting on people.”
“But doesn’t George W. say he’s Christian? How can he say he’s Christian and go to war, and kill people. That doesn’t make any sense. A person that truly believed in Christ would never go to war, they would walk the extra mile.”
“George W. doesn’t believe in God, none of those America Christians do. They believe in rules, like no abortion, homosexuals are bad, and no premarital sex. Besides that, they can do anything they want. They don’t believe in God, if someone believed in God they would live the way Christians did in the first centuries of Christianity. You can’t be a millionaire and call yourself Christian, that’s absurd.”
“It’s retarded, this American Christianity, and the fucked up thing is that they’re the ones that want war the most.”
“Like I always said, never trust a Christian.”
Jack gets up and paces around the room smoking a cigarette.
“Yeah, like how can you trust someone who believes the world was created in seven or eight days, no matter what number it is, it’s fucking insane.” Angela said.
“Yes, how can you trust anyone’s mental state who believes that one time in history a single man built a boat and watched the whole world die while he was saved.”
“Anyone who would believe that has to be suffering from some kind of severe mental disorder in this day and age.”
“Yeah, it was all right in the past, because it basically never occurred to anyone that it was even possible that the bible wasn’t true. But nowadays it’s taught in school, on the television, everywhere you look you see something that tells you there’s no truth in the revealed texts.”
“There’s no truth anywhere.”
Jack sits on the floor cross-legged. They sit silent for a minute.
“I like having sex with you, that’s true.” Angela said.
“Thank you, you’re not so bad yourself.”
“It usually sucks having sex with someone for the first time… It usually ends up just being missionary.”
“And quickly too. Boys go too fast or they can’t get it up at all. I’ve encountered so many ornery penises in my time. I’m so happy your penis did what it was supposed to.”
“I am too; your cunt worked fine which was nice.” Jack said.
“I have a very good working cunt. It’s one of the best models ever made.”
“It sure is.”
There is another silence. The small room is becoming intolerable to their psychologies.
“I saw my mother today.” Angela said.
“Why, I thought you hated her.”
“Because of my brother and sister.”
“Good reason. Did you fight at all?”
“She won’t fight with me anymore, because she knows I’ll start crying and breaking shit if she yells at me… But I don’t live in her house anymore, so she can’t control me anyway… She loves to control me, that’s how she gets her kicks, by controlling my life. That’s why I left; I couldn’t bear another day of her mind control… But I still feel that she’s controlling me, I still feel I have no power for myself.”
“It’s probably because you don’t know how to control yourself because you’ve been controlled so long.”
“I don’t know how to control and take charge of my life… I’ve never really had the chance to make my own decisions, she made them all for me… And all the choices I’ve ever made on my own free will she bitched at me for… It was like I can never do anything right, nothing is good enough for that woman… I have a mother that doesn’t approve of anything I do, and no father to give me anything… Who am I supposed to make happy in this life? I have no one to make happy, no one on this planet unconditionally loves me. What is life worth if no one unconditionally loves you? Your parents love you, you’ll go on, you already are a junior in college, this is just a semester off for you, and you’ll go back and graduate. But me, I’ll still be here in this bed, probably on social security, probably still stoned. You see, people say to me I shouldn’t do drugs, but why shouldn’t I, it’s not like anybody really cares about me. The people that say that to me are people who will leave me at the first sign of bad times… I can’t find one reason to be a good person, or a well-adjusted adult… What for, it’s not like anybody will care? My mother told me today that she’s moving to Indiana and leaving me in Ohio… My mother is going to leave me here, with no money, no job, not a goddamn thing in the world! I thought mothers are supposed to protect and love you, keep you safe from harm. But my mother has never done that; she has done nothing but hit and shit on me… She’s never had the slightest intention of loving me; she has looked at me as an accident all my life, as this dreadful monster that popped out of her cunt to torture her… I’m her child, why can’t she care about me, why can’t she be my friend?” Angela said.
“She’s moving and leaving you here, that’s fucking horrible, did she ask you to go with her?”
“No, she didn’t ask shit, she’s glad I’m gone; she probably cried tears of joy when she found she was going to leave me here to die in abject poverty.”
“I’m sure she didn’t cry tears of joy.”
“No, that bitch is insane… She drove me insane, she drove me to this state of complete mental dysfunction. Look at me Jack, I’m pitiful, I’m lost, I can’t control anything that goes on, but it seems like all I do is attempt to control things. I exert so much energy trying to control the people and world around me, but I can’t control myself. I can’t get a grip on my reality… I don’t know what it is, this winter, my boyfriend breaking up with me, being homeless for months, doing all these drugs, drinking, I don’t know, all of it, has brought me to this point… This awkward madness… My mother didn’t talk to me when I was little; she never played with me, or took me anywhere. And I have no father; I never went anywhere when I was little… Oh yeah, she would take vacations and go fun places all the time, but not with me, she would drop me off at grandmas, she didn’t give a shit if I ever smiled.”
“I don’t know what to say, your life has been pretty shitty and that’s all I can say.”
“Why can’t you be like a normal boy and tell me it’s going to be all right, that I’m a smart girl, and that I’ll make it in life.”
“I don’t know if you’ll make it in life, I don’t know you, I don’t know what life will throw at you… I probably won’t even talk to you in a year or so, we just had sex, I can’t be your savior.”
“You’re right, you don’t know me… I don’t know you either; I don’t really know anyone to be truthful.”
“All this dwelling will kill you, you know.”
“Why can’t I dwell, when I’m not stoned, I dwell… That’s why I need to get high, so I don’t remember that I’m human.”
“Underneath all your power is this weak little twelve year girl… I can see when you get stoned, it’s like you turn into some nervous preteen girl… You sit there trying to be in control, trying to be tough and intelligent, but no, you’re crying inside, withering farther and farther away from reality.”
“I feel like I’m in some void, a nowhere land where I’m just sitting alone, without any contact… I feel like this everyday, but the days don’t even matter… Everyday is the same; I can’t distinguish between the days… I hate waking up; I dread it, knowing that I’ll have to start a whole day over again… Knowing that I’ll have to fill another day of my lonely and miserable life… I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel like this… When I truly wanted to live… I’ve never enjoyed life, at least not without chemicals… Sometimes when I’m having sex I feel like my life has meaning, then the boy leaves right after without ever giving me the slightest embrace… I know the boys I fuck don’t love me, I know they don’t really care about me, but it feels like they do, it feels like just for a couple of minutes that a man actually unconditionally loves me… I always say I would love to have a man and treat him well, but, I know I can’t… I don’t know how to treat a man… I cheated on my ex-boyfriend over ten times without thinking twice about it… Actually right now, I’m trying to get back with him, and I just had sex with you… It’s not that I have bad morals, it’s that I must do these things to remain sane… I must smoke weed and have sex to feel alive, only through immorality can I feel at peace… I never asked to be born, I never asked to have my parents, or to look like I look, or to be intelligent or dumb as I am… I didn’t ask for any of this, I was thrust into this absurdity… Jack, you must understand, I didn’t ask for this!:
“Life is mostly based off of luck; we have no choice in what really happens to us. You could have be born Russian, or intensely ugly, but you weren’t… You still have a chance.”
“A chance to do what, and for what… What could I do, go to college, become something successful, an engineer or something. What the fuck am I supposed to do, I can’t do anything, and what for?”
“You should do it for yourself.”
“No one does anything for themselves… People do it for their parents, to make other people think they’re great, but they don’t do it for themselves… I have no parents and all my friends are stoners, I don’t have anyone to impress, I reject it in fact… I reject making anyone else happy; I tried to make my mother happy for so long I don’t care about making anyone happy anymore… People can go fuck themselves.”
“That’s a good attitude.” Jack said.
“My attitude is perfect; I wouldn’t want to change it for the world… I’m totally happy being who I am.”
“You sound like it.”
“I’m serious; I’m totally content with my place in the world. I love my friends, I love weed, I love staying up all night on speed sometimes… I love it, you have to believe me, I love it… At least I’m not like you, all negative and always lying to yourself.”
“I don’t lie to myself; I know where I stand in the world… I’m a middle class white boy, who has some college done, and will finish one day and get a job and start a family… I have some problems, and I’m trying to work through them… I know where I stand, where do you stand?”
“I don’t stand, I lay down.”
“The only reason you shit on me is because you can’t control me… Actually I watch you shit on everyone, it’s all mind control… You tear them down, then you build them back up the way you want them, probably like what your mother did to you… This is reality Angela, shitting on people and helping people remain fucked isn’t helping them, it’s tearing them down.”
Jack stands up and begins putting on his clothes.
“Fuck you; you don’t know what you’re talking about! You don’t know me, and you don’t know my friends! You think you’re better then me, just because you went to college and you’re don’t smoke weed! Let me tell you, you are an egocentric fuck, that you will never be able to love anyone, and will probably end up on Social Security for being fucking nuts! You think you know everything, but you don’t, you don’t know shit! Angela said.
Jack finishes putting on his clothes.
“I’m not going to shit on you anymore; I have no interest in making you feel bad… I know you have enough demons swirling around in your head, I won’t add anymore… But I’m leaving; I’ll see you around.”
“Fuck you!”
Jack leaves the small room. He heads out into the cold and sits in his car. He doesn’t know why he fucked her; he doesn’t know why he said all those words. What it was worth speaking to her like that, if anything was solved, or did he still have all the same problems.
Angela lied in her bed crying. She screamed and howled out to the night, but there was no one there to listen.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Fishing the Mahoning River

Monday, October 26, 2009

MAKING A MOTHER FUCKING DIFFERENCE

somebody wrote this

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Bedroom Scene