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Novel Treatments / The Whiskey Dregs (Unknown Chapter)
What a terrible quilt of a human being. Scattered designs placed randomly, stitched into this monstrosity of anything left within her human heart. The bigotry. The happenstance. The disgusting rage that boils the blood. Pricks my eyes with her visions of dread. Nothing but a bag full of disease and resent. She’s hated men since they began to breathe. It’s only now that I’m realizing the fucked up flaws that make this atrocious… being… move. Walking around with those old high heels from some land on 5th Avenue. Some place I have no business being. Tearing bone from muscle. Tearing the marrow out of the hollow of the skeleton. It’s no home, absolutely not. She’s the pig’s lair. The wind to blow the sentry’s fiery light. There’s no darkness without that black hole lurking about, sucking in all the light. Radiating nothing but refuge and mercilessness. There’s nothing holy about her. With that blasted blonde raked up hair dangling from miles off of Hell’s cliffs. The ones where the hounds are too frightened to dig through. The scent too repulsive to garner one iota of recognized stench to lead the pack to the prize. Wicked, wicked, wicked, wicked woman.
I have no pity for such disgusting bile. No place in my sympathetic heart for that old whore. She’s been touched too many times by the salesman’s hand. She’s bought every trinket in the land. I have two pennies for her. One for each eye. There’s a booth somewhere that will accept them but I mention no names of where that could be. The coffee is more black than I can handle. Every vowel uttered out of that stinking bloody mouth is another nail into my coffin. Every syllable a cackle. Every two words that comes from her tongue tries to break me times four. That coxcomb wench.
She hates anything that’s living, breathing, ensconced with life. Everything to her is work. Work, work, bloody hell work. Her heart is engorged with envy and her pockets fill with unspent money. Nowhere to spend it. No one to share with except on the weekends when she meets the great angel. I say angel because only an angel can withstand that horrid creature. Or maybe it’s the devil himself. The devil could be worse. Sly smile. Interchangeable hands. If this is his love for the rest of the days, imagine what travesty his life has been. The man’s stopped dreaming. He’s settled short. She sucks the money pit right out of him, I bet. Gross negligence of his own life. The big old crime. There’s no sort of prison for that kind of stuff. Only hellish screams and yowls that exude more torture. More heinousness. More tears than can fill the ocean. I wouldn’t want to swim in that tide. The glistening depravation. The whirlpools of deceit. I can’t imagine what else has been worse in his life that he can’t find another future for himself. It’s like cascades of doom, sweeping off the balconies of Morodor. Wherever he is, I know this much, there ain’t no shelter. No other place to coward under.
I can’t believe the words out of her mouth. She speaks so many lies that they become riddles. Impossible puzzle pieces that no one can put together. It’s too late for her. She’s gone off the side of the hill and into the bayou of God knows what. I have the antidote for this sort of business. It comes with one cheek turning the other way. That’s the old rule again, isn’t it? Just turn the cheek. That’s how it goes. If it were Christmas, I’d give her a bowl of rotted cherries. Every single one of them sour and bitter and full of squish. No resistance. It melts in your mouth when you try it. That’s what I’d give her then. It’s the mirror that she won’t understand. She’d just look at it and look at me and stumble for an answer. She’d tear into me asunder. I wouldn’t mind if that would happen. She’s a ghost to me. Her hands would go right through my body and out of frustration, she’d drag those chains around to stir me a bit. Of course, I’d stand austere. I have no shame in mentioning that. I’d stand proud and mighty and let those hands run every which way. Nothing tangible to her and it’s not because of me. It’s because of the banshee she’s become. I want to feel pity. But what would pity do? It would nourish her. I am sure of this. As sure as I can be without coming off as arrogant. It’s the truth, I tell you. It’s the only way I can regard this whole mess.
I walk out the back way of the office and avoid all the superstitious things I made up about her. The avoidance of ladders, black cats and opened umbrellas while being inside. The bathroom is not so far and although I have nothing to deposit there, it’s still a fine escape. I can splash water over my face. Rest on the toilet with my pants on. I can even send messages to co-workers from my cell phone and make them laugh with a joke I made up. Something outlandish and completely absurd. It’s the style in which I do things. If there’s an old man walking, I’ll speak note of his sexy thongs. Of course, he doesn’t wear thongs but it’s suppose to be funny but then again, no one laughs harder than me. There’s only two hours left and I can make 30 minutes disappear in there. I push open the door and walk on the tiled floor. An old man stands in front of the sink and washes his face and stares at his old eyes. It occurs to me that I am applying a valuable lesson he learned long ago – escape, always escape even into the bathroom. He’s got enough Greta’s running around in his mind to call a race and declare the same winner every time – Greta. I’m positive that everyone has a Greta screeching at them in a 10×12 office. “Close the door” they’ll yell. “Sit down,” they’ll command. I’ve had enough and I wanted to carry the old man on my back and say, “Head for the hills! Cast those sails! Let’s beat it to the next town, brother. I have two tokens enough for you and me to find some quiet place with beach girls and tall tropical drinks. It’s only so soon from here. Let me help you with the leap. I know your tired legs. They’ll be mine someday. I’ll carry your burden.” It is the good Samaritan in me. The vehement good-doer.
I remember the heroes from high school. They would pull down the lever of the fire alarm and all the kids would scatter asunder like a bevy of birds chasing down the tourists with breadcrumbs in their hands. The hero would always be caught. Sent to the old man’s office down in the cellar where it was dank and preposterous. You’d go down there and he’ll offend and threaten you with all sorts of words like, “This will be the end of you. No prom. No dancing. No freedom. I’ll show you the way to punishment. I’ll shackle you to these walls until you’re old. You’ll be sorry.” And shackle he would. He’d just transfer him into the old world and set you loose. For a short while the kid would feel free until he becomes the old man, staring at an ancient face with wrinkles from frowning at his desk for too long. The hero will eventually realize that the walls around him look familiar and find the shackles on his wrists are rusted but look familiar too. Then a Greta chases down his dignity until he is pulverized into a powdery mesh that his loved ones would cast off into a lake with prayers. They’d hope he’ll evaporate to that good place in the sky where the welcome gates are festooned with angels and dogs and people he hasn’t seen in ages. It’s a nice dream. I hope it’s true. Until then, I’d pay this man all of my money to set him free.
Oh yes. I have the antidote for Greta. It’s the honey smell of freedom. There’s a place I can always go where she won’t find me. Ever. She doesn’t know that yet but if she succeeds in the termination of my position, I will promise her post cards from places she’s never heard of. In her delirium, she’ll think that she’s the wiser. The more pens she pushes the more keys she presses the further away from wisdom she becomes. Not even this place can stifle my spirit. Not her insults or threats either. I have the antidote and the antidote is freedom. It’s in Thoreau’s Walden. I have no fear of being penniless. I have my wits to guide me around this desperate world. When I stand outside to smoke a cigarette, I watch those gloomy faces drag their feet through those revolving doors into the mouth of the elevator which swallows them with such fervor. They’ll press buttons that designate floors for them to shuffle through. The women, in particular, paint their faces to stow away their blues. It’s a sad and gruesome sight. All of those people with wishes in each hand. I see them go to the bodega with two dollars to purchase a hope every Friday. Every Friday, the lottery. Maybe they’ll win and not have to return. I wish them all the best of luck. I wouldn’t turn down that kind of money regardless of anything I say. Money is fun but I sure as hell am not purchasing fleeting joy with impatient turns at the TV to find numbers spring up from little painted balls. They should all be painted with 666. Every apple they might eat will give them two feet to walk backwards with. Money doesn’t solve internal problems. It only pacifies them until you become completely complacent. There will always be some master to answer to. Even if the master shows up in dollar bills. Millions of them.
Thirty minutes pass and I open the door back into the hallway. Not without splish-splashing my face with some good New York water, of course. There’s several echoes from feet careening through the hall. Clip, clop, clip, clop like a bunch of steeds wasting time. Staring out into pasture. Looking for some place to retire. If I don’t get out soon, I might lose myself in those reverberating sounds for eternity or until I shrivel up. My idealism only lasts eight hours and after that, a reinvigorating session to lead me into my woods.
I enter into the office and find that old wench sitting right at my desk, investigating whatever websites I spree upon. She’ll have no luck and this I assure. I always delete all the internet history. All the cookies and whatever else that might implicate me. She smiles that dastardly smile at my direction. It wasn’t for me. It was for her own plastic reasons. There’s nothing presentable about it. I can see right through those kinds of things. If she thought she was dealing with a fool, she’d be wrong enough again. She makes claims of checking her email. Searching the databases. Doing whatever it is that she’s suppose to do. She got up and apologized. More fake. A person like that doesn’t apologize. They only lip vomit to ease some self-imposed neurosis. I pretend to fall right into her trap. “Thank you,” is what I said. I meant nothing of the kind. I plopped my ass right back down and looked for some work to do to finish off my duties for the day. I have nothing left but there is a time to reveal that. The time is when I sneak out and she realizes that nothing was done. These tricks always amuse me. To fool a fool is one of the most pleasurable things I can think of. I love a good prank every now and then. I know how the system is. It works in favor of the unmotivated. The careless, carefree wanderers. If you can trick them into being a good candidate then you really have them. This old wombat sleeps on these moments but yet always on the defense. Always looking for the invisible killers.
“OK. You all have a good weekend. I’ll see you next week,” she warned. I nodded in her direction. I couldn’t lie even though I wanted to. I hated every cell that made up her constitution. Every constituent of her presence. Every mineral that binds her bones. I hate even the atoms that make up her matter even though I share the same molecules. That’s what happens when you’re human. It’s what binds us to each other. I promise this, though – that is all I share with this foul of the foulest beasts. May she sleep uncomfortable tonight with all the guilt and sadness that comes from living such a life. No pity from me. None at all.
I reach for a book and exclaim, “that’s all folks. Ding dong the witch is dead. Let’s continue the fright fest.” I wanted cheers and approbation. I want to be that hero. I don’t pay attention to any possible influence. I only resort to my own nature. That of the hominid thrasher. Soon we will be let out back into the world to run astray, fleeing from all this work stuff. I have plans for the evening and they were fine indeed. A bar here, a bar there. They weren’t works of pacifism. They were masterpieces of rebellion. I have the best ticket to the greatest, bloodiest show in world – street life in New York on a Friday night. There’s hundreds of us. Waiting to spend that ticket all the damned day. Bars equal pleasure which equal awful hangovers that I tend to celebrate with headaches and a hunger for greasy foods like eggs with bacon. Christ, just the thought of it now gets me all giddy inside. The cogs move inside me with such vigilance that I might fall over in my seat just thinking about it. I awake, I exude the tastiest kind of pleasure. I whet my appetite for more adventure. More things to read about later. I record everything I do on napkins, in notebooks. I even scrawl them on walls. The 4:45 bell beckons me more than ever. The fever is plenty.
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KayPaladin reviewed Version 1 -
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Interesting once I got into it, but confusing and hard to follow at times. I did like your insights into the workplace; “I know how the system is. It works in favor of the unmotivated.”
If you broke down your paragraphs into easier to manage chunks it would make for easier reading.
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Awake_At_Last reviewed Version 1 -
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This is a bit harsh, just to let you know. Perhaps I would understand it better if I had the rest of the novel in front of me.
Change “resent” to “resentment” in the sentence “Nothing but a bag of disease and resent.”
Change “realizing” to “recognizing in the sentence “It’s only now that I’m realizing the fucked up flaws that make this atrocious… being… move.” Also remove both sets of ”...”. They give the sentence poor flow.
Remove “through” from the sentence “The ones the hounds are too frightened to dig through.”
I understand the emotions you’re attempting to convey in the first paragraph, but the metaphors don’t really make sense.
The first paragraph carried your hatred well enough, making paragraph 2 unnecessary. If you leave it, your meaning is well received without the sentence “There’s a booth somewhere that will accept them but I mention no names of where that could be.”
Expand your characters in paragraph 3. What is “the big old crime”?
Paragraph 4 seems like a colletion of random sentences. It makes no sense at all.
In paragraph 5, why would you send silly messages to your coworkers if you’re so angry at this woman?
Paragraph six is fine, but it wouldn’t hurt to shorten it.
Paragraph seven makes some sense, but I would encourage you to expound upon your “antidote” found in “Walden” further.
Paragraph 8 is fine.
The rest of the story debunks your notion mentioned earlier of being a “good-doer.”
If you want to relate raw hatred for someone without fully explaining your hate, you may wish to try poetry.
taurusmoon reviewed Version 1 -
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It was hard to either like or identify with your protagonist. He spent too much time whining about someone or something. The protagonst seemed to be so bitter not only toward the woman but to anything and everything that popped into his head.
I wonder if that was what you were actually working towards.
I did like many of your metaphors and descriptions. I also like the end, it started to give the reader a little something more about the protagonist.
I think that if the reader knew more about the speaker in the story, this chapter could work.
There is a typo: I whet my appetite… I think you meant wet.
Kym reviewed Version 1 -
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Incredibly dense and disturbing. It reminds me of Henry Miller, but without the silver lining of a ‘good’ meal.
You’ve found a rich vein to work from and I appreciate your talent. This can be read as a cautionary tale, about allowing yourself to take up residence in a very dark corner.
I suppose the challenge will be to find an audience. Your writing is very seductive, but there will only be so many who will follow you down this alleyway.
But if this is where you are at, I think you are making the most of it.
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