© Jan. 21, 2018. All Rights Reserved.
Pinch me. On my noteworthy journey, I see a trampoline on a rooftop, two-story building where a cage surrounds the upper section to protect participants from falling to their promising death. I’m across the street, walking on the sidewalk with black binoculars wrapped around my neck, a black and white, long-sleeved, zipped up, plaid jacket, a black, leather belt with silver studs, tattered, blue jeans, and black tennis shoes. I’m holding a camcorder where I record the aesthetic buildings, only to see two strangers kissing.
Needless to say, I’m marginalized like a piece of gelatin. People of all shapes and sizes appear happy and I remember them like the latest facial recognition software. Even the few little people I see around city appear happy, holding hands with someone near and dear. Like my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great, great grandparents, and down the entire ancestor bloodline, they’ll eventually get into a scuffle and that’s the end of the story. It’s no different and why should I stand out from the competition?
I’ve seen my love read, write, and speak fluently in two different languages, formally and informally. A prolific reader, she is, reading a dozen stories within twelve, astounding seconds, unconsciously write with perfect grammar, sentence structures, and storytelling, which exceeds the planet’s expectations, and effectively speak slang, just as much as she can read and write in cursive. Rumor has it that she can speak in every language known to humankind, including the lost ones, for she often uses archaic words nobody comprehends at the end of her intellectual conversations. Like pure poetry, a single word she may utter articulates her emotions, ideas, opinions, factual statements, and sense of humor with ease, which can cease deep-rooted rivalries, permanently.
She’s so social, that there’s rumors that she’s a mindreader of some sort. She has sympathy for the socially awkward, but it’s all a dream. Yet, again, I awake in my bedroom, imagining the same woman, practically idolizing the perspiration dripping from her hair follicles. My dead skin cells are reborn if they ever so touch her exfoliated skin. I’ve never seen this woman in my life, so why does my night terrors taunt me when we could be polar opposites? My reveries befriend my dreams, but my dreams, I still can’t control.
In front of me is a poster of a half-naked blond, swimsuit model (where the cosmography desperately flirts) nailed to the black, plaster, glazed wall, to my right side, there’s a mini-refrigerator, and to my left side, there’s a silver, flat-screen television sitting on a black dresser with a clean fish tank in the background. In the fish tank, there’s a Florida box turtle (who is consuming an earthworm), a black and white, ocellaris clownfish, and a goldfish. I rise up to turn the air conditioner on, then from upstairs, I hear my name being called, “Giovanni! Giovanni! Get up here quick!” That raspy voice startles me, sending me the urge to walk the opposite direction, but I rush up the squeaky, wooden stairs from the gloomy basement.
I open the door, seeing a blinding, white light flash in my eyes in my very presence, then feel cold water splash across my face with such an impact that I nearly fell backwards down the stairs. Guffaws rise across the living room as my eyes then see Jess, a 22-year-old sound designer with black, long, curly hair and a one-sided braid on the right side. She has brown freckles holding a sanguine flashlight. Jess has a black cardigan, blue jeans, and black tennis shoes while Larissa, a 19-year-old, over-achieving brunette with short, curly hair, thick, reading glasses, blue overalls, and black jack boots. Larissa has an Associate’s Degree in Fire Science at the University of Petunia in Afghanistan, a Bachelor’s Degree in Radiation Therapy at the Gifted College of Russiaville, a Master’s Degree in Film Studies with a minor in fashion design at Italy’s Golden Elites, and a PHD in Psychology at Vellia College New York.
I’m humiliated. None of these entities are my friends, but I eye at a birthday cake as they proceed to laugh like it’s their profession. Beside the blue cake, which says, “Happy 18th Birthday” are many pieces of confetti in Rolling Hitch Knots. Larissa then says, “Blow out your candles grown man.” Jess says, “Wait! Let me take a pic with birthday boy first.” Larissa says, “Giovanni’s an adult now and right now, he’s hungry. Isn’t that right?” I then say, “Uuumm.”
Jess says, “Hurry up already and make up your mind. Giovanni’s my homeboy.”
I’m handed the professional cake knife, but before I approach the circular glass table, all of the lights turn off. Jess utters, “Make a wish.” Theres eighteen lit candles extending out of the cake. As I blow out the candles, the light flickers on and off, repeatedly. Everyone looks on the opposite side of the closet where my intoxicated mother is, wearing a tye-dye shirt, blue jeans, and black tennis shoes. She laughs with wobbly legs in the dark until she falls, crashing onto the black, leather couch. Thus, I blow out the candles, then cut the cake.
My mother jumps over a 6 foot, circular, beige bean bag and the milk-white leather couch, screaming, “Happy Birthday” in a joking manner.
Oh, the laughter haunts me. Then, the ground floor shakes. Dishes fall out of the cabinets. Pictures fall from the walls. Dressers fall over. Everyone screams rushing to the floor. It’s an earthquake, but gladly, the place isn’t fully destroyed.
The Following Day
The moment I awake from my mattress, which is sitting on the black tiled floor, I receive a text message. I rise up to check my black cell phone, which is sitting on a tawny dresser. The text is from Jess, which reads, “What up? Tell your moms that I’m clockin’ in at seven tonight.” I text Jess back, “Got it.” My mother opens the basement door, then limos down the stairs with a right anterior cruciate ligament, which feels fractured when she puts weight on it. Practically deveining me with her stare as if though I’m phytoplankton, she groans while refraining from using profanity, then speaks, smelling like strong liquor with vinegar, “Who you textin’?”
Silence remains on my mouth like trying to hear a headless maggot in a forest fire. Her body has the stench of three cadavers in a sewage, but maybe I’m exaggerating. Take my word for it or take a sniff. She reaches the bottom step, walks over, then says, “I’m just messin’ around. Ain’t nobody tryin’ to look at your phone.” She then looks at my screen, laughs, then says, “I’m going to need you to do me a favor. I need some money to get groceries. I know you’re trying to save up.” In response, I say, “I don’t have that much money. I only have twenty dollars.” She takes the money from my hand, saying, “Thank you.” I head upstairs as she says, “I need to wash up. When you’re ready, take out the trash.”
After drinking 3 cups of water from the kitchen, I dump two, black garbage bags into the dumpster. The moment I make my way back, my mother says, “Did you check the mail?” “You never told me to check the mail,” I say. She yells, “I did! Don’t worry about it. Just help me move this couch.” “I can do it myself,” I say, then she responds, “I don’t think so. That couch cost me two thousand dollars,” she says. First, I close the front door, then get on the left end of the couch while she gets on the opposite side. She says, “Lift it from the bottom. Go.” Together, we both lift the couch from the middle of the living room near the burgundy, draped curtains that block the view of the balcony. She asks me, “Do you like the couch over here or where it was better?”
I say, “Where you just moved it looks great.”
“Just great,” she says, then her cell phone rings where she rants for approximately five minutes while I stand. I attempt to head elsewhere and she calls me to say, “Did I tell you to move? We’re about to get this house together and we’re working on your room next,” then speaks to her caller, “Let me get off this phone. I know you have an appointment.” After chuckling, she ends the phone call.
I receive a text message and she slaps me before yelling, “Come on, Giovanni! We have to clean up around here! You can’t be textin’! You had all day to do that! Tell whoever you’re textin’ that you’re busy!” “Okay,” I say, then look at the phone screen, reading, a message from Helen, saying, “I’m going to kill myself.” How do I tell Helen that I’m busy? I text the words, “I’m helping my mom move heavy furniture around right now. Can you refrain from killing yourself in about an hour?” Before I can press the send button, my phone rings and it’s an unknown caller, saying, “Hello. Is Benedetta there?” Thus, I take the phone away from my ear, saying to my mom, “Someone wants to speak to you.”
She takes the phone from my hand and speaks, “Hello… You have the wrong number. “Can I have my phone back,” I say. She responds, “Not until we’re done cleaning. What are you doing that’s more important than your personal growth?” Luckily, no random person texted me a naked picture while my mother has my cell phone. I say, “I just wanted to let them know I’m busy.” “They’ll know when you stop responding. Jesus, stop frowning. What type of job are you going to get frowning all the time. Even a garbage man has to smile and be social. I shouldn’t have to answer phone calls for you to set up your doctor’s appointment. When I was sixteen, I had my two jobs, a house, car, and a girlfriend that I had to spend time with. I even had to finish high school to receive my master’s degree in Social Work. Get your shit together or get out of my house. God gave you a stigmatism because you weren’t paying attention to your surroundings. Now’s the time to focus or you’ll be blind. I never had a stigmatism because I read my Bible. Jesus died for our sins,” she yells.
I have foreknown forethoughts about the things I’d like to do to my mother. A paintball gun aimed at her is foolish a water balloon being thrown. I’ve wanted her dead for a long time, but how precious is it to have a mother so beloved by everyone else? She exits the front door after putting on her long-sleeve, black, fleece jacket with a detachable hood, then greets the neighbor who exits his apartment, saying, “Good morning.” He says, “Morning. Did you hear the ground moving last night?” Benedetta says, “I was just about to ask you the same thing. I woke up at two o’clock in the morning thinking I was the only one seeing the ground move. I had to get out my Bible and start praying.” He says, “I know that’s right.”
Just when I thought she left, she enters the living room again after telling her neighbor to take care. Benedetta says, “Help me look for my keys. We’re going to watch some movies when I get back, so think about what movies you want to see and I’ll pick them up. Don’t choose that Satanic crap that your brothers are all hooked up in or I’ll kick you out like I did them. If you no longer want to speak to them, I understand and you don’t have to,” she says.
2 Hours Later
Benedetta enters the front door, then removes her jacket. “Put in one of the movies. I picked up some food because I ain’t cookin’ tonight,” she says. Curiously, I ask, “Which movie,” then she interrupts, yelling, “Any movie!” I just insert a comedy movie into the DVD player, turn the projector on, and cut the light off. As soon the screen is on the main menu, she says, “I’m scared. Aren’t you scared of this movie?” I ignore her, then there’s a knocking on the front door.
My mother opens the front door and it’s my brother with his clothes drenched in rain. He stutters, saying, “Hi. I thought that I’d stop by to visit.” He’s not even wearing a jacket and I received no warning of his arrival. Immediately, I head to my bedroom and my mother says, “Giovanni. Go make your brother some popcorn. Did you get a job yet?” “I’m still working on it,” I say. “You have your Bachelor’s Degree. Don’t let these people with no degree beat you. Both, you and your brother need to pick it up.”
I’m simply distraught. The movie plays while the popcorn is popping and already, she pauses a scene where the main character is having lesbian sex, saying it’s a sin. Why does she press the play button? After cooking the popcorn, I pass my Benedetta and my brother a bowl of popcorn, then make my own. My brother says, “You’re missing the movie,” which frustrates me, so I finally get done making the damn popcorn for myself and my brother doesn’t want to watch the movie by heading toward my room. My mother says, “Aren’t you all gonna watch the movie?” I say, “I’ll…” My Brother interrupts, saying, “It’s boring.” “Y’all missin’ out. Mister film major needs to lose his degree.”
I walk into my bedroom and there’s a knocking. My brother says, “Hi” while waving his hand horizontally. He then says, “Can I enter your room,” where I say, “Sure.” I’m texting my friend and my brother says, “You should smile more. Maybe if you smile more, you can get a girlfriend, a job, then you’ll get a place to stay. You don’t have it rough.” “You don’t know what I go through,” I say. He says, “I’ve known you my entire life,” then says, “What were we talking about?” “How much you like popcorn. I’m going to watch this comedy special that’s playing in the living room. Do you want to watch?” He says, “No thanks. I remember what we were discussing now.”
I step around my bed to close the closet doors and hide a voodoo doll that’s in a black, fishnet bag behind several white, transparent garbage bags full of clothes. The doorbell rings and that’s the moment I look at the time on my cell phone, seeing seven o’clock. Jess made her way back to the house, but my brother talks, “I never wanted to come over here. Back at my place, I have a homeless friend who I constantly have stay over and have to kick him out whenever my mom arrives. Why’s my mother hold onto my money when I’m a grown man? I should be able to purchase any foods I want. We’re all going to die anyway. I don’t know what healthy foods to pick out. I came over here just to speak to you and sometimes, I feel like I should’ve just stood home with my friend. You make me feel like I should commit suicide with how depressing you look.”
I look at him and say, “Nobody told you to let him leave your place. It’s cold as Antarctica’s ass cheeks and you decided to let him go. You was the bully back then.”
He yells, “Why are you arguing! I hope you do go into the military and you get shot dead! I’m going home!”
I yell, “Fuck you,” hoping he searches online who has the largest penis in the world and it turns out that an infant does, then the feds deliver him a cock sized ass whooping throughout his life sentence.
He runs toward me, the kicks me in the chest. As I fall backwards on the bed, he strikes me continuously in the body region where I gasp for oxygen. He then walks away, stops his movement, then runs toward me again, but I move my body to the right with my left foot extended in the air, and he trips falling into the mahogany entertainment system, breaking the black, flat screen television. Flashbacks of when he’d pummel me every day occurs while I suffer from a convulsive groan. Jess (who has green and blue, long dreads, rushes in my room to see my brother resting in the shattered glass. He has a bloody forehead.
Jess screams as I put on my black, leather jacket. My mother arrives in my room and I exit the room before grabbing a book bag, which includes my cash and birth certificate and social security card. Thus, I slam the front door shut.
30 Minutes Later
Where I sit on a bench outside of a mall, I’m consuming seasoned French fries and cheesy beans, which has the aroma of fresh, mushroom pizza in a bowl. A photogenic, desi woman with long, black, curly hair and a pink rose poking out of the top right section approaches him. She has a red bindi, two, authentic, small, silver, round piercings on both sides of her nose, perfectly aligned from both corneas, red fingernails, two golden bangles on both sides of her wrists, a purple, laced shawl, a laced, black, pencil skirt embroidered with red and pink floral designs, and purple tennis shoes with a dream catcher design on both of them. Her smile is extraordinary like finding living fish in inside a volcano. She says, “Excuse me! I couldn’t help but notice what you’re eating and was wondering which store did you go to?”
There’s a small, round, silver piercing in the front section of her tongue. I say, “Postasia’s Burgers. 2486 North Six Port Heights on Main Crestorfield street.”
She says, “I was going in the right direction then.”
I say, “Yeah. That’s what I did at first. I just followed the smell.”
“Yummy,” she says as if she wants to taste the food that I’m eating.
“You want to try some,” I ask.
She responds, “No thanks. I’m on a diet,” walking away taking two steps, then returns, saying, “That’s so sweet of you! You didn’t have to!”
She grabs some French fries and a separate burger I’ve not eaten, then sits on a bench. While she eats, I try to get to know her, “What’s your name?” She says, “You’re not from here, are you?” A scrawny thuggish man walks by the bench and says, “Gotta lighter?” I nod my head horizontally as she says, “No, Devonte! You know I don’t smoke!” Devonte says, “Is he bothering you? You want me to handle him?” She says, “We we’re doing just fine until you interrupted. Why don’t you go and smoke somewhere else?”
I utter the words, “I’m going to get going.”
She then says to Devonte, “See what you did? You scared him! You always do this to me!”
Making a right turn around the corner of a rundown hotel, I then walk away into an alley, but as I walk, from behind me, I hear a glass bottle shatter against the black, concrete ground. Devonte has an intimidating look of rage as he walks forward, eventually saying, “Stay away from my bitch! You got that!” “I’m leaving,” I say, but he pushes me into a brick wall where my forehead hits hard. He lifts up his shirt, draws out his handgun, then, beats my face with it. Thus, he aims the weapon at my bloody forehead as I gasp for oxygen. The woman runs from behind Devonte, screaming while I’m on the ground, defenseless.
Devonte says, “Stay away from my bitch! You got that?”
“I said I’m leaving!”
Devonte shoots me in the left kneecap. Blood leaks on the ground while I scream in excruciating pain. The woman screams, saying, “No!” Devonte pushes the woman to the ground, then shoots me in the left clavicle. It rains and Devonte says, “Stay away from my bitch,” shoots me once more in the same area, then says, “Don’t bring your ass round here anymore!”
Devonte says, “Come on,” then the woman rises. He holds her hand, pulling her from my blurry vision. Then, an earthquake shakes the ground. Devonte yells, “Oh shit” while the desi woman screams. I hear running footsteps on gravel, but I can’t run anywhere in my physical condition.
2 Hours Later
I awake, naked in a bathroom full of cold water full of ice cubes and white, lit candles surround the bathtub. A blond woman with short, straight hair and a black bathrobe positions her right index finger above her mouth while her left palm blocks his mouth. I was simply trying to breathe. I hear footsteps against a wooden floor and they’re not hers. The bathroom door opens by itself and the woman looks behind, saying, “I’m glad you could make it. Say hello, Gregory.” There’s nobody behind her and I hear nobody saying hello. The woman then turns back facing me, saying, “And your name is?”
I say, “I’m…”
As much as I try to think of fake name, she interrupts saying, “Giovanni.”
“How’d you know that,” I ask.
“Gregory knows everyone who enters this house. Stay still. Before you leave, you’re going to be feelin’ one hundred percent.”
I say, “Thank you for picking me up, but I should really be get going.”
“Gregory says he was friends with your father,” she says.
I try to rise from the bathtub, but my injury drives my body back down into a resting position. She says, “Take it easy. I’m not going to hurt you. By the way, my name’s Tomorrow.” My cell phone levitates from the kitchen sink hovering above my shoulders. She passes me a white dry towel where I dry my hands, then grab my cell phone to see my mother attempted to call me 55 times and sent me over 9 text messages where the most recent one says, “You’re never to step foot in this house again and I’m putting an end to your cell phone service, so while you think you had it hard now, the real world will kick you right in the ass!”
I check a message that Helen sent me, which says, “I’m worried sick about you. Why won’t you answer me?”
Suddenly, I try to text back, saying, “I’m doing okay,” but my message is invalid. Thus, on the cell phone, words form as if though I’m texting it, reading, “Just go away.” The message sends and I see the response from Helen, reading, “What the hell has gotten into you? First, you wanted nothing but the best for me and now you want me to go away? Go fuck yourself!”
I nearly drop the cell phone in the water from how enraged I am, saying in agony, “What the hell did you do!”
She says, “I didn’t do anything with your phone,” then temporarily looks to the left, saying, “Gregory, did you mess with his phone? Gregory says no. We were standing here the entire time.”
“Get me out of here,” I yell.
The woman puts her right palm over my mouth, then says, “When I shut the door, your body will be one hundred percent. One. Two. Three.”
She leaves the bathroom and the door shuts by itself. After I lower my cell phone on the toilet seat, my injury isn’t painful anymore. What just happened? I stand on my two feet moving my left leg above the water and touching my left clavicle. I no longer feel a wound, then look in the mirror, seeing that the wound is gone.
I step out of the bathroom, cautiously looking around, wondering if I should run out of this place naked or search for clothes. A record player plays from the living room, which startles me, so I dart my head around. Nobody is in the living room, but the record player is moving by itself. I hear several disembodied voices say my name, “Giovanni!” Then, a bedroom door pops open and it’s Tomorrow, but this time, she’s firmly holding a beige dress shirt and black dress pants on a wooden hanger.
Tomorrow says, “I know you don’t plan on running out there naked with your package out.”
Sarcastically, I say, “Not any time soon.”
“Your mother just wanted you to have a backup plan. No she didn’t,” the voices say.
I say, “Thank you.”
She says, “No. Thank God.”
3 Years Later
I’m in a bathtub and Tomorrow opens the door, saying, “My marvelous, marvelous Giovanni! I need those incendiary powders made by tonight. Everyone’s doing their part. Gregory is on the look out and I’ll bring in the bait. It’s go time! Let’s do this!”
Tomorrow covers her yellow, spaghetti strap with a black pea coat, then exits the house. 30 minutes later, I receive a text message, letting me know it’s time to go outside. Trying not to slip on the black ice, which covers the concrete steps, I walk down, then toward her black convertible. She opens the trunk and there’s a rolled up Indian rug that she wants me to carry into the house. I carry the rug wondering what the hell I’m going to look like if someone sees me struggling to lift what feels like dead weight. What if I slip on the black ice and the body rolls out of the rug? There’ll be witnesses everywhere and I’ll effortlessly make the cover of the local newspaper.
The rug is heavy, but I lift it up, nearly falling backward before Tomorrow catches the rug by her lonesome and sits it in front of the door. Gregory opens the front door, then I position the rug into the living room. The front door shuts after Tomorrow locks shuts all of her car doors and locks them. Thus, she rolls the rug until it’s flat where a naked male is in an unconscious state.
I sit slumped down in a wooden, rocking chair, smoking a sweet cigar while Tomorrow walks over to kiss me on the lips. She moves backwards with a smile as the defenseless victim on the floor is getting his hands tied shins his back and ankles tied together with a thick rope by Gregory.
The victim wakes up and Tomorrow has on a black mask as just as I do. She slaps him across the face, then says, “A or B. A, you empty your bank account or B, your joint-stock company will be no more.”
The victim tries escaping the ropes, saying, “What the… Who the hell are you? How did I get here?”
She refuses to answer his question, takes the cigar out of my mouth, where wisps of smoke wander around the place. Then, she positions the cigar in her mouth while opening a steel, silver cooler to grab a cold beer. While I watch her temporarily remove the cigar just to drink from the beer, I grab another cigar, which sits beside an ashtray full of cigarettes on a black nightstand.
After rising from my rocking chair, I strike him in the mouth. As much as he desires to cover up the wound from his bottom lip, he can’t. Then, I look into his brown, leather wallet, which is sitting on a rectangular, glass table. The victim’s name is Jeffrey Manomark who is 5 foot 4, 156 pounds, and in grave trouble.
Jeffery weeps, then screams desperately for help as I drag him into a bedroom where the air conditioner has been on for nearly 2 hours, colder than the negative 5 degrees from outside. “Please! No! No! No,” Jeffrey screams, but his words don’t save him. There’s a silver, stainless padlock on the top closet shelf that I grab, then place in a black, fishnet bag. Thus, I swing the weapon at his jaw, dividing his top, right canine tooth from his mouth as blood follows. Blood trickles down his mouth with the mixture of saliva while tears run down his fearful eyes.
Sarcastically, I then say, “Smile more. It’ll ward off the evil.”
I then kick him in the testicles and wonder which one of his testicle hurts the most. Jeffrey squeals in a tone that I favor, then grunts in a shaking motion. His body hair reaches freezing temperature and his nostrils stick against his flesh, making it complicated to breathe.
Great. Tomorrow arrives saying, “What a strong man I have,” then says to Jeffrey, “That’s more than ten seconds I gave you. Make a choice. A or B.”
Jeffrey says, “Fuck you!”
I kick him in the testicles once more, then put him in a supine position, holding his back upwards with my right knee pressing down on his spinal cord. He yells as Tomorrow grabs a dirty, white rag with brown and grey stains from the bathroom tub, then heads into the black, bedroom dresser, opening the bottom drawer to take out black tape. She stuffs the dirty rag in his mouth, then wraps the tape around his mouth approximately four times. Suddenly, it feels more peaceful. Yes.
Constantly, she walks backwards and runs forwards, kicking him in the ribs and testicles. The victim cries uncontrollably. Although he cries with his hands tied behind his back, I won’t let go of his arms. Then, I stretch his arms in an upward motion to the point where I hear bones crack. Thus, he screams. Tomorrow then says, “A or B!”
I say, “Gosh. If you empty the man’s bank account, that ruins his business altogether and if you ruin his business, he has to find another way to make money.”
Tomorrow says, “Don’t give him the answers. Jeffrey has to think for himself in life or he’ll never succeed like you.”
I say, “I would’ve never succeeded without a hand from you.”
Tomorrow says, “You’re strong and have survival instincts. Maybe you forgot how things were before, but I remember just like yesterday. The balls you had to survive under your living conditions weren’t as good as his.”
I say with a serious voice, “Does that make it right to punish him?”
She says, “Fuck yeah, dude,” then laughs.
I laugh along, saying, “This motherfucker should’ve never fucked with us fuckers!”
“B,” Jeffrey yells.
Tomorrow removes her black, leather, studded belt, the swings it at his body approximately twelve times, yelling, “Don’t yell at me!” Jeffrey suffers several welts on his body and a bruise mark on his right cheek after I strike it. He bleeds profusely from his bottom lip. Tomorrow says to Jeffrey, “Act right because Gregory is watching you.” She leaves the room as I follow her. Thus, the bedroom door slams by itself and a silver lamp flickers on and off by itself.
Jeffrey panics. A glass of ice, cold water tilts over the dresser, landing on the grey carpet.
Gregory picks up a keen knife, which is slid from underneath the door. Jeffrey looks at the weapon levitating toward him. Nobody is in sight holding the weapon, so Jeffrey screams. The light turns out as Gregory launches the knife into Jeffrey’s body three six times, his face, twice, and his right shin, once. Jeffrey suffers eternal bleeding.
In the living room, I receive a text message from Helen that reads, “Call me.” Immediately, I call her and hear Helen softly say, “I love you.” Another individual with a deep voice says, “Leave my daughter alone, you nigger.”
“I’m not black dumbass. Call here again and I’ll murder you,” I say before ending the phone call.
Tomorrow says, “But you are black.”
I say, “How could you hear that conversation. He was speaking very low.”
“Your friend loves you. Wanna be her savior,” she says?
I say, “No. I’m done with her. I’m just done.”
Tomorrow says, “Take some time to think about it while I check up on Gregory. Gregory! Gregory!”
“Sure,” I say.
She walks down the hall and stops, saying, “Mommy got you a treat. Giovanni! Grab the treat that’s in my purse!”
Her demanding voice makes me follow her command. The moment I unzip her, purse, which is made out of leopard skin, I see a black and tan poodle barking. I take the poodle out of the purse, eyeing the vacant hall. Her malicious smile is behind me. She grabs the poodle, saying, “Thank you,” then speaks to Gregory, saying, “There’s more if you keep it up.”
In awe, I stare at the poodle being devoured by nothingness, yelling for someone to save him. Blood drips down to the white, tiled floor and the blood is the same color as Tomorrow’s living room curtains, which drapes down the floor. I take a seat, suffering from a flashback of Benedetta half naked, wearing a bluish-green, laced bra and black pantyhose, saying, “Here. I’m done using the computer” Benedetta hands me my laptop back and when I shut the bedroom door to sit down on my bed, type in the URL, I notice that she’s been on lesbian porn sites. After making a disgusted face, I delete the the URL history, then look at the pictures section in my documents noticing my mother posing naked, revealing her buttocks. Immediately, I exit out, sit the laptop on the bed, and sit back, trying to breathe. The moment I exit the flashback, another flashback occurs, but this time, it’s of Devonte saying, “Stay away from my bitch! You got that?”
I grow impulsive, heavily breathing, wailing against the pillows on the couch. Tomorrow walks by, snapping her finger louder than a police siren and hypnotically, I pause. Tomorrow then sits beside me, wrapping her right leg around my right leg, then wrapping her arms around my neck, saying, “That’s better. That’s why I love you, babe. You always know when to do what’s best for me. I just love you.”
Her last sentence echoes in my ears, repeating in her ethereal voice, “I just love you. I just love you. I just love you.”
She proceeds speaking, “What’s on your mind, hun?”
I respond, “I think you’re ticklish.”
The Following Day
I’m wearing a black mask, a black hooded sweatshirt under a black trench coat, black, medical gloves underneath black, leather gloves, leather pants, and black hunting boots on a rainy Sunday night. In the backyard of a bungalow, I wander, seeing that the bathroom window is closed shut with the lights off and the door open. From looking through the bathroom window into one section of the hall, I know there’s nobody around. Even if curtains blocked my view, I’d hearken to where the vigilant homeowner goes daily, just to pry the window open by first inserting a utility knife in the gap between the sash and frame. Then, I position the knife around the opening of both sides of the window, remove the utility knife. Then do the same thing with a putty knife. I position my black flat bar where the sash meets the window sill, tapping it with a black hammer around and lift the window up after slowly pressing the flat bat downward on the bottom angles of the window.
Slowly, I make my way into the gloomy bathroom, closing the draped, beige curtains, which were on the sides. Then I lightly walk toward the door, peeking around both sides. There’s nobody in the hall, then I see a bulldog that walks nearby until I rest a piece of seasoned steak on the wooden floor. The homeowner’s bedroom door is wide open with her black, flat-screen television turned on, mounted on the plaster, red-brown painted wall. A separate room is closed, so I check the living room where a paralyzed female with long, curly hair is sitting defenselessly in a wheelchair. She has a blue blouse under a grey jumper dress with black stockings.
Slowly, I walk backwards, moving into the bathroom and stepping into the bathtub with a handgun, which has a lovable silencer kept in his back, right pocket. I then hide in a supine position with the handgun held upwards. The separate door opens and it’s an 8-year-old boy in green pajamas with black, horizontal stripes, holding a half eaten black, ceramic bowl of disgusting oatmeal and a panini sandwich. The anonymous boy leaves the wooden door opened enough for me to know that the handicapped woman and the boy are the only two currently in the bungalow.
The boy says, “Mommy. You dropped your steak.”
The mother rolls her wheelchair around with a confused look on her face, then sees a shadow come out of the bathroom. I then step out of the bathroom as her opened, bedroom window allows the air to lift the bottom section of my trench coat. I shoot the little boy in the back of the head with no remorse, cherishing the moment blood squirted from his stupid head. The bowl falls to the carpet, cracking. Afterwards, the mother screams, but not too long, for I shoot her in the right lung. Her head rushes down to her cleavage area as blood trickles down her wound.
I walk toward her as she struggles to breathe, but I recline the wheelchair with my physicality. I slap her repeatedly as she cries, then push her handicapped ass out of the broken wheelchair. Her voice rises 8 octaves when I yank a handful of her hair from her precious scalp. She bleeds from her scalp, slowly struggling to crawl away with only her arms. Her legs are motionless.
Yes, I laugh while placing my right foot on top of her left ankle. No longer can she move further away from me like having a couch leg stuck on a cat’s tail or holding a worm in the palm of my hands. Her fingers linger as she sails against the grey carpet. I remove my right foot only to stomp against her left ankle, dislocating it. The exhilaration I’m receiving calls for a beer I’ve not yet drank.
Oh, her sexiness leaves me no other fucking choice. No woman would want to accept me unless they’re old as shit, a cheater, have an immediate family, or some other bullshit pattern leading to me wanting nothing to do with them. After tonight, I’m a motherfucker. I reflect on how I deflowered Tomorrow 3 years ago, then realize how lucky this crippled bitch is.
I rip off her jumper dress, then remove her blue blouse with my body weight positioned on her. She tries fighting back, but I smack her arms to the carpet, repeatedly, then slam her head against the carpet. Thus, I unzip my pants and penetrate her lazy ass with my 9 inch penis.
It’s Monday fucking morning and I reflect on how I committed a diabolical murder. First, I penetrated that slut from yesterday, then I stabbed her in the body region sixty five times, the face 92 times, and the right shoulder twice. After so, I decapitated her dumbass son’s head with just a knife, then put his head in a living room fish tank where goldfish roam. Other than that, I suffer from the random thought of how a witch in the past cast a spell on my brother that forces his eyes to roll in the back of his goddamn head randomly like he’s a zombie rip off.
I’m crossing the street. That’s something my brother most likely would have to worry about. Damn! Tomorrow is on the other side. Befitting. Her name sounds like heaven. She smirks and tells me to walk with her so that we can chat with friends. During the walk, there’s yet another flashback on when I say, “God doesn’t like it when you cheat.” Benedetta responded with laughter, saying, “Everyone’s been saying the same thing for years and nothing’s still happened. God who?” It wasn’t only thirty seconds later that shirtless pig spoke about me needing to join a church, then spoke about Jehovah being the one and true God.
Tomorrow can stop my qualms. We enter a mall where she hugs a woman I recognize. For fucks sake! I smell imminent depression. It’s Jess with black, curly hair a blue tank top, black and white camouflage pants, and black hunting boots. Jess says, “Well, isn’t it not Tomorrow’s husband.” I say, “We’re.” Tomorrow interrupts, “Dating. We’ve been in a relationship for about about a year.” Jess says, “I see. And he still never popped the question.”
I say, “I can,” then Tomorrow interrupts snapping her finger, saying, “My future husband knows exactly the right time to say whatever is on his mind. He knows exactly what I’m thinking, so popping the question will not be a problem.”
“Where’s your husband,” I say. Jess says, “His name is Devonte. We’ve been engaged for 3 months, got married in Vegas, and two years later, here I am now. He still does everything a man should from being my personal chef and spoiling me if you know what I mean. Devonte’s out with the boys right now.
Immediately, I walk away from the discussion, but tomorrow looks at me as I try to turn my face away. I can’t move my face and body as if though someone or something is controlling me. I then gain control, moving slowly, but the telekinetic power is too powerful. Tomorrow says, “Leaving so soon? Helen is stopping by in thirty minutes to talk.” That’s my online friend who I’ve never met in person. How is Tomorrow friends with Helen, so out of curiosity, I ask, “How do you know Helen?” Jess says, “Including your mother.”
“Stay away from me,” I say.”
Tomorrow says, “Just where do you think you’re going?”
I immediately run after yelling, “Get the hell away from me!”
A few out of approximately fifty five strangers from the cafeteria laugh directly at me as if they’ve been watching me for years. I hear one stranger say my name in a whisper, then two other strangers talk about Satanism at a table as if nobody would care about their discussion. A black, portable, two-way radio transceiver turns on in from a stranger’s front right pocket, saying, “Suspect is at the centerpiece. I repeat. Suspect is at the centerpiece.”
Helen arrives with a similar electronic device and she says, “Copy.”
“What the hell are you doing here,” I say.
A hyperventilated Helen says, “That’s no way to keep a woman. Tomorrow, you need a real man. Don’t settle for this soft piece of trash.” Jess, Helen, and Tomorrow laughs. Thus, I run away knowing that telling people about my experiences will get me put in the crazy house.
I rush out of the cafeteria, bypassing three female mannequins, exiting the back door of the mall. There’s nowhere to go, but a hotel. There’s nobody to trust. I could be gruesomely murdered in a hotel. My best luck is to live in any car. Shit! My car is at Tomorrow’s house.
No matter what, I don’t stop running, but constantly hear voices haunting me, saying my name, “Giovanni!” The voices even laugh and groan.
I cross two streets, turn a right corner, then head to Tomorrow’s house. Loud gunshots wander across the neighborhood. I shut the front door behind me and grabbing a handgun from on top of the dresser in her bedroom.
Then, I position the handgun in my front, right pocket, heading outside, toward the blue car. After opening the car door, I take my gun out of my pocket, and place it in the passenger’s seat before lowering my haunches. I shut the door, then speed down the road, going 45 miles per hour, nearly crashing into a parked car.
My heart pounds rapidly as a flashback occurs. I see a thuggish man with a black durag sit down in an English classroom beside me speaks to me, saying, “I can hook you up. What type of bitches you into?” I reply, “I’m…” he interrupts, saying, “Your ass ain’t never gonna get the bitches like that. You see that he, she or whatever it is sitting at the far right corner? That’s your type. She’s told me she’s a hermaphrodite.”
In response, I think, but refuse to say, “Was that before you had sex with her?”
I see a nerd talking to his friend, saying, “I don’t like my mother.” The thug who could be Devonte’s brother gets involved saying, “I’ll beat the shit outta you. Always respect your mother. My mother would’ve beaten the shit outta me for saying that.” One female student sitting in the back of the class says, “Just let it go.” The thug yells, then exits the classroom slightly before the boring teacher arrives.
20 Minutes Later
I’m in a hotel bedroom and sit on the bed with the handgun aimed at my forehead with my face lowered. The disembodied voices followed me, still communicating to me. One voice says, “She knows where you are.” Another voice says, “Nobody cares.” Just when I lower the gun, it fires on its own, startling me. I turn around seeing a bullet hole in the ceiling. The top drawer from the tawny dresser opens, revealing a Holy Bible, but I turn away from it.
A knock is at the door and I rise, positioning my weapon in my right, back pocket. Slowly, I walk closer, eventually looking in the peephole to see a blond hotel maid in her late 20s with a ponytail. I open the door, then see that it’s Tomorrow in my presence. Thus, I slam the door, grab a black luggage bag and open the door again. Down the hallway, I run while receiving a phone call from Tomorrow.
When I pick up the cell phone, she says, “Hey sweet cakes.”
In response, I say, “What the fuck is going on?”
She says, “You have two eyes. Tell me. You don’t have the strength to kill yourself. Kill me if that’s what makes you comfortable. What I want you to do is walk back over here and kill me.”
“Are you crazy,” I say, “Everyone’s watching me.”
She says, “You’re a coward. When you grow some balls, go fix me a sandwich.”
I say, “Just stay away,” then end the phone call.
I block her phone number while running pass Jess, who says, “Catch ya later, champ.”
While rushing in the parking lot, I see a police officer step out of his car. It’s Devonte, who says, “Woah! Woah! Woah! What are you up to running so fast out of a hotel? You wouldn’t mind if I check your license and registration?” I say, “Motherfucker! I remember you.” Devonte says, “Keep remembering. Now, show me your fuckin’ license and registration! Don’t move!”
I immediately move to the left side, grab his arms, positioning them in the air, the headbutt him three times. Thus, I shoot him in the heart, twice before rushing in my car to drive away from the scene. I just kill a cop and now I’m going to go to prison when the surveillance cameras identify my depressed face. Beside a local park, I stop the car, then ain the gun toward my right cranium, shooting myself dead.
Isaiah Lawrence 