|
|||||||||
| panda-like calm through fiction | |||||||||
|
Things That Twitch
|
|||||||||
|
I don’t like violence. Not even against insects. I have the same tendencies as most people. Bugs are alien; not just spiders, all bugs. But I remember I used to go to church as a kid, and I remember the day when I decided I didn’t want any part in the normal human/insect schism. A group of kids had found a spider, a daddy long legs, and they were taking turns tearing its legs off. Churchgoing kids, fresh from Sunday School, had made a game of dismembering something. True story.
They say children are the cruelest monsters of all. I know it's because kids don't know right from wrong- at least that's the argument. And I'm not claiming any kind of moral superiority, here, I just, something about that scene, children laughing about maiming something that was physically incapable of harming them- daddy long legs' mouths are too small to bite a human, at least I think I heard that somewhere- that was just so fucked up. I decided then and there that I wasn't going to kill bugs unprovoked. And really, the dirty secret of insect haters is that bugs aren't predatory to humans- they really never have a reason to provoke. Except for the damn bloodsuckers. I didn't used to care that much about them. I mean, nobody likes their bites, because they itch like a bastard, but I didn't hate them. I even thought it was horrible, people who would try to tense up their muscles to trap one until they exploded from overfeeding. I think I remember when that changed. I worked nights, as a security guard. Most of the time it was fine, but on one night the AC in our shack died, and it was the muggy months of summer, then, so we had to keep the sliding glass door open. We had this little desklamp, so we got all sorts of insects flocking inside, and that was fine. I've got no problem with moths, or even flies, really, so long as they stayed off my hoagies. But then came the bloodsuckers. At first I'd just shoo them away like anything else, but they were persistent. They needed to feed. It got to a point where I was just tired of spending minutes at a time trying to shove them out the open door only to watch them fly right back in and land on my skin again. I tried. I really damn tried, but I couldn't stop them, and I couldn't help myself any longer. I must have killed fifteen in a minute, just one right after another, smashed against the windows under a manila folder. Ever since then, I mean, I'll try and be reasonable, but reasonable ends at the point where anyone or anything wants to steal my blood. “That's all fascinating, but I'm more interested in the incident that brought you here.” Okay. This happened at night. I used to rent an apartment with a garage, so I could just get into my car and go, but when my last girlfriend and I broke up, I couldn't afford it on my own, so I had to move out. So now I have to run to the car every night. “I hate to interrupt, but have you ever thought about repellants, candles, sprays, I think they make a lotion.” They don't work. I don't know why, but apparently I'm delicious- or my blood is delicious, anyway. So I've tried pretty much every product that comes to market; I used to love doing that, trying new candy bars, new flavors of Coke and Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew, new Doritos, but now it's just, it's all an exercise in futility, searching for a, a panacea that doesn't and won't and maybe can't exist. Anyway. I was, um, actually off that night. I was driving to rent some pornography. Everything was fine, until I got out of the rental place, and suddenly there were bloodsuckers plastered across the door like cheesy porno event posters. They were everywhere, but I didn't think too much of it at first. I figured I could get past them and into my car, that I'd be okay once I got inside. But when I closed the door behind me, I realized it was muggy so I'd left the window cracked, and they must have been drawn to the carbon dioxide from my exhalations because there was a cloud of them inside the car. I started swinging my sack like a madman, massacring them with a black plastic bag of smut- like Conan between sexual conquests. By the time I was done there were speckles over all the windows, even the rearview mirror had several little green pock marks. And I knew I hadn't gotten them all; you never do. I got the ones I could see, and I even waited, watching silently, hoping they would decide to come out for a drink so I could swat them. But eventually I started the car up and started driving home. And everything was fine, except that I knew there were still some of them with me, I could see movement out of the corner of my eyes, feel my flesh crawl or maybe them crawling over my flesh. I kept scratching at my neck and cheeks, but every time there was nothing there. Until one landed right here on my cheek bone, flew just as brazenly as possible across my vision, so close to my ear that I heard the buzz. I pulled back my hand and prepared to slap, but it started to move, just walk across my face, toward my eye. I tried to brush it away, but between the angle and it moving around, I couldn't get it, and suddenly my car was hopping a curb. I slammed on my breaks, but a cop had seen it. I didn't even bother driving off the sidewalk, just waited as he flicked on his lights and drove over. I got my license and registration ready, then waited with my hands on the wheel until there was a knock on the window. But when I looked over the window was covered with bloodsuckers. He asked me to roll down the window; I tried to tell him I couldn't. He demanded I open the door, and instead I locked it. He pulled out his gun and threatened to shoot me, but I knew he was lying, because he wasn't going to shoot someone for refusing to come out of their car. So he took out his flashlight, and that's when I should have just rolled down the window, and maybe I would have if he'd waited a second, but he smashed my window out. Without a second's notice he, he tazered me. But honestly that I didn't mind; what made me upset, or more upset maybe, was that they had free reign to crawl all over me, and take blood as they saw fit. I mean it only lasted a few seconds before I could move again, you know, after I'd finished pissing myself, but by then it felt like they'd crawled through my eyes and into my brain- the crawling sensation wasn't just limited to my skin. I was, I was still busy trying to swat the little bastards away from me when he opened up my door and pulled me out onto the street, just threw me at the concrete. And, and like I said I don't like violence, but I reacted. “You clawed the officer's face, kicked him in the genitals, repeatedly, then tried to lock yourself away in his squad car.” I panicked, okay? I just didn't want them to get me; I know that's not normal, but I don't think it's crazy, either. I don't think I deserve to be here. “But the judge and the prosecutor really only had two choices, here, or prison, you can grasp that, right?” I guess. But I still don't think I'd say that makes it right. “Are you aware that you can't bring yourself to call them by name, to say the word 'mosquito'? Why do you think that is.” I just prefer not to, because if I say it I think about it, and if I think about it I obsess about it, and if I obsess I start feel them crawling all over me. I don't think it's that odd. I think anyone who starts to think about the amount of insects there are in the world, and the odds that at that particular moment there's an insect crawling on them, they start to get itchy, too. I'm not saying it's science, but I've heard more than one person comment on the phenomenon. “Were you aware that only the female of the species requires blood? Do you think that’s part of an underlying neurosis?” I don’t think I’m crazy, so why would I think it’s part of a deeper neurosis? “Neurotics are not crazy- though you’ll understand that clinically, crazy isn’t a term we ever use- but neurotics express behavior and anxiety that exist within the boundary of social norms. Neuroses can cover any number of disorders, including phobias, compulsions, and even a few personality disorders.” Okay. Well I don’t think I’m eccentric, either. And in answer to your almost passive-aggressive question, no, I don’t have an underlying neurosis surrounding women, my mother, or my female cat. “But you've mentioned your previous relationship, yes? Why do you think it ended?” It ended for the same kinds of reasons any relationship does: confusion, blame, doubt, regret. For some reason the most prominent instance to my mind is, uh, when we met, she was completely shaved, um, down there I guess. I told her I didn’t really like that. “Why’s that?” Well, a fully shaved woman reminds me of the midget porn a group of us rented back in high school, which to me always looked like infants having sex. “So you think of infants having sex, then?” Not even remotely what I meant and you know it; don’t be a jerk. But seriously, the only time a woman should be completely hairless is when she’s prepubescent, at which point nobody should be having sexual thoughts about her. That’s my only point. It kind of skeeves me. “So sort of the reverse of the old canard- maybe if you’d known there was no grass on the field you wouldn’t have bothered to bring your bat.” All right, now you’re skeeving me. Anyway, the point of that anecdote, in case you've forgotten, was that I asked her to let the cat have its whiskers, so to speak. But rather than, you know, get a normal amount of hair, she just foregoes all grooming and goes for this Shanna the She-Devil of the jungle look- I mean, seriously, it looked like she was wearing a big pair of red granny panties when she was naked. “Carrot top in a leg-lock.” Completely skeeving me. “But you're single. How can you be sure that you don't have a neurosis involving women?” Are you being intentionally obtuse? Or is this an attempt to induce an inappropriate response to intense stimuli? “You're bordering upon paranoia.” No, I'm asking simple questions, because your entire line of reasoning seems to be a provocation. “Perhaps it is. Perhaps my goal is to push you to the point of a psychotic episode so I can keep you indefinitely, where I can sequester you until you agree to admit to my colleagues that you believe we are not just holding you without cause, but that indeed we are ourselves overgrown mosquitos, part of an invasive race with plans for world domination, so that I can, at my leisure, further probe your neuroses like mosquitos probe your tender veins.” Wait. This is the plot to an episode of Monk. He goes to a sanitarium investigating a murder, and the corrupt head head-shrinker has him committed. “Interesting. So you identify with a protagonist who suffers from a compulsive disorder, dissociative disorders, a multitude of phobias and possible personality disorders. What do you make of that?” You just admitted that you were going to have me unnecessarily committed “Did I? I'm sure I would recall doing something so entirely unethical.” You said neuroses didn't include hallucinations. “They don't, but that doesn't mean you aren't also hallucinating. But it's your neuroses I'm intrigued by. Your delusions, and your hallucinations, I believe are a product of your brain's attempts to cope with your neuroses.” But then how am I ever supposed to know what's real and what isn't? “Well, that is the rub. I don't believe you can- certainly not in your current state. But I'm afraid we're running out of time for the session. The orderlies informed me that you slept rough last night. I'm going to put you on some anticonvulsives; that should cut down on the spasms, and help you get a good night's rest. Try to stay away from stress in the meantime, and we'll speak again soon.” |
|||||||||