Scene One
I was sent to Wal-Mart today to obtain five gallons of industrial strength bleach, I don't know why and I don't ask. Sometimes it's better not to know the smaller details. He also wanted antifreeze, maybe he's secretly making me buy the ingredients so that he can poison me? So really it will look like I bought the items that brought along my own death? Probably not, but I have an overactive imagination I always have and I always will. The store is crowded, filled with the kind of people that I would never want to converse with in real life. Wide eyed, and sweaty, grubbing, and greedy looking for the very best price on their Little Debbie snack cakes. Children are screaming, and mothers are screaming, and fathers are wondering how it is that they were dragged off the couch and brought to this hell. I move my buggy up and down these crowded aisles, non stop, full speed not slowing down for anyone. I was on a mission and I'm not here to move out of the way so that you can grab for that last loaf of whole grain wheat bread. I don't care if it's better for you, I don't care if your doctor says that you need the fiber for your digestion. I just don't care. I want to get my five gallons of bleach and go sit my ass at home.
And when I finally do procure those five gallons of bleach, and that antifreeze I make my way to the checkout lines. Only to discover the worst sight I could have possibly imagined. It's bedlam, like the day after Thanksgiving has hit in the beginning of May. The screaming of children has only intensified as they start grabbing candy bars and tabloid magazines with their filthy hands off the news racks. At this exact moment I swear I can feel my sperm shrivel up and die, never wanting to make such a mistake. (I do apologize that I said the word sperm, but it's just the way I felt about the situation. Women talk loudly on their cell phones about how dreadfully long the lines were and how much they have to do before they can get dinner on the table tonight. I finally decide on what seems to be the shortest line available, and not seconds after I align myself into position do ten other customers line up behind me. They're all talking, and they're all sighing loudly, and they're all too close to me. The woman behind me has inched her buggy ever so close that it is finally digging into the soft flesh of my ankles (truth be told, I have cankles but whatever.) I can't take it, I can't breathe, I can't even think. The children, and the mothers, and the fathers, and all the people. I can't breathe, and the world starts to break away from me, and the floor start spinning. And I take a small step backwards into the woman's buggy. As I wince with the pain of it, in the loudest stage whisper I can muster I say "Fuck it! I'm going to Target!" And I turn around and leave my buggy in the line with my five gallons of bleach, and my antifreeze. And I regret it because I know that Target will only offer more of the same, but I also am thankful to gain back my sanity with a few well smoked cigarettes in my car on my way back to civilization.
Scene Two
The party is in less than two hours. He's standing there with his sixty four ounce big gulp filled to the brim with crown, and coke. He takes a sip, and steps closer to me. I'm huddled in the small space between the stove and the refrigerator a small one foot square that my body is being forced into like a circus contortionist just to get away from him. Large pots of sauce are simmering, and noodles are boiling, and steam is rising, and he's still sipping, and talking. With every four words out of his mouth comes another sip, no a gulp like the name of the cup implies. I wonder just how long it would take him to drink the entire glass, perhaps a few mere minutes? He's definitely not in the camp of taking one beer at the beginning of the party and taking small sips from it all night so people think that you're boozing it up. Maybe that's a camp that I'm the only member of.
He sips, and licks his lips, still getting closer. and he's talking, talking, and swearing, gesticulating wildly with his hands. I try to stop listening and just attempt to figure out what he's saying just by looking at his hands. From here it looks like he's talking about the violent rape of a particularly large bird. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. And if I was wrong, I couldn't' be blamed. The heat is getting to me, and the boiling water sizzles and burps, and pops. The steam is in my eyes. There are a million voices all around me, surrounding my every thought. I am loosing a sense of who I am right now. I am only "Jordan! Don't over cook the pasta!" or "Jordan! Come help me drape this sixty yards of white tulle that I have purchased!" or "Jordan! Isn't it time you go take a shower, so you don't look like total shit when your parents get here?" But I can barely hear any of that, because he's still talking. In fact he's getting louder, I don't know how I'd even be able to tell the subtle nuances of his volume with the racket that is going on around me, but I can tell. His mouth is opening wider, his neck is stretching tighter. The wrinkles in his forehead are becoming tighter as to they almost disappear. He looks stressed, he looks terrified. He looks like I'd imagine that I did if I happened to have a mirror on me at the current time, but I don't. All I have is noodles, and tulle, and sauces, and screaming relatives. And all I want is for the voices to stop. And the steam to stop its getting so hot in here. It's unbearable. I can't take it. I just can't. But I have to , it's all for them. Those two people who I love. Begrudgingly, sometimes surely but still love. And I would do anything for them. Even put up with this heat, and the voices all of them. Even his, no matter how drunk he is.
