by Myles Zavelo
—Too much of an explanation?
—I don’t know, maybe…
—This could be the start of a good one.
—Just promise you won’t get mad?
—Well. Look. It’s just that…I had these dumb boring relatives from out of town come visit me.
—I knew it was Monday but I’d heard it was Friday and then they practically just showed up.
—Some real bad luck.
—I’d spent the night before alone with my beloved speedballs. I’d spent the night before shaking hands with the one-eyed milkman.
—Tim and Kim, Tim and Kim, Tim and Kim.
—Midwestern tourist types. Outrageously codependent. Their personalities have cancer. Worse than chlamydia and gonorrhea combined.
—Been like a thousand years since I’d seen them last; that weekend was some lousy family reunion right in the middle of The State of Missouri.
—Well. Anyway. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m a major softy. A marzipan lump.
—I work at the Western Eye Hospital. I have never really gotten around to accepting my disease. I have never really gotten around to changing my life. I am right in the same exact place.
—Please, trust me on this one, please.
—Kim works at The Changing Lives Christian Center. Tim teaches junior high school and suffers fools gladly. When his students tell him the dog ate their homework, he prays for the dog’s stomach.
—And then, after school, on a voluntary basis, Tim watches teenage girls bleed to death in big hospital beds.
—Really, I mean it, just like that: Tim actually watches those deaths in big beds. Believe he offers comforting words to these bleeding girls? These girls are student athletes. He must speak very slowly to them. Those hospital beds must be covered in blood.
—Filthy dirty blood.
—Guess we should have more in common since we both do stuff at hospitals?
—Tim is the type of sucker who, even in this day and age, will actually pay good money for premium high-definition internet pornography.
—But they wanted a good time at all costs. And for me to show them around my city! (Tim and Kim hadn’t been to my city before. What a massive inconvenience!)
—The situation does make sense when you think about it. My city has a robust pedestrian culture. For example. Just over there is where the market starts.
—Outside, late January. Icy, freezing cold, the ground sparkles like wild diamonds.
—At my doorstep, in my weekend pajamas, in front of them, I thought: Wow, now this is just too forceful.
—I thought: I’ve always despised urgency—and, specifics have always been difficult for me, too…
—I thought: This is going to be one of those short visits never meant to last very long.
—I thought: This is the first time, this is the last time, they are so at my expense.
—I thought: I have become a complete misunderstanding of myself.
—I thought: Politically speaking, I am a liberal-progressive.
—I thought: Most good people take me at face value.
—I thought: Will my next actions match my taste?
—I thought: There’s a good person I’ll never be
—I thought: Wow, so this really is my age now.
—I thought: I do mind this slowass death.
—Now, don't get your panties in a twist, because I know, I know I’ve no right to complain—about anything. See, my life, what Tim and Kim interrupted, was ice cold beer and soda, the effects of cocaine on nasal and oral health, tremendous worriations regarding the rarest varieties of cancer, and then of course all the dread of the Lord.
—For example. I’m worried that I have some cancer starting in my armpits.
—And, yes, sure, yeah, my own private circus, those certainly were the days before…
—I never could behave myself. Every split second is an earthquake. What goes on can be so hard to explain. Bad things can happen sometimes. And sometimes I don't even understand what’s so bad about them.
—Nothing is right. Nothing is wrong. And I don’t know where I belong.
—Oh, wait, right, Tim and Kim: I refuse to believe we’re related—how dare they!
—But, then again, I told myself: I really shouldn’t frown, because they don’t deserve my wrinkles.
—Also, I was grateful, because I often hear noises in the house—you know, whenever I’m alone, which is often—all the time, actually…
—Anyway. The first night. Let them use my fantastic shower. Everything was so very begrudging on my part.
—By her bedtime, Kim had shampooed in Kansas and conditioned in my city. And Tim was asleep. My sleeper sofa is the ninth best in the world. They slept on it.
—Trying to ignore Kim is like trying to ignore real bad news. She’s an excessive chatterer. I never use that many words.
—And Tim is usually speechless. Which actually makes everything worse. If you can even believe it.
—Kim writes down her New Year's resolutions. She is on the diabetic spectrum. She is terribly intolerant to alcohol. She is the sort who will spill out her life story to just about anyone. And I am not all ears. And the thesis, which makes no sense: always the bridesmaid, never the bride…
—Kim says things like, Ben Affleck’s muscles are sexy. Ben Affleck’s butt is tight. Banana bread makes me hormonal. I would have loved to have been adopted by sugar people.
—Anyway, the next morning, in the loud, girlish light of my kitchen. I’m making coffee. Kim smokes a long mentholated cigarette. She is wearing a very extra large Grandma memorial tee shirt. Fits her like a dress. I’m a little impressed. In loving memory of her grandmother. We share the same grandmother. I can hardly remember our grandmother. Wait, she used to say, Your health is your wealth…Her name was Penelope Grace Striggens. My name is Johnnie Copeland Striggens. Where’s my tee shirt?
—Anyway. Still the next morning in my kitchen.
—And yeah. Tim is long gone outside. He’s bird watching. Or something.
—And Kim, she goes, You know what? I actually think it’s kinda cute, you being such a loser and all.
—She goes, C’mon, c’mon, c’mon: Touch me, Loser…
—She goes, I’m soooooo worth it, baby…
—Some cold air came to my knees. Some smoke was hanging in the air. I swallowed some spit the wrong way. I was wearing only my boxer shorts.
—See, Kim was inviting me underneath her. On top of her, too.
—She was maybe confusing me with someone else…?
—And so I go, Kim, that’s gross, we’re like completely related and stuff.
—I go, Plus! You’re Tim’s old lady! Get the fuck away from me!
—But, oh, her breasties were a fact…
—And her leggies, too…
—Yes, think I love legs most of all…
—I go, Kim, actually, hold on, maybe you’re not completely useless to the world…
—Then I worked her like a charm. Because she was all mine. I’m all yours, went Kim.
—Yes. I most certainly tenderized that very tender Kim.
—And. Look. Sure. I make love very girlishly. Anyone at all should know that about me.
—And, yes, I have to say: Kim’s asshole is total perfection! Yep, there's just no other way to put it. Kim's shit just works!
—Wham bam thank you, Kim!
—Afterwards, in the living room, on the ninth best sleeper sofa in the world, I go, Kim? Why? Why’s the sun hitting your navel almost perfectly? Please, explain it to me, please.
—And then Tim walked in.
—Good thing I’m not actually related to Tim! Like thank God!
—Well. Anyway. Just fast forward some.
—Took Tim and Kim “sightseeing.” Took them for pizza and ice cream. Then took them to the worst places I could find. To where scum screams. Kept their eyes wide open. The whole time.
—Look. I have a math disability. I have a handwriting disability. I actually draw and paint. I’ve always fancied myself a little artistic; this time last year I was being considered for a very impressive award; I can’t imagine a life without creative release. I wanted Tim and Kim to feel the way I have felt my whole life.
—Also, my reading comprehension levels have always been off the charts.
—So, see, I took Tim and Kim everywhere but Hell, because I know for a fact that they’re going to end up in Heaven, and then I finally dragged them down to Hell, because I’d changed my mind about Heaven…
—Please don’t be mad?
—And. So. Anyway. Down there. In Hell. Not Heaven.
—The ugliest people. The dirtiest needles. The sexually obsessed ate oxidized apple slices.
—Little kids and little dogs getting their throats slit, screaming their little heads off, and getting adopted by Jehovah's Witnesses.
—Vagrants sucking dead body parts. Army psychiatrists swallowing hard pills. Dutch surgeons lying down on the ocean floor. Grown men with grown wives crying all over the place.
—An Irish whorehouse was choking itself to death. This one green woman was frying her own baby in cooking oil. Everything was dark red with old blood. The purity of the nation’s blood supply.
—A pitiful queen named Don Cripps was ruining his heart with virtually unlimited one hundred percent pure cocaine. A genetic disaster was tasting blood. A floating assisted living facility was floating. A support group for the friends and family of people who think about killing themselves was taking too much time with incredible electronic technology. A U-Haul lesbian relationship was shedding its skin.
—Preppy college students were not acting normal. Abortion boys were acting sweet and cute but a little psycho. Masturbation-addicted gynecologists were masturbating. British pornographers were making cleaning lady noises. Babies with leukemia were handling pliers and blowtorches. Mild-mannered receptionists were getting their hands blown clean off. Snowmen, snowwomen, baby Klansmen, and crampy butterfly kissers were hitting growth spurts. Infidelity Survivors Anonymous members were going out of their way to give coins to the needy.
—And? How did it get so bad like this down here?
—And? When will it end?
—Now. Wow. Okay. I do wish I had that. As a defense mechanism. You know. To be able to block it all out. But alas I do not know how to put anything down. Or away.
—At some point, down there, a joint got passed around. At some point, due to the rancid vibrations, Tim started bleeding.
—Look. I’m a vegetarian. A miserable cokehead. Nobody would ever pretend to miss the cigarette billboard I call my life.
—Kim’s face, on the other hand, was utterly blank.
—I wonder if she can even feel.
—Anyway. I didn’t have to sit around and see the rest play out.
—I left. Enough was enough.
—Was beginning to experience some rabid disappointment. Needed a white line more than anything else. Still love when the coke comes up in my throat.
—Plus, I had a shift starting soon, at the Western Eye Hospital.
—I have never ever wanted to overdose anyone on cruelty. That’s honestly a ridiculous and disgusting accusation.
—And what an awful anticlimax. And it’s how the end of a promise hurts especially bad. And Tim never did pay me back for that six pack.
—Are you still mad at me?
—Just because, just please, just don’t be—this is just me asking...
______
Myles Zavelo lives in London.
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