The Opposite Effect (3)

I drove home and proceeded to get drunk.

 

Initially I began to feel a bit better, not much, but a
little. I realized how asinine it was to go to Nutsfart’s office. I could have
just left work. I might have received a lecture about leaving earlier. Shit, I
could have said I wasn’t feeling well. I could have done many different things
that I didn’t do.

 

Unfortunately, after knocking back drinks for a few hours
with Mozart playing in the background, I experienced an emotion that is usually
alien to me: loneliness. I was most often content to be alone without ever
feeling lonely. But that day wasn’t a usual day, nothing normal about it at
all.

 

I realized that was why I missed Ahmed at the liquor store,
more than what would be normal for me. I don’t have any friends, and Ahmed is
actually the closest thing to a friend that I have. Sure, we use each other; I
him for booze; he me for profit, but it goes beyond that, I think, not much,
but some. I was having a bad day and I needed some sort of social contact, some
interaction with another human that I trusted to a certain level might just be
there for me.

 

Well, he wasn’t there, but I still felt the need. It was
highly unusual for me to need another person on an emotional level. I thought
of Tina. If you asked her, we were an item and I was her boyfriend. If you
asked me, we were nothing and she was a girl I tolerated about once a week or
so in order to get laid. Fuck, I can’t do that tonight. I’m not interested
in seeing her at all.

 

I pondered it more. Who could I talk to without thinking
negatively of? I mentally shifted through all my known acquaintances. I stopped
briefly on Alice, but kept going. Listing anyone that might be available to
just hang out with, mentally assorting pros and cons of each individual. Maybe
there were a few clients, but not tonight. I could tolerate them, but could
they really tolerate me? It came back to Alice. I guess she’s the only one.

 

On my drunken drive over to her house, I cared little for
getting pulled over, even after I hit a trash can, and the damage I could do to
a living person didn’t even cross my mind. It was about a ten-mile drive. I
tried to stay within the speed limits and I also tried to stay in my lane,
mostly successfully. I almost drove past her house, and instead of braking
normally and turning around, I veered sharply right slamming on the brakes and
colliding with her mailbox. As the wooden mailbox shattered, I didn’t see any
mail, so she must have already gotten it.

 

I did fall over as I got out of the car, but with minimal
injury. I hoped that she hadn’t heard me tear through her mailbox. Fuck, I
hope she doesn’t see this shit until tomorrow, or I won’t have a friend tonight.
Alice, by the way, is my ex-wife and mother of my two children: Peter and
Polly.

 

She answered almost immediately after I knocked. In order to
not think of the mailbox or have her see it, I pushed past her quickly,
thinking, I’m drunk, I’m drunk, I’m drunk. I figured that she would
notice that soon enough anyway.

 

“Okay, thanks for sharing,” she replied. I hear her voice a
lot, but rarely thought of it most of the time when I did, soft, warm,
feminine. Her voice from days past, even if her body wasn’t. “Jack, you can’t
just push your way into my house.”

 

I did that so you wouldn’t notice I broke your mailbox.
Fuck, Jack, you idiot, stop thinking.

 

“Yes, I saw that when I looked out the window, right after
it happened. Jack, what’s wrong?” It was just like Alice not to get mad at me,
initially, anyhow, but to first see if I was okay.

 

“The whole world is wrong,” I stammered out. Fucking
everything.

 

She stood there, waiting for me to elaborate, I suppose. As
she did, I noticed her body. I assume I noticed it before, but I really noticed it at that moment. When she gave birth to Peter, she lost most of her
pregnancy weight. When she gave birth to Polly, she lost little. Now, it seems,
she packs on a couple extra pounds every year. Time stops for no one, and the
years continue to go by, the pounds of excess weight accumulate.

 

Jesus, you’ve gotten
fat. I am too drunk to control my thinking at all. I resigned myself to
whatever would be.

 

“Thank you, Jack, you
aren’t looking so healthy yourself.” She waddled over toward the kitchen.
“Would you like a cup of coffee or water before you leave?”

 

“Got any beer?”

 

“Coffee or water.”

 

Coffee.

 

“Be right back.”

 

When she came back, she
put her hand on my knee as she set the coffee on the aptly named coffee table
in the living room. “The kids aren’t here, and honestly, you never show up
unannounced to see them. You rarely take them for your weekends. What’s wrong?”

 

Everything.

 

“Can you be more
specific?”

 

I then did something I
hadn’t done in years, hadn’t even thought myself capable of doing any longer. I
cried. I cried for myself, I cried for my misfortune. I cried for losing my
job. I cried in anger. I cried in pain. I cried in confusion. I cried for the
gay guy, and even Janet and Nerdboy. I fucking cried.

 

After several minutes
Alice held me, running her hands through my hair and telling me everything
would be okay. She was always so damn nice and understanding and I was always a
selfish prick.

 

After that I told her everything that had happened to me
earlier in the day. I started with Superbitch and ended with destroying her
mailbox.

 

When I finished, Alice sighed and then spoke: “Why are you
so immature? Superbitch? Nutsfart? Jack, these are things that a teenager might
find funny, not someone in his thirties.”

 

“They’re my inner
thoughts, things that others aren’t supposed to know, things no one is supposed
to know.” It could be worse, right? I could think much worse things, and
some people do. I don’t want to fuck children; smear animal feces all over
myself in the shower, right? I don’t fantasize about murdering and eating
people. I... I’m just me. I can’t help it. I think things.

 

“Jack,” she said, then
paused a few seconds, “The homosexual, I think you empathized with him because
you need empathy. You aren’t as big and strong and powerful as you think...or
you thought. You can be hurt, you need human contact, even if you think you
don’t.”

 

“Yeah, maybe.” Who
gives a fuck about that part? People can read my thoughts!

 

“Jack it’s just
psychological. It’s impossible to read people’s thoughts. It’s physically
impossible. Sure, I absolutely believe that some people are more intuitive than
others, but no one can read anyone else’s thoughts. Maybe you just feel guilty
for being so selfish for so long.”

 

That’s ridiculous.

 

“Is it?”

 

Yes, right now, I am
thinking, not speaking. I can feel that my mouth is closed. You are hearing my
thoughts. That’s doesn’t seem odd to you?

 

“Jack, your lips are
moving.” She was staring me dead in the face.

 

“Fuck, maybe I am going
crazy.” Am I actually saying all this shit? Why would I call a stranger a
fag?

 

“Why did you throw the
letter opener at your boss? Did you just think that?”

 

No, I lost my temper,
I know I did that.

 

“Maybe you also, on some
level, know you have spoken all those things you believe were only in your mind
today.”

 

I clenched my teeth
together, and using every facial muscle I had, I pushed my lips together. Am
I speaking now?

 

“Yes, Jack, I hear you
and I see you.”

 

This can’t be real.
“None of this can be real.” I’m going insane. That has to be it. That’s the
only answer.

 

“You’ve had a long day.
Why don’t you stay here tonight, baby. The kids are gone. Maybe you’ll feel
better in the morning.” Her look of concern remained, but the smile deepened
into something more. It looked a whole lot like lust. That was her
I-want-to-fuck smile that I hadn’t seen in years.

 

Baby? You haven’t
called me baby in years.

 

“Maybe that’s the reason
for this. It’s possible you feel guilty about how we left things, right? Maybe
we should get back together, for a trial period, at least.”

 

You’re so fat. I’m not
sexually attracted to you. Shit. Damnit, Jack, you are a fucking asshole. “Did
you hear that?”

 

There it was, the hurt I
had seen on other faces that day. The pain I caused everyone. “Yes, Jack, I
heard that because you said it. You certainly know how to charm a lady, don’t
you?”

 

I’m sorry.

 

“Why are you this way?
What the fuck is wrong with you? Even if you believe you are only thinking
these things, why do you think them?”

 

Alice, I am so very
sorry. I do love you. I’m sorry. You have to believe I am only thinking all of
this. I am not speaking. I know I’m not.

 

“Okay fine, Jack, you
only think I’m too overweight to be with. That hurts much less knowing you only
think it. Is that what you want to hear?”

 

Silence bounded
aggressively into the room, then settled down for a time. Alice’s eyes started
tearing up. I was actually thinking that I didn’t even know what to think
anymore. It was too much, all of it, too much.

 

Then, because my day was
destined to be shit, there was a knock on the door. Alice’s expression became
one of startlement momentarily, until she briefly made eye contact with me then
went to the door. “Who is it?”

 

“The police, ma’am,
please open the door.”

 

Fuck!

 

“Hold on,” she said quite
loudly to those on the other side of the door. Then she turned to me and
whispered, “Go to bed. I’ll tell them that I did it, okay, I hit the mailbox.
But, you have to promise me that you didn’t hurt anyone on the way over here.
Okay?”

 

I hit a garbage can.
I’m pretty sure that’s all.

 

“Okay, please Jack, go to
bed. I’ll take care—”

 

“No. I’m pretty sure that
Nutsfart called the cops.” I’m sure that I’m wanted on assault charges too.
No, I’ll turn myself in tomorrow, but I want the rest of tonight.

 

“Jack—”

 

I’m sorry Alice.

 

As I climbed the back
fence, I wondered why I wanted the rest of the night. What will I do? I have
no car. It’s getting a bit cold out. Why not go to jail now? Why not take up
Alice on her offer? I didn’t know why.

 

I’m not as young as I
used to be and I had a bit of difficulty scaling the fence. As I jumped down on
the other side, a light suddenly illuminated the whole back yard.

 

Motion sensor. Shit.
Doesn’t matter, they are often tripped by leaves blowing in the wind, or a
stray cat. It should be fine.

 

It wasn’t.

 

A dog started barking
somewhere in the interior of the house, and by the sound of the barks it wasn’t
a small dog. Then a back-porch light came on. An elderly woman, dressed in what
I can only describe as a flowery muumuu, came out onto the back porch, luckily
minus a vicious dog, but as I surmised moments later the dog might have been
better, because clenched in her hands was a shotgun. Just fucking great.

 

“Who’s there? You!” She
caught sight of me, frozen like a deer in headlights. “What are you doing?”

 

“I’m just trying to cut
through your backyard. I’m sorry.” I stood up and began walking toward her.

 

“Not another move,
buster! I’m Annie Oakley with this here gun.”

 

I stopped, and raised my
arms. She was about thirty feet away. I’m very sorry, I was just trying to
cut through your yard, not bother you.

 

“You trying to rob me?”

 

“No ma’am, I was just
trying to get through. I’m sorry. I’ll go back.”

 

“You wait right there
until I call the police. No...” She seemed to suddenly change her mind, “come a
little closer.”

 

I did as she asked,
within ten feet of her. I’ll just go, okay? No harm.

 

“You son of a bitch. Are
you here to rape me?”

 

Shit, you wish, ya old
bat. I then noticed one of her gnarled, arthritic hands. She had a finger
on the trigger and it was shaking, shaking a little too much for my comfort
with the barrel of a shotgun less than ten feet from me, pointed directly
center mass, right in the middle of my chest.

 

“I’m goddamn Calamity
Jane with this shotgun, mister, and I got an itchy finger.”

 

This is getting
redundant. You don’t even have to call the police. They are right behind me, at
your neighbor’s house.

 

“You here to murder me,
boy?”

 

“Are you fucking
retarded?” I said it aloud, another term that this modern world is too PC for. How
many things am I here for? Who would want to rape you anyway? Does it look like
I’m into necrophilia? Would I rape you first or murder you first?
Honestly...fuck...the order wouldn’t even matter. Whichever was first the rape
would probably feel the same. She was a bit old.

 

“I don’t like a smart
aleck. Are you back talking me?”

 

Jesus Christ, what
century is this, you old bitch? All within a few moments I was scared for
my life, then angry with the entire world—most specifically the woman with a
shotgun pointed at me, and finally I just started feeling empty, void of
emotion.

 

It was then I saw it. An
anger burning within her. There was no sadness, no pain that I had seen in
others that day. There was a hatred, a complete and utter hatred of me. I’m
sure it took years to become this. She was so ancient, probably lost in today’s
world and it didn’t look like she was the sort of person who had anyone in her
life, not just a lover, absolutely anyone. No one wanted to deal with her shit
and she was probably confused as hell at this brave new world that she didn’t
understand. Life had kept her too long and she was like an animal in a strange
cage that she despised. At that moment in time, the intruder into her backyard
represented that cage.

 

Is this what I will
become? Am I heading in this direction now, with my attitude, with my life? I
don’t want to end my days standing around in a muumuu with a shotgun. Fuck that
noise.

 

I thought of myself. I
was pretty tired of life, I realized. If I had had more time to think, I might
have come to the conclusion that I would get over that, maybe even the next
day. I was exhausted, the alcohol was wearing off quickly with all the coffee
and water I had consumed at Alice’s, and the time that had gone by while I was
there. Of course, having a shotgun pointed at me might have somewhat rushed the
sobriety.

 

“I’m warning you mister,
I’m going to call the cops. They ain’t got a liking for your type.” Her whole
body was shaking now, maybe slightly from the cold. I think it was mostly from
what she was trying to talk herself into doing.

 

You want to kill me.
You are looking for an excuse.

 

“I’m gonna call the
police, buster boy,” she said, but then physically didn’t make a move toward
doing so.

 

I figured I’d give her a
hand. “If you were going to call the cops, you would have.” Now go ahead and
shoot me, you fucking crazy, old cunt!

 

“I’ll shoot you, mister.
I will.” She began to tremble even more than previously.

 

If you don’t shoot me
right now, I will rape you, rob you, murder you, then rape your fucking dog,
and—

 

She obliged.

 

Even with the entire
backyard soaking in artificial light, the light that erupted from the barrel of
the shotgun was bright. The blast that tore a gigantic hole through the
relative quiet of the evening was absolutely deafening.