Twelve I wake up just before dawn with tears streaming down my face. I can't remember the dream, but I know it was horrible. All I retain is a vague sense of foreboding. I get up for a glass of water and notice that Dean is still asleep on the couch. I go back in my room and lie in bed for a while. It dawns on me that I am probably not at the bottom yet-I am still falling. I start thinking about Los Angeles, where I began. I see those I love stumbling in self assured darkness. At the time I thought it was sad, but now I see beauty in it. For once I'm not thinking of books or words of wisdom; I undergo no introspection, analyze nothing... I see only the people. They are standing in the streets rummaging for yesterday's newspapers in a kaleidoscope of garbage. I see Dean's cigarette droop between his lips and burn a hole in his favorite shirt. I see his sister doubled over in laughter and shaking her head at me. I hear the beat of Dean's headphones over the drone of freeway miles. I see the mattress lying in the middle of the sidewalk when I needed a place to sleep. I see my high school sweetheart sitting down for dinner with her family. I see my wife's tears stain the pillow of our bed. I wrap my arm around Maya in the corner booth of the Harbor house café-no food for days. I feel the warmth of the sun and squint at the glare from the ocean. I swerve to avoid a tumbling boulder only to hit anther skid off the road coming to rest in front of a sign: CAUTION FALLING ROCK. Everything is just as it should be and I know it will never look the same again. I am gone from there and even if I return, something remains forever gone. I stumble back to bed, wiping the tears from my eyes. I fall to my knees staring up at the ceiling fan rewinding... The beginning that started with endings. The end of the century-1999-a crash-landing year skittered off the runway and exploded in the grandstands, a year that chased itself atop railroad cars like the Pinkertons after the James Gang in old western films. Los Angeles was a thirty-one year long slow motion crash. Three recollections rise out of the nauseating sautéed cacophony. They are the sound of Dean typing, the sound of disjointed and constantly arguing voices-from the television and from Sean and Katherine-and the feeling of vomit that was so sudden I nearly choked on it. After my wife and I split up, I moved in with Dean and his sister. The three of us got along as if I were part of the family. It's the only living situation I've encountered where I actually spent time with my roommates. We were tight, we did everything together, we survived Sean and Katherine together and later we moved to Athens together. The trouble started when the lease on our apartment expired. We were desperate to find somewhere to live. Why we chose Sean and Katherine's place, I still don't know. In hindsight, I suspect it had more to do with Dean than anyone. Dean had a strange little thing for Katherine, I never understood it, she wasn't his type. Katherine was beautiful, face like an angel, but she was a full figured girl with auburn hair; Dean liked waifs with blond hair... Katherine had ambition and a real job; Dean liked strippers and waitresses... Katherine was homely; Dean liked class and glamour.... But, as the man said, there's no accounting for taste. Sean was two years younger than me and about two inches shorter with the barrel-chest build of a swimmer. He swam every morning and worked as lifeguard all afternoon. He wore his hair closely shorn so it would stay out of his eyes in the pool. He perpetually reeked of chlorine. He and I lived together right after high school, in a trailer park of all things. We were very close back then, but eventually I got married and moved on with my life-you can't live in a trailer forever. Katherine entered his life shortly after I left and he moved out of the trailer park too. They lived together in an enormous old house that they shared with three other girls. It was the only house in Costa Mesa that predated 1950. I always wanted to live in it after I got back from my first trip to Athens because it reminded me of the South-though it didn't have a porch, just a cement stoop. Sean and I saw each other from time to time, but I rarely made any effort to talk. Sean represented a part of my life that I wanted to avoid, but when their roommates moved out and the three bedrooms were suddenly available we jumped on it. The plan was to stay a while until something better could be had, better turned out to be three thousand miles away. By the time Dean, his sister, and I moved in, I hardly knew Sean at all. By then I was more fond of Katherine, but I only got close to her one night and by then it was too late. Most of all what sticks out was the sound of everything-the typing-the television-the constant fighting-Los Angeles humming in the background. The mad clicking of Dean's flying fingers was always present, ticking off the seconds in feverish bursts. Dean never stopped typing, it was a furious noise, he would pound the keys and nod his head to the headphones. He drowned out the world to escape it. He drowned out his own fingers. He never realized the force with which he pounded the keys... dispatching mad telegraphs, electrostatic love notes spitting out like lizard tongues... flung on wires to Maryland where another pair of fingers responded. The thing itself, so-called love, was flying back and forth over the wires -maddening. Dean had just met Alexis on the Internet, they spent hours on instant messenger-love in ones and zeros. To tell the truth, I remember the television more than the people. Throughout all of the madness that ensued, the television reigned-we never tuned it off. Dean's sister and I stationed ourselves like zombies before the one god and it's eerie blue aura. The outside world was pandemonium-wars in Europe, trade deals in Mexico, sex scandals in Washington... what filtered in on the TV was reflected back all around us, cold, insensitive, innocuous suburban delight... detachment... Douglas Copeland's nightmares. It wasn't just us. The perpetual warm blue glow of television emanated from the windows of all our neighbors' vinyl sided endura-homes-guaranteed to last a lifetime or your money back! The television was a great luminous third eye... I could never decide if we were watching it, or if it was watching us. It presided over the world with the indifference of God. Every house glowed blue light, the streets bathed in its iridescence, cobalt sidewalks and sapphire lawns under midnight purple skies-everything glowed blue. Blue noise hummed softly and in the background, blue people stumbled about their lives. Turquoise silhouettes danced in kitchen windows and cerulean shadows lurked in open garages. The blue was grating, irritating, got under your skin like the flesh eating virus, boils sprung up bursting to reveal slick teal puss oozing from the open sores. In the background, faint at first, but then growing in decibels, was the maddening chant of the newsman and the Maytag man and all the talking heads of television disembodied and floating in the sky, singing choruses.... The sound of Los Angeles was deafening. Waves of music, horns, engines, electricity, spinning warbles of neon lights echoing the asphalt dreams of sanity. The whole city was a deafening roar. Vibrations spun off the turn of espresso handles, the pull of yogurt machines, the spinning of laundry mats, the ring of cash registers, the click-clack of skateboard wheels on the sidewalk, the roar of surf, the thump of landing gear, the clang of trash cans in the alley, the rattle of the homeless people's shopping carts, the chopping of the Chinese cook's knife atop the trash can, chunks of chicken fat accumulating on the floor; all of it whirled in a hurricane melee reverberating throughout the Los Angeles basin. The smoggy air offered no resistance to the pealing clamor. It carried it about, still as a tomb, withholding comment on the meaning of it all. Los Angeles is cancer-the insidious beat of death. Dean's sister and I were sitting on the couch, television blaring to drown out the sounds of Sean and Katherine fighting. They never stopped arguing. Dean's sister shifted uncomfortably in her seat and I looked over at her. We both sighed and then laughed. We were thinking of the old house, of the old times, we didn't say a word, we didn't have to, it was in our eyes. Asshole! Bitch! Motherfucker! Stupid bitch! Dick! -These were the punctuated words we could hear above the television, but by then we were used to it. Dean, as I said, kept to himself; he was in the other room, headphones cranked to ten, blissfully going about the business of falling in love. His sister and I were the ones that had to see the door swing open and Sean ducking with his arms clasped over his head. The shoe hit the wall above the couch and then Katherine's voice roared in anger. On the television Chandler was broken up over Joey moving out and that mousy guy that's always 'the other guy' in movies, was moving in. Homoerotic jokes stuck like flies to vellum walls. The shoe hit the wall above us and tumbled down between us. I looked at it; I looked over at Sean. He was standing in the dining room crying; he looked like a tortured animal pleading for it's life. I looked at the television-it was trying to sell me deodorant. Then Katherine emerged from the same direction as the shoe, also crying and looking like a tortured animal begging for it's life. Sean fell to his knees and grabbed her legs as she walked by him. They looked like the cover of the movie Vacation where Chevy Chase is standing proud and defiant while Beverly De'Anglo clings to his knees. I wanted to laugh great peals of bitter laughter, laughter sinking into the floor, into the walls, up to the roof. The place reeked of suppressed bitter laughter, mine, Dean's, his sister's, the studio audience, the children of the war in Kosovo. I looked at Dean's sister to see if she saw the humor in it. Her eyes met mine and they twinkled as she took a drag off her cigarette. I smiled and she started hacking and coughing smoke. A bit of spit flew out of her mouth and she tried to stop it, to regain some composure, but it was too late. The madness was upon us, it all started with the shoe. Katherine's sobs quieted to weeping; Sean still had his arms around her legs. She was trying to kneel down, but he wouldn't let go so she just lay down on the floor weeping on her arm. He crawled over her body and knelt by her head. He tried to put his arms around her, to hold her, but she was indifferent. Her head rested apathetic against his knees, her eyes had a thousand-yard stare. Mascara ran down her cheeks leaving a black tail of tears. I felt helpless. "Are you guys okay," Dean's sister ventured half hearted. Sean nodded. Katherine just moaned a low growling sound that vibrated the wood floor and sounded utterly inhuman. Sean looked over at me for help, but I pretended to be engrossed in the television. I stole sideways glances to make sure that they weren't going to hurt each other. Sean stood up and Katherine's head dropped listlessly to the floor. They flip-flopped emotionally and now she clutched at his legs. Sean had a defiance to his posture that looked wholly artificial and it occurred to me that he ought to have remained on the ground. He ought to be begging, not to Katherine, but begging God to give him his humility back. Sean was cold, calculated psychology, distilled out of textbooks, until it fermented in his soul and all the vital organs of his body were filled with poisonous effluvium. The chasm between the idealized and the realized versions of his life built up tension inside him. Katherine had become the way he released it. Sean was a flood of meaningless gibberish that he had internalized and now it bounced endlessly about like knives thrown in a vacuum. His soul was soaked with formaldehyde, preserving him eternally, choking out all feeling. He had lost all traces of humor and ran from his life madly chasing after an invisible spirit that he thought would somehow enlighten him, give his life the meaning, the purpose, the joy that it lacked. A problem that could be solved, that's all Sean wanted from life, something to which he could point and say "See it is all better now.' He was convinced he had all the answers for everyone around him, but he had none for himself. He had no use for whole people, just the ragged, torn edges of the pages-preferably dripping fresh blood, new wounds to cauterize and in the process open old ones. He poked at Katherine's soft emotional scar tissue, inducing hemorrhages to leech the life out. Like the Marquis he stood bleeding, asking-was good for you? His idea of life was crumbs; the confetti strew about after the parade passes. Christ all the way. Quick, get us a tree, somebody make two boards... hurry before he loses the courage and does it himself. Christ was on a suicide trip; he'd have gone with or without the Romans... how else do you end a story like that? I wanted to punch Sean. I wanted to make his nose explode and rain blood over all of us. The news came on... Peace talks continued in Kosovo today with both parties saying that progress was made, but meanwhile fighting continues in the countryside where sporadic violence and snipers continue to take their toll on the morale and hope of the people who live here.... And then there was silence, an editing snafu at the station. The television went blank. Katherine was still weeping. I heard the air rushing out of my lungs with an asthmatic hiss. Sean was breathing hard. Dean's sister was holding her breath. In the other room the tapping stopped and Dean came teetering through the kitchen. He stopped in the doorframe, slightly hunched, holding a beer and squinting his eyes.... "What?" There was peace between the news of Kosovo, Katherine's mournful sobbing, and Dean returning from the bathroom, pausing again like a half-cocked gun, squinting, observing and withdrawing. The sound of fingers tapping reached us again, the television cut to commercial and the cartoon man wanted me to buy his paper towels.... Two weeks later the war was over, rich people's financial interests were secured and Katherine and Sean had patched things up. Friends' reruns had come and gone with dinner and Katherine was cuddled up on Sean's lap. She was serene and beautiful that night because she fucked Dean in the closet of her office that afternoon. Sean was happy because he thought that he was the one making Katherine happy. He was so happy he was trying to fuck her in the chair right in front of us. They started making out when the television said the war was over. Dean, his sister and I tried to ignore the dry fucking session going on next to us, but secretly we were all for it. It was a nice change from the constant fighting. Katherine had his pants down, but was sitting in his lap to conceal the fact. When the television got quiet we could hear sound of lips mashing together and little grunts and groans escaping from them. Then Sean's little half-chubbed dick poked out from under Katherine's mini skirt like a miniature cobra. Dean and I both noticed it at the same time and we started laughing hysterically. Sean reached down and tried to tuck it back under Katherine's skirt, but the thing had a mind of its own. Dean, his sister and I figured it best to vacate for a while, so we headed to the bar. Sean and Katherine went at with increasing intensity. Down the street at the bar, the talking head from CNN was telling us that the people were safe and the world was somehow better, but I knew nothing had changed because the fingers were the thing that held it all together and they kept at it every night. I thought of the presidents and tyrants of the world celebrating, just like they did when the war started... The man behind the counter wanted to know what I wanted and the girl in the booth behind us wanted to know why I hadn't noticed her yet-everything was spiraling out of control. War in Kosovo. War in our streets. War in our houses. War in our heads. Nothing will ever come of it-save death. And the Mexican urchin selling Chiclets for the dead says no good, no bueno, your pictures sanitized, worth no words. Wouldn't give you ten words, worthless gringo words don't mean shit. No good no bueno, not worth the blood they're written in. The blood of all peoples not yours, not your peoples in your death camps, your slave labor factories, your assembly line gang rapes.... Gotta keep that in house, screams the commander in chief. Yes must remain forever sealed in baby pissshitguts. No, that's not true. No comment. No need for comment, I will not dignify... somebody cut to shots of smart bombs... Couldn't get fifty words for those now gringo-over exposure-sanitized-nobody buying. Same old stinking shit. No Good. No Bueno. Gringo go home in a thousand languages, in a million words. Why don't you crawl back in your cave get your tail so far between your legs it goes half way up your ass? Words can not hurt me... But have you heard the words? Watch out for the bloody words, sharp words that hang in the air like knives and when uttered returned to slit the throat of their speaker. If every word you have spoken returned to act upon yourself would you survive the experience? Situation getting sticky, humid like vaporous blood hanging in the air... The urchin stands in the middle of the street preaching...In the beginning was the word and the word was made flesh by a cacophonous blast out of heaven's pearly cum-stained ass creating the father, the son, and the holy spigot ... spigot drains all gringo excrement away from gringos and into our countries, our cities, our homes... Follow me to the holy spigot and we'll show them the bidet of death, constructed for gringos, to flush out gringos, to show them all what you do behind closed doors. Can't close them all -we have our technicians as well and they're getting to be better than yours. We got the money rolling in. The little street urchin with the chiclets was at the bar now, he couldn't be shut up, hawking wares for death, little powders, potions, and peppers hanging from his arms, but the CNNhead said all was well, justice was served. The television was close circuit captioned for the hearing impaired. The little boy was adamant -no captions only pictures for the blind. The rustling of paper behind boardroom walls sends him into fits.... I gotta picture for you... I go on vacation in your country, go to hear senators speak, but all doors are closed, all sealed. So I gotta fiber optic and fed it in from the roof, show all the senator's mad with sexual lust, blood thirsty, clamoring for war and stealing souls and bodies and driving them off wherever they see fit. There are thousands of them now, a chorus of little brown boys singing, chanting like Benetine Monks.... The boys are chanting to the beat of drums... I got pictures for you gringo... pictures you hear? The commander in chief of the NATO forces in Europe was fucking a small refugee boy in the ass, the boy cried for his mother. The general laughed, 'your mother's down the hall boy. She's busy with the president of Germany right now, but maybe later you'd like to lick his cum off her dead face...?' And you say ban those words. Tear them right out. Snip snip. Can't say that-war a snuff film for the rich. Ya wanna spoil all their fun...? A tape rolls and we hear behind the boardroom doors: "We gotta step up the bombing chief, the public's losing innarest in us," screams the staff officer running in circles jerking off and slapping his ass until it turns a bright purple. And with all seriousness, General Jesse Helms pauses to reflect: "I remember a time when life was good. No one got in our way. Why in Europe, under Patton, I musta raped twenty thirty little boys and a handful of nuns too..." He smiles, lost in memory... "But God hath given us these trying times." "Yes it is a bit hard to get cunt these days isn't it," mumbles the chief of state as he strokes his wife's cock...." Yes dear start a war. Get me some cute refugee boys. I so love snapping their necks when I'm coming," she growls affectionately. "That's it gentlemen were going to war," the president stands and ejaculates on a map of the world, "Kosovo it is," he says as his thick oatmeal consistency sperm all but covers the former republic of Yugoslavia. You like? You like, no? Too bad. You can't have those words, too strong. I get power, you give me power, I steal power from you, too expensive to buy it. I get power and you get pictures and maybe I tell you how to cure it? Eh? Eh? Eh? The man behind the counter turned off the TV and we left. By the time we got back to the house the coffee table was on its side, the lamp was broken, glass all over the floor, an enormous dent in the plaster wall, but the television remained undisturbed. We sat down on the couch and I flipped idly through the channels. Sean and Katherine's screaming voice float through the bedroom walls. Words were disembodied and floated in the air looking for a throat to slit. I heard Katherine screaming... -What do you want from me? I try so fucking hard to love you. You say you don't want me, and then you want me back, and then you tell me to go again.... WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT? -I want you... I want... I don't fucking know what I want. Why are you always harping on what I want? Why can't we just live and exist and be... like Sil and Dean and every other fucking person on this planet...why can't we just be happy? Why do we have to have these issues...why do we have to have these things to work on? What are these things? What the fuck is going on around here? When did this start? -What do you mean? What are you talk... -WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'WHAT DO I MEAN?' You know what I mean, this! All of this... look at us... -Why are you bringing Dean and Sil into this? Why do you have to live up to some manly ideal that you think they embody? I got news for you, they don't embody shit! The two of them would be living in a goddamn dumpster if we hadn't let them move in... -Why does this have to be about my friends? Why is it a problem? I asked you if it was alright for them to move in here and now you say it's not?" -It has nothing to do with them.... It's you I'm talking about. You say we used to be happy, we used to not be like this, we used to 'just live' as you put it. Police said the suspect was dressed in a business suit and may be armed/ Do you have time to cook a meal every night in the midst of balancing/ So this guy comes up to me/ guaranteed to last a lifetime/ -Katherine, what the fuck are you talking about? -This indecision... this fucking shit... -My indecision? My fucking indecision? And who, pray tell, FUCKED SOMEBODY ELSE? Who is indecisive? It's not me. I know exactly what I want. I want to be with you, but you won't let me just be. You question my every fucking move, want to know my every thought, every feeling. Don't you ever not have a feeling? Isn't it ever just a blank page of white with little blue lines? Little fucking blue lines and not a word? Not a fucking thought in sight? Do you ever get that? Or is it just constant fucking emotional input from the far fucking reaches of the earth all pouring in your precious little heart? Your heart that occasionally seems to feel the need for some other guy's DICK?! -Yes, Sean, I made a FUCKING MISTAKE, and I said I'm sorry. I'm as clueless as you are.... You know sometimes, in the midst of this insanity, I think that I see and feel you loving me, but you won't let me in... -What are you talking about? -You won't let yourself be happy and love me. I can't figure out if it's because you're scared or because you just don't have a fucking clue. Do you even care about me? Or am I just some sort of ornament that you have been pursuing over the last four fucking years because it happened to interest you and now... -Fuck you. -Fuck me? No FUCK YOU! I don't know if I was some whim, something you wanted to try on in the dressing room and then when you thought it was out of style, you could just hang it back up on the rack... I'm sorry, I want to be with someone who isn't fucking clueless about how they feel about me. You can't decide if you want me or not. You said fifteen minutes ago that you forget about sex sometimes. How is that supposed to make me feel? -I just meant that I have such a good time talking to you, that... oh what the fuck, what the fuck do you know about love? -Jesus Christ! Okay, I don't know anything about anything and neither do you, but that doesn't mean anything, right? If nothing you say means anything, how am I supposed to feel when you say you love me? IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING! -No that's not what I said. Everything means something, it may not make any difference, but goddamn it all means something. Who you fuck, who you eat dinner with, what time you get up, what kind of fucking bombs they drop on everyone, the jails, the murders, it all fucking means something. All of this, everything that is happening, it all means something. Maybe none of it matters, but it all means something goddamn it! I just don't know what it is. I just need some time to figure out what the hell I am, what I am doing, what this life is, we're all trying to figure it out. I don't fucking know what I want, okay? I can't give you some pat little answer that's going to explain exactly how I feel. Some days I want to be with you and some days you drive me up the fucking walls.... Researchers have concluded that including a glass of wine with your regular meal may actually increase your life span/But Jim, we can't just leave them here/We're tiny we're toony we're all a little loony/the initial results indicate HIV/We will be appealing your case/Mr. president a girl from Arkansas is on line two/Did you or did you not ?/The White House denies/Tide gets your colors looking brighter/Guaranteed to last a life time/I'd like to buy a vowel/What is-the Serengeti? -Oh great! Fucking great, now I drive you up the walls! -Why the fuck do you focus in on the negative? See, that's what I'm talking about. I say that some days I want to be with you and some days I don't and why do we have to get into the days I don't? Because little fucking alarms go off in your brain... ehew I drive him up the fucking walls? This must be explained. There is a reason for this. This is what needs to be fixed.... Has it ever occurred to you that I must just want to be alone some days? Has it ever occurred to you that I can love you without liking you every now and then? -You're such an asshole Sean. -Fuck you! I said I love you. You dumb fucking slut.... -You don't know what love is! You're a little child... -You're a cold bitch! Don't you have any feeling in that dried hard little cuntheart of yours!? -Do not call me a cunt! -I didn't call you a cunt! I said you have a fucking hard little fucking CUNT HEART! -Fuck you! You wouldn't know what to do with a cunt anyway! There was the sound of skin striking skin-a sickly slapping, stinging, slicing, horribly thin sound. The unmistakable sound of hatred and self-doubt bring itself into the world like an airborne virus. -I'm sorry... I didn't mean to hit you... -Then how the fuck did you HIT ME? How can you not mean to hit someone? There is no such thing as ACCIDENTALLY hitting someone, that doesn't happen nooneaccidentallyhits anyone youmeanttohitmeyou FUCKING PRICK! There was the sound of crashing porcelain and electricity popping and the light streaming under the door disappeared. -Oh that's FUCKING great! You stupid bitch! There was a dull thud followed by a low moan and Dean and I looked at each other. By the time we turned on the hall light and opened the door they were wrestling on the floor. Katherine jumped up to run for the bathroom knocking down Dean and forcing me to jump on the bed to get out of her way. Sean went out after her. Before we could stop him, Sean grabbed Katherine's arm, dragged her kicking and screaming across the floor and threw her out the front door. She was wearing only a thin nightgown. It was February and raining and they were in hysterics. Tears streamed down Sean's face. He managed a thin, strained smile as he collapsed against the front door. Dean and I just stood there unsure what to do. "She really fucked some guy this time," he muttered. I tried not to move or show any signs that might have given it away, obviously Katherine had left out a few details. "The BITCH FUCKED SOME OTHER GUY," He yelled at the door but there was no answer. "You hear me you dumb bitch? I hope you fucking freeze to death." His voice trailed off into mumbles. "I hope his cock keeps you warm out there!" He screamed, pounding his fist against the door. A male voice from somewhere outside yelled "shut up," and Sean cracked the door and yelled, "fuck off," at the unknown man. "Jesus Christ," he muttered to himself. He smiled stupidly at us and Dean went over and helped him to his feet. "Fuck man, what am I doing?" He straightened his shirt with one hand and used the other to steady himself against the wall. He came over and sat down on the couch. "What did you do?" he asked looking at me. "Did you do this? I mean with your wife, you loved her, and she left you, and now look at you, you're fine, what did you do?" He asked. His face held an expression of absolute wonder. "How did you fill this hole that I feel growing in me? Do you just harden yourself? She thinks I'm already hardened because I pushed her out the door, but that wasn't the hard part of me that was the raw nerve endings.... That was me trying to find love or fight love or something." He stared up at the ceiling and I followed his gaze, the fan was spinning slowly, indifferently, like a tape recorder rewinding. "That was my love for her that pushed her out the door." He said. "Uh, no it wasn't," Dean interjected. "Oh, but it was," Sean smiled depravedly. Dean just shook his head. "The cold, hard, part of me," Sean went on, "is the part that will go over there in a couple of hours and talk to her. The hard part of me is the part that will make love to her later." He stopped and scratched his head "You know, the horrible thing about losing love isn't that it makes you hard, it's that you realize or you start to realize that love can be lost...." He wore the serene face of a philosopher dispensing wisdom. "That's what is tearing me up right now. There is no sacredness to love like they want you to believe, and once you realize that love can be lost, once you know that this can happen, it's doomed to happen again. I will never again be able to look at someone and see a relationship that doesn't end. I know now that for every beginning there is an ending already written." He shook his head in disgust and then started sobbing in despair again. "Oh god," he cried, "how the fuck do you get out of this? How do you find hope again? And even if you do, what do you do when it's dashed yet again?" He got up and went to the door; he opened it and looked outside. Then he shut it again and started laughing; it was distorted sickly laugh. He no longer looked human; he was a caricature of human. He laughed like the power drunk maniac. "How many times can you do this? Is there a limitation to the number of times you can have your heart broken?" The serene face of the philosopher returned and he retreated into the abstract world where he felt comfortable. "Is it like one of those Lithium batteries that never recharges all the way? It starts looping back until there is nothing and then right when you think you have it, oh I underst...WHAM! And then it's gone, you're gone, the thing is gone." He smiled a thin, taunt, smile. "She really hates me now doesn't she?" He looked up at Dean and I. Neither of us spoke. Dean shrugged, but I was rooted to the spot with horror. Horror at the thought that this caricature exists in all of us, that none of us would stand up to the death camp marches of our personal lives. I felt weak and woozy. "And the horrible thing." He went on, "is that somewhere deep down I wanted her to fuck that guy, whoever he is. It doesn't matter. God I want a whole gang of giant-cocked porn stars to gang fuck her through eternity if that's what it takes for me to feel something. I'm not feeling anything anymore; the only time I feel anything is when I hurt her. Then I feel hate. I feel her hating me, but when she's not hating me I don't feel anything. I don't feel loved." He was on the floor weeping with his hands over his face. I tried to move him, but he punched wildly, lashing out at nothing, landing a solid blow on my jaw. Out of anger, I kicked him in the ribs, but he made no protest. I grabbed him by the hair, slammed his head into the door and threw him to the side. I went outside and slammed the door. My head felt light. I became very dizzy and I leaned over the planter and threw up in it. It was still pouring rain. I slumped down in the vomit and mud and lay there for an eternity sobbing quietly for myself, for Sean, for Katherine, for the whole world. I began to shiver so I stood up. I stepped out from under the stoop and lifted my head up, letting the water wash the vomit and mud from my face. I began shaking uncontrollably and then as the shaking subsided, an eerie sense of calm descended upon me. I set off to look for Katherine. She didn't go far. She was next door sitting on the neighbor's couch; the neighbors were in bathrobes, obviously woken up by the screaming. The woman sitting next to Katherine held her, rubbed her back and rocked her gently back and forth on the sofa. Katherine looked like a scared child. She was shaking like a leaf. The man came at me with hate in his eyes, but I quickly explained my innocence. Katherine looked up and told him not to hurt me. She put her head down between her knees. "What's wrong with him Sil?" She asked. "Why is he doing this? I am good to him aren't I?" I didn't say anything and she looked up at me with glistening red eyes, pleading for some kind of answer. I just nodded my head. "I shouldn't be putting up with this," she went on. "This is bullshit, I can't keep doing this.... What the fuck is wrong with him? What's wrong with you, with all of you?" Her eyes filled with hatred and burned through me. Black tears ran down her face. "There is this thing in me that can't let go, can't admit that I'm wrong about him," she sniffled and wiped her cheeks. "And all of you, you're so damn sure that your little feelings and your little emotions have to be so goddamn right. You think that you can just pull them down like shades over the whole fucking world." She was yelling now, glaring up at me with wild eyes. "Every emotion, every thought, every fucking little thing can be broken down and analyzed and dismissed with some cynical diatribe that you think is so witty and fucking funny... goddamn all of you!" She jumped off the couch and lunged towards me. Her arms hit me square in the chest and knocked me down. She landed on top of me and taking the wind out of me. I heaved for breath and tried to get out from under her, but she went limp and I didn't have the breath to move her. She lay on top of me and great sobs wracked her body. Her tears burned on my neck. Her sobbing frame trembled and shook. After a few seconds I caught my breath and I put my arms around her. She nestled her head into my neck. Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, "I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt you." She raised her head and looked in my eyes. I put my hand on her head and stroked her hair. "He makes me sick," she said. "I make me sick for letting myself be involved with him. I can do better than this, if this is love... this... this... fucking..." She climbed up off me and sat back on her ankles. "This is not love... I don't know what I'm doing. Do I have to be the strong one here? Do I have to be the one to walk away when I'm the one being hurt? Why is it always me?" She wiped her eyes again. I thought about my wife and I realized Catherine was right, women are always the ones who have to cross the final threshold. Sean didn't want her, but he kept pulling her back. His ego couldn't let go. He went right back in like a rat pulling the lever in the control studies that Philip Morris wakes up sweating to in the middle of the night. I pulled Catherine to her feet and put my arms around her. We held each other for what seemed like a long time. I heard someone clear their throat and, realizing that two other people were in the room, I apologizing profusely and thanked them while I guided Catherine out the door. We sat down on the stoop of our house and stared out at the rain. We both had our legs tucked up under our chins and Katherine rocked back and forth slowly while she talked. "I had sex with Dean." Her voice was flat and even as if ordering food from a drive thru window. I told her I already knew. She nodded and a painful smile passed her lips. "And I don't know why I did," she stared at the ground. "I just wanted to feel close to someone," tears welled up in her eyes. "It doesn't mean anything, right?" I told her it didn't and she leaned her head on my shoulder. "And I know Sean has fucked around," she went on. "I know he fucked around in Europe, but he won't admit it. That's the thing that makes me so fucking mad is he won't admit it, and why? Why? Because if he admitted that then he'd have to face up to the fact that he's as weak as I am. Now he can call me a slut and make himself out to be better. That's all I am to him, this thing against which he can measure himself, this thing..." She stopped for a moment. The rain pelted against the concrete driveway, chipping away on a geologic time scale. The sound roared in protest. "Do you know what this is doing to me? I'm losing my mind..." She looked me in the eyes. "I'm not going to go nuts over him. I knew I should have run away right after we made love for the first time... I should have just run, because now I'm here and he's throwing me out the door in my fucking nightgown..." I put my arms around her and she started to cry again. Her tears were warm on my arm. She thanked me for listening to her. I told her to wait for minute while I went inside to make sure Sean was under control. He and Dean were smoking a cigarette on the couch. Dean's sister was in the chair dispensing wisdom that sounded like it would have solved all of Sean's problems, but Sean, being a man can't hear a word that she's saying, just like women can't hear a word that men are saying. The whole so-called battle of the sexes could be stopped if only there were an interpreter around that could translate. Solve the riddle. Translate the emotion and feeling into logic and predictable precision, and then back out into the chaotic no-mans-land of feeling again. Some guru, some pygmy, some monk, some alien that can add it all up and give us some kind of answer. But the aliens aren't coming. Sean glared at me and said, "Get the fuck out of my house." I shrugged and asked Dean and his sister if they were coming. The three of us left. We gave Katherine a ride to her friend's house where she could stay for the night. She and Dean stood beside his car in the pouring rain and kissed lightly like friends; he wiped a tear from her eye and got back in the car. The three of us rented a room for the week at local motel. Dean's sister fell asleep the minute she laid down. Dean and I went and got coffee to steel us against the insanity. I remember leaning against Dean's car gulping lukewarm coffee, the rain had stopped abruptly and dry winds were already whipping the clouds away. It was a Santa Ana wind. Dean threw his cup into the vacant lot and it blew in little circles, round and round in eddies of wind-miniature tornadoes. At the end of the week we left Los Angeles for Athens. We stopped the second night in Arkansas where I had a very strange dream, I dreamed in third person, I was being forced to watch. I dreamed that I saw an aborted fetus hanging out of Katherine. It was covered in shiny afterbirth with the umbilical cord still attached; the cord was just dangling out of her. I saw Sean with scissors, trying to cut it while Katherine screamed tried to stop him. A doctor took the fetus and threw it in the incinerator; the furnace flared and was silent as a slaughterhouse. Then they were in a windowless room. Katherine lay naked on a table, spread eagle as Sean circled her holding a blunt, tubular object. It was black and plugged into the wall. Words passed like water though a screen. Sean stood next to her with the cattle prod, walking slowly in circles around Katherine. A symphony started up. Marching bands... fingers tapping... tapping... violins... rhythm of kettledrums... and his arm raised up. He was floating, watching, choking on gasoline-napalm sores that seared off his tongue. Flames licked up his body. The air was hot and thick like the worst humidity, his scorching flesh sizzled. A little red light came on to signal that the cattle prod was fully charged. In front of him was Katherine, beautiful, serene. Her arms were restrained above her head. His face twisted into a sick smile. The symphony reached a feverish pitch with the clash of horns and strings and drums and Sean looked into Katherine's eyes and watched her pupils dilate. And it fell; his arm fell, the cattle prod fell, her body went rigid and she shot up off the table as if suddenly turned into a stiff board. He kept his eyes locked on her as she collapsed back onto the table. I saw something flash through them and I felt a tremor in my gut. Then big uncontrollable sobs wracked Sean's entire body and he fell on his knees and curled up in little ball on the floor. He lay like that for a while, until the sobs worked themselves out. A lone lunatic flute solo floated over the scene. Katherine got up and began to undress him. She started by unbuttoning his shirt. When she undid his belt she reached down and rather gently held his rigid cock as she eased his pants down over it. She stood embracing him tightly with her arms around his neck, and she pulled herself up and then slid down on his cock. Sean fucked her but she couldn't feel it. Her cunt was a burnt, charred hole. She couldn't feel anything and then the strings returned and the crescendo built again.... She laid him on the table and spread his legs, restraining them and then his arms. She stroked his cock hard and teased him by biting his nipples. All at once her eyes went black and she thrust the cattle prod into his balls... Sean was blown up off the table by ten thousand volts of electricity. He didn't even feel his cum splash on his face. He landed back on the table, his scream a violin, an inhuman screeching wail. * * * * I go into the kitchen to make myself some coffee. Dean is gone. The house feels empty. There is a rainbow in the kitchen. I notice disinterestedly that the house is a mess, that my knees hurt and that I am in unquestionable poor physical condition. In the shower I marvel that I once thought that that was the bottom, but that was someone else's bottom, that was Katherine's bottom. I dry off and walk back into the kitchen. I dig around for food. Got to get behind the mule every morning and plow...