After Midnight (15 page)

Man, it would
not
stop raining for shit. Big fat globs of warm water. Felt like God was having a massive circle jerk. I got soaked in the first five minutes, and had to wait out the storm under a tree, getting about fifteen raindrops out of every twenty. I thought about going in the cave yesterday, when the shit was coming down hard enough to sting, but I was too wary, having no way to see in the dark, you know. It’s not called being a pussy, it’s called being smart.

I been looking for clean water lately but there’s nothing. Every time I get a gulp of rain water from a puddle,
mosquitos and larva and shit slips down my throat. I couldn’t cook my monkey intestines because of the rain, and I don’t know if I want them now. They’re turning a sickly brown color and starting to get a little rank, so I’ll probably just throw them on some dead body and let the asshole maggots have them. I
did
eat some of the head, though. There wasn’t much meat, you know, because it was a
head
, but I pinched my nose and swallowed his eyes and tongue. Man, let me tell you, I’m starting to get really fucking sick of eating weird shit.

Anyway, the river, like I said, burst its banks, so the coast is further back than it was. The fires are all out, so I have to make my own from here on out. I have a lighter I found the other day before the rain (back then it wasn’t important enough to waste time writing about), but every damn thing around is drenched.

Not much else worth gabbing about.

Later- Oh my God! These damn
mosquitos are eating me
alive!
I thought they fucked off after dark.

June 28
th
1979- I killed me a fucking monkey!!! The son of a bitch is as fat as Bud Costello and tastes like pure gold. He’s so big I’ll have
plenty
of meat left over. I’m going to try and see if I can use his fur to make myself a blanket or something.

I caught his ass as I was taking a leak into the river (all the while wishing that the whole shebang would burn) when he dropped down close to me, landing in a bush. The fat piece of shit was trying to gorge
himself on a maggoty severed hand when I bashed his brains out with a big stone. He did a little jig and fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, dead as dog shit. I drug him back to camp and cooked what parts that I was able to rip off of him with my bare hands and the jagged edge of a rock. He cooked real well and tasted like manna.

On an unrelated note, I was bitten by a giant fly (yes, I said bitten). When I get back Stateside (or better yet Mexico) I
gotta find out what the hell kinda asshole runs around the rainforest biting people.

July 1
st
, 1979-I’m calmer than usual today, but I still ain’t mellow yellow.

See, I was mincing along down by the river, you know, not paying attention to where I was going, when I walked right into something dangling down from a low tree branch. Man, I danced a fucking jig, screaming and shit, thinking I had a huge spider on me. But it turns out to be this red and black backpack.

I snatched it up and hefted it. It was heavy. There was no good reason to just leave it, so I put it on my back. I went on looking, you know, but didn’t find anything. The rains washed most of the plane chucks and bodies away with everything else, so I guess it’s a double edge sword. Or what the hell ever.

Anyway, I forgot about the knapsack until I got back to camp. I tried to sit up against a tree but there was something between it and me. I thought it was a spider, so I fucking jumped up and backed off. But then I remembered the bag and, feeling like a dumbass, took it off and sat down like a little boy with a Halloween bag.

I only found some toiletries and a little photo album with a bunch of pictures of an idiot family at first. I was gonna cut my losses and ditch the damn thing when my hand passed over a bulging side pocket. I unzipped it, reached in, and pulled out two tarnished metal cases with twenty short cigarettes each. They were dry, and I was happy as a lark. I took three from one case and plopped them into my mouth at one time. I used to smoke, but I gave up on it before I met Carrie because the damn things were breaking my bread. I haven’t even wanted one in years. I just wanted to get stoned.

See, Carrie, that walking encyclopedia, told me one time that Indians used to put big globs of tobacco in their pipes and toke up. She said it got them higher than hell. We tried it once, and it
was
pretty nice.

So, I smoked about ten of the cigarettes in eight minutes or so and nothing happened…except I got really thirsty.
Just my luck.

July 4
th
1979- I got up pretty late this morning, and haven’t been feeling really up to prancing around for no damn reason at all. I drew a few little doodles on some of the pages in this book and balled them up and threw them away. I tried to a dump today and nothing came out. I need to find some food. I think that’s why I feel so weak. I was thinking of hotdogs and cold Coke at Fenway earlier, and my chin got
soaked
with drool. Um. Ketchup, mustard, relish, onions, chili, a fry or two…God.

You know, some people
hate
ketchup on their dogs. I dunno why. I saw a show this one time, and on it they had this hotdog place in Upstate New York where you aren’t allowed to put the red stuff on the food that
you
bought
.
Can you believe some shit like that? You buy food and they tell you how to eat it. What the fuck, is this Russia? I always wanted to go there with my own big bottle of the shit and see if anyone wanted to say something and get decked.

God.
I’m
so
fucking hungry. And I want something good, you know, no monkey dick or termites. Pizza, with fresh tomato sauce and melty cheese, pepperoni…

July 5
th
1979- I woke up this morning with a fever and chills, and coughed so hard my head started pounding.

I haven’t moved much today, so there isn’t much to excite you guys. I took a dump earlier and had to drag myself away so the flies wouldn’t bug me. I think I wee-weed on myself last night; the crotch of my pants was damp and smelled like a baby’s diaper. I don’t have anything else to wear, of course, so I’m stuck stinking. But who the hell cares?

It’s around sundown here, and all the freaks are coming out of the woodwork. I’m too weak to build a fire right now, so I’m just gonna close down shop for tonight. If you don’t hear from me anymore, I’m probably dead.

I
shoulda went in that cave when I had the chance. Am I stupid?

July 7
th
1979-I feel like shit warmed over. I’ve been lying around a fire, shivering and hacking my lungs up. My monkey meat spoiled. It smells ripe and flies are having a field day on it, doing the jitterbug and mocking me. I may eat it anyway before maggots come.

I guess with nothing else to do, I’ll tell you a little bit about
me
.

I was born at
Arkham general hospital in February, 1950. My father was a real dick when I was growing up, and my mom was a weak-willed slug who vegetated on the couch as pop smacked me around. When he wasn’t practicing his swing on me, he and mom were fighting, fucking, or going out on the town.

I ran away when I was seventeen and went out to Haight-Ashbury. I hung out with this group of rejects for a while, but they all got busted for stealing a car and ditching it in the Bay. Then this weird ass dude and some women he had clinging to him took me in for a few days. He had these crazy eyes that made you shudder if you looked into them. Name was Charlie Manson (no shitting).

I came back to Massachusetts around the time Nixon was lying through his teeth about Watergate, and found myself in good ol’ Lawnwood. I stayed with my parents for a couple weeks. Mom was working her ass off for once and dad was dying of some kinda cancer. She kept him in a back bedroom, and I used to sit with him while she went off to the diner on Cotes Street. He looked like a little old man, thin and white haired. He reminded me of a baby, defenseless in its cradle. He couldn’t talk and wasn’t awake much; on morphine. I had to give him his daily lunchtime dose, but I never did. I let him lay awhile, feeling the cancer eating his body. He’d cry out, his voice echoing up and down the halls, and it was music to my ears. I’d give it to him just before mom came home, then the smug bastard sank back into his little druggie’s sleep.

Sometimes I would sit at his bedside when he was awake and tell him what I thought of him, what I hoped happened to him. Sometimes I smacked him around a little or something. He would cry and look up at me like a puppy and try to talk. He used to point at his chest, hug himself, and point at me. He mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’ once.

Lying bastard. Trying to wiggle outta his payback. But he got what he had coming, alright.

When he died, I was glad, even though repaying him was pretty fun. I came back later after they filled the grave in and danced on it. When I was done I pissed on the headstone.

Knowing at least that he was in hell where he belonged, I left Lawnwood not too long after that and hitchhiked out to Arkham.

In ’75 I met that bitch Carrie at
Miskatonic U, where she was in some kind of stupid chemistry class mixing up little potions and shit and I was sweeping the floors after hours. For a geek she was pretty hot, you know, with long brown hair and nice ta-tas. She had glasses, but they actually added to her looks.

I first met her when I came into the classroom one day to mop some cunt’s puke up off the floor. The
professor was this little faggyfied shit, and stood by his blackboard waving a hand over his face the whole time I was in there, bitching and complaining. Instead of desks in there they had these long tables two and three science dorks sat at, and at the foot of the first one was a pool of nasty pink shit with brown chunks floating. The girl who couldn’t have the human decency to at least barf in the trashcan was leaning like a damn zombie up against her friend, this kinda good-looking chick.

I saw her again a couple days later, on the commons. I was puffing a
doobie under an old oak tree on my break, when Carrie comes across from Stratford Hall to Craig House. She walked like she had a steel pole up her butt, but her body, man, it was
outta sight!

She dropped one of her books close to me, and I sprang like a trapdoor spider (shudder!) and got it for her, saying some shit like
Here you go!

I caught her again coming back. I asked her for a date, hoping to get in those panties, and she said yes, just like that. I guess she was never approached by a guy as handsome as
me
.

Anyway, that night we went to this little pizza parlor about a block from campus, and then to a movie (I think it was The Towering Inferno). I was
kinda pushy when we got back to her place, but I ended up fucking the dogshit outta her, so it paid off.

She was a virgin, but she was down for whatever I wanted.
Anal, oral, all that. Man, it was a blast. 

She turned out to be more than just a one-night beauty queen. Hell, before I even knew it we were living together in a little house on Freedman’s Hill, overlooking the college.
Man, that shit happened
fast
.

We never got married, although she bitched at me about her biological clock ticking and shit like that. She stayed in school, and I had to go out and win the fucking bread. With the hours she was in class and the hours I worked, we barely saw each other. But, as it turned out, she was doing more than just studying in my absence, a
lot
more.

July 9
th
1979- I found a nice big tree with a dip in front of it in cushy dirt, and have been just taking it easy, puking whenever I have to. I feel better today, but my throat is cracking and shit. I took a cupful of water from the river, and it tasted like hooker ass. I couldn’t keep that shit down if I was being paid. I got a little scared, too, you know. Who
knows
what the hell’s in there.

My arms are bumpy with bug bites and I killed about a thousand mosquitoes. My feet are wet and I tried to take my shoes off, but as soon as I sat them down some little motherfucking spider pops out of nowhere and runs into one like it’s a disco, so I had to shake his ass out and put them back on. Oh, God, they ache. I’m probably going to have a first rate case of trench foot.

Oh, well. Those spics oughta be coming soon.

July 10
th
1979-The fly bite turned out to be where the nasty little son of a bitch laid its eggs in me. Yesterday they hatched and started to crawl out of my arm; I spent three hours picking them out, and there are still
more
in there.

You ever hear of Karma? That shit the Hare
Krishnas talk about all the time? You know, what goes around comes around. I never paid attention to that crap before, but I been thinking a lot about it these past couple days.