As I Die Lying (34 page)

“
Who’s that?” Mother
asked.

“
The woman I love,” I said,
working another swallow of liquor toward my burning stomach,
washing down the bitter aftertaste of that final word.

Mother frowned, wrinkles on wrinkles.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Mother passed out while the afternoon sun was
still heavy in the sky. I covered her with a spare blanket and
stood over her, looking down at her stale-pastry face. She was
already a corpse, lacking only the butterfly stitches in the
eyelids.

I thought about taking off her scuffed
loafers, but I was afraid to touch her.

You can touch her, Richard. She’s yours. All
of her. My gift to you.

“
No. You can take my
awareness, you can shuck my consciousness from me, you can steal my
flesh, but you can’t make me hurt her.”

Richard, Richard, Richard. You still don’t
get it, do you? After all we’ve been through together, you still
misunderstand me. My feelings would be hurt, if I had any besides
yours.

“
What do you mean? This is
all your doing. Just more of your cruelty, so you can eat my pain.
Well, eat up, you invisible soulfucker. Because you can make me
feel guilty, I admit. You know where to dig up every little bone in
my brain cemetery.”

No, Richard. Don’t you see? The beauty of
all this, the thing that makes it so indescribably delicious, is
that I don’t have to MAKE you do anything. All I’m doing is
granting you freedom of choice.

“
You monster. I never
invited you in.”

Sometimes monsters are made, not born.

“
How many? How many do you
need to kill before you’re tired of me?”

As many as it takes.

“
Not her, please not
her.”

I thought you hated her.

“
Maybe so. I don’t know. But
that doesn’t change the fact that she’s my mother. I know you don’t
understand, but humans just can’t help certain feelings and
emotions.”

Look at her, Richard. You
want to, don’t you? You can do anything you want. I’m offering you
everything. You can become one of us. You can join me in eternal
life
.
Just
surrender to me and become yourself.

I looked down at Mother. The young winter
light made her face almost peaceful. She snorted in her sleep and a
clear strand of drool leaked from one corner of her mouth.

This was the woman who had given me life.
This was the one who really was to blame. She’d taught me
everything I knew and didn’t know about love. I turned, feeling
that familiar black curtain descending.

Before I knew it, I was in the kitchen,
sliding open the kitchen drawer. The bread knife found my hand. Its
serrated edge grinned under the light.

“
No, no, no.”

I dropped the knife to the floor and the tip
gouged a hole in the soft linoleum. Jagged laughter howled through
my veins.

Almost had you that time, didn’t I,
Richard?

I knelt on the floor, holding my head in my
hands.

“
Run inside, Richard. The
boots are coming,” Mister Milktoast whispered from the
dark.

“
What’s in there under the
blanket, Dickie?” taunted Loverboy. “Smells warm. Smells ripe. And
Beth’s not around to knead this little Pillsbury
doughboy.”

“
Pick up the knife,” Little
Hitler said. “How beautiful that would be. Poetic justice. First
Father, then Mother. Patrimatricide.”

With friends like that, Richard...

The curtain lifted and I was lying on the
cold lineoleum, sweating. I could hear Mother’s soft, arrhythmic
snores. So she was still alive.

Congratulations, Richard. You passed the
first test.

“
Test?”

You couldn’t kill her. Because you don’t
even pretend to love her.

“
What?”

You loved Virginia. Where is she now?

What good did your love do Shelley? A
one-night stand, except that for her, the night never ended. It
keeps on stretching, out and out and forever.

Monique. You loved her. Inside out.

“
Hey, what gives, Filthy
Richie?” said Loverboy. “Is the Insider pulling your pud, or
what?”

“
Get the fuck out of my
head.”

“
Damn, Dickie. Don’t get
your panties in a twist. Come to think of it, as little action as
you’re getting me, that would probably be an
improvement.”

I rose to my knees and crawled across the
floor like a toddler going after a soft, brown comforting thing, a
fuzzy cuddle in a harsh room, a consciousness about to form its
first memory. But this wasn’t the beginning. This was the wrap of
the second act, where the plot complications conspired and forced
the protagonist to finally face his nemesis, albeit from a position
of weakness.

One arm, Little Hitler’s arm, stretched for
the knife.

“
Don’t fight it, Richard.
You know you love her. And you know what happens to the ones you
love.”

“
No. I don’t love her. You
know that.”

“
That’s not how I remember
it,” said Loverboy. “You loved her a hell of a lot. Maybe not as
well as I could have, but I don’t expect much from a jellydick like
you.”

“
She loves us, Richard,”
Mister Milktoast said. “Appeased in a pod.”

“
Then why didn’t she stop
the boots?”

“
Because we were all too
weak—you, me, her.”

“
But I sure as fuck wasn’t,”
Little Hitler said, fingers caressing the knife handle. “If it
wasn’t for me, you’d both probably be whimpering in the closet. You
owe me, Richard.

You owe me big-time. And payback’s a
bitch.”

“
Haven’t I paid you enough?
Talk about usury. You’re worse than the Insider. I think you crave
the guilt more than it does.”

“
Do you really think the
Insider gives a flying upside-down batfuck about any of us? To it,
one human is as good as another. Drop in, stir up a brainstorm, and
head on down the line. No big deal, a little soul grazing, just
getting through the day. But to me, this isn’t about survival. To
me, this is personal.”

The knife was slick beneath my sweaty palm. I
raised the blade and pointed it at my chest. If only I could fall
on it before...

“
Don’t, Richard,” screamed
Mister Milktoast. “What would become of me?”

“
Food for maggots, with any
luck.”

“
Food for faggots, more like
it,” Loverboy said. “Strap Daddy in stilettos and mince him down
the runway.”

“
It’s not your fault,”
Mister Milktoast said, ignoring the taunt.

“
Bullshit.” It was my fault,
and besides, my word was law, right?

“
He’s right, Richard,”
Bookworm said, and his voice came flat, calm, and clear from the
dead zone of my cranium. I pressed the steel between my
ribs.

“
Not you, too, Bookworm? I
thought, of all of them, you might be on my side. You’re
practically my co-author.”

“
I’m on your side. More than
you know.”

“
Then help me. Help me die.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks but I felt no sorrow.

“
Richard, you’re not strong
enough to love. But are you strong enough to hope?”

“
Hope springs eternal,” cut
in Mister Milktoast, as if the suicidal tide might dry up now that
Bookworm kicked sand in everyone’s face. “Present tense despite the
current tension.”

“
Do you love yourself
enough, Richard?” continued Bookworm.

“
He loves himself plenty,”
said Loverboy. “That right hand of his is practically worn out. I
say it’s about time to let him get the fuck out of Dodge. Beth is
tight as a breadstick and twice as salty, but this monogamy crap is
getting old. Me, I got needs.”

“
I say winterize him,”
Little Hitler said. “Let Richard bury himself back in the dark.
Nobody would shed a tear. And I wouldn’t mind having a go at this
meat full-time.”

I would welcome that. If I couldn’t stab
myself, maybe I could just slip on down into the dark waters, drown
inside my own sorry sea. No, the ocean-beach metaphor was
paragraphs ago. It was time for domestic reference. Okay, so I’d
book myself a back room in the Bone House and hang out a “No
vacancy” sign.

Bookworm came in again, calm and strong. “Do
you love yourself enough, Richard?”

“
Love? What’s love got to do
with anything? And if I really did love anybody, then I would want
to spare them our miserable company.”

The waters tempted, lapping. The curtains
fluttered. Or was it the Insider laughing?

“
Do you love yourself enough
to live?” Bookworm challenged.

“
I hate myself enough to
die, I know that.”

“
Then you’d be dead already.
Why aren’t you?”

“
The arch enemy hasn’t
finished painting his rainbow,” Mister Milktoast said. “Sorry.
Inside joke.”

The knife point was to my chest now, pressing
into the flannel, bruising the sternum. Through the window, the sun
hung fat and low over the far mountains. I should have been at
work. I was scheduled for the night shift. But I was in search of a
longer night shift, eternal overtime, no hope for dawn.

“
Beautiful,” Little Hitler
said. “Richard’s so pathetic he can’t even succeed at the ultimate
failure. Do you guys need more evidence as to why we need to
fucking drown him already?”

“
Be my guest, Little Hitler.
Nothing would please me more than to disappear inside. And you,
Mister Milktoast. You’ve tried to keep me out of danger. But you
want to live, with or without me.”

“
You wound me, old friend.
After all I’ve done for you...”

“
All you did was protect me
from the truth. Just like Mother.”

The blade pressed, the hand gripped, the arm
ached to thrust. Blood thundered, heart throbbed, shutters
shuddered.

“
Richard,” came Bookworm’s
soothing voice, like a New Age audiobook narrator who’d sampled the
chamomile. “It still won’t be the end.”

“
The end? What do I care
about the end? All I want is to be out. Flying solo to hell or
whatever those joking bastard gods have in mind for me. I just want
to lose any awareness that I was ever me.”

“
Yes, Richard. It would end
for you, but what about the Insider?”

“
The Insider? I’d be
depriving it of a moment’s distraction, that’s all. It would just
jump like—”

“—
like a nimble metaphor
over a proverbial candlestick burning at both ends. And move
on.”

“
Whatever. It’s not my
fault. I didn’t bring the thing into the world. And I didn’t invite
it into my heart. It’s not like Mother made me do with
Jesus.”

“
That was me,” Mister
Milktoast said. “I was always trying to protect you.”

“
Jesus Jiminy Christ, what a
joke,” Little Hitler said with a howl of laughter that rattled the
Bone House windows. “Saving him from the savior. So which one of
you angels are going to heaven? Now I’ve heard everything. Hell,
now I’ve
been
everything.”

I turned to the only one who still seemed
unselfish. “Bookworm, do you really think I’d mind snuffing these
mental clowns out of existence? I’d be doing the world a favor.
It’s practically my duty.”

“
Yes. You and I would end.
All of us. But the Insider would continue. This chapter would end,
the manuscript would expire
in media
res
, but there would be a
sequel.”

“
So you believe. But I’m
only human. What do you want me to do about it?”

My body was tensed, awaiting the deathblow
that wouldn’t come. A sharp lightning bolt flashed through my skull
and fireshadows danced in my eyes. Black scraps stitched themselves
together into a blanket over my brain. The Insider’s voice stabbed
with its icy splinters, a gang rape of thoughts.

No need for me to jump very far, is there,
Richard?

“
What are you talking
about?”

Plenty of suitable hosts all around. Plenty
who’ve been tortured and abused and are brimming with pain. Plenty
who have sinned. Plenty of humans right within reach who’ve been
tainted by their humanity and are just waiting for a monster to
come in. Practically BEGGING for it.

“
What’s that got to do with
me? As long as I’m out of the picture, I don’t care if you
reanimate Elvis’s corpse or do the hokey pokey with Abraham
Lincoln’s ghost.”

Choices, choices, choices. Mother or Beth.
Beth or Mother. So many to be, so little time.

“
No. You miserable
mindfucker.”

Which is the greater of two evils?

“
Damn you to
hell.”

Thanks for the kind sentiment. But I’ve
found the hottest hell right here.

I struggled with myself, my own arm. The
knife or not.

I’ll let you die happy, if that’s what you
want. You can go with a smile on your face, knowing that your
beautiful little self-sacrifice is going to add to the guilt and
pain of those you left behind. Hmmm. My mouth is watering already.
Or is that YOUR mouth?

I swayed, confused, a minuet with sharp metal
edges.