A N G L E R F I S H

The last thing you can clearly recall is sitting in your living room, watching TV. You’re in the dark, in your boxers. You’re holding a beer. For a brief moment the image you have in your head feels cheap, overwritten — something you’ve seen in a movie or a show somewhere. 

But this is you. And this is your life.

On the TV is the news. A kid died today. She was in the sixth grade. Crossing the street on her way to school, a drunken bus driver pressed his foot on the gas a moment too late (or, perhaps too soon) and now her family is arranging funeral services. That’s kinda cool, you think, but how do I make a dead kid interesting? You started to drift off. The next 15 minutes were neither here, neither there.

At some point in the evening, you watched Jeopardy! and answered five questions correctly. It revived a confidence in you that you thought you’d lost. You suddenly can remember good days from the past. In high school you dated a girl named Rebecca and experienced what you would consider to be real love. You’ve always been swayed by your emotions. Today is no different.

The next thing you clearly recall is waking up by the ocean. You’re wearing linen and Puma sandals. There’s a volcano in the distance, occluding a setting sun. The beach is made of black sand. You think you’re tripping. Is this the past, the present, or the future. You decide you’re not tripping, but time is definitely doing something weird to your mind.

Wait a minute, you say to yourself, did that kid’s shirt say “Aloha”?

The photo they used made her look so happy. That image has now seeped into your subconscious and now it’s starting to percolate, but, again, what’s the story?

Back on the beach, you stand up and start to look for clues, regardless of what time is doing.

In the wilderness of your brain, two distant points circling a large event collide and provide you with some insight: As you sat in your stink in your living room that night, you became aware of something above you: The upstairs neighbors were yelling at each other — back and forth and back and forth and you, having been fed up with this shit from the previous two weeks, decided you were finally going to do something about it. Remember? You were still riding a high from those Jeopardy! answers.

You shoved your feet into your slippers, double-checked your dick wasn’t hanging out, downed the remains of your 24 ounce Modelo, grabbed your keys. 

In the hallway you pass the old lady who owns the flower shop below. She always smells nice and smiles when she sees you. What’s her story? Was she ever married? Any kids? How long’s that store been around? Who’s going to run it when she dies? Could I run it? What do I know about flowers? You make your way from the fourth floor to the fifth floor by way of the stairs. You pass several doors until you reach the one directly above your unit. 

Standing there now, the voices are clearer and more dangerous. It sounds domestic. She’s angry. So is he. They do this all the time, but never for this long and never to this degree with the language. They’ve entered new territory, a dark place. You hope they don’t have any kids because you know what the impact of all this yelling can lead to. Despite all these thoughts, there is almost no hesitation. You knock on the door. There’s a pause. But it’s short and they’re back to arguing again. You knock a second time. This time they react.

Him: Who the fuck is knocking on the fucking door?

You: It’s me. I live downstairs. Can you keep it down, please? I’m trying to concentrate.

Her: Concentrate on my dick! Fuck off!

They go back to arguing.

You recall an instance in seventh grade in which you got into a fight with two girls. One of them grabbed your dick and said you had none. The other one laughed and went and told all the other kids. By the time lunch came around, everyone was talking about you and your baby dick. This was the first time your manhood had been called into question. Your ego was bruised. (It still is.) You went home, listened to Slim Shady with the door closed then, the next day, you caught the girl who laughed and hit her in the face with a book. This was a bad choice. You used to regret it deeply, now it’s just a memory on one of the shelves in your brain. But hearing this faceless woman cut you down like that really hurt. You were triggered. You knock on the door once again.

“Just keep it down.” 

I hit my classmate with a new edition science book?

“Please,” you add. 

The regret didn’t leave. It turned into shame. It’s here with you now. That’s what is in control. And they can sense it on the other side, in their shitty apartment.

Footsteps. The door opens. Angry face. Another angry face. You notice the guy has a gun. You’re suddenly a pacifist. You try to apologize, try to explain — you try to redirect the energy but it’s too late. Bullets tear up the wall behind you. You almost break your neck getting down the steps. But you don’t. You’ve only twisted your ankle.

Keep running!

Back in your apartment, you slam the door shut and try to figure out what to do next. Am I a bitch or am I a gangsta? Am I a bitch or am I a gangsta? You never really liked that game because you’ve always known the truth.

Ripping your socks off, you look at your ankle and squirm in pain. I’m definitely a bitch. I’ve always been a bitch.

Unfortunately, your crazy neighbor and his wife — who’s now toting the gun — the two of them are at your door and they’re yelling, demanding you bring the conversation back into the hallway. You scream something stupid like I’m going to call the cops! (You know you’re not going to do that, but it’s the only thing you could think of so you said it.) Unfortunately, this particular sequence of words seems to have emboldened them. Your door knob shatters into small pieces of gold and screws, tearing through your carpet.

He’s kicking the door in now. Or maybe he’s using his shoulders. It’s possible he’s using the junk table that’s been sitting in the hallway since your weird neighbor up and vanished about a week or so ago. This is one of those times where you wish you had learned to use a gun, but that’s exactly why you turned down that job in Texas. Plus, you never made it through martial arts training in fifth grade. (Fuck! We’re really regressing now!)

Thinking about it in this light, you realize that’s the moment when you allowed quitting to become a habit. You can’t fight, you don’t know how to use a gun, and you lack the drive to complete things you start. 

But this is good, right? Accepting who you are? It’s what your therapist has been trying to get you to understand and work on.

God never meets us at our strongest.. This can’t be what Grandma Lois meant, can it? That God only shows up when your ankle is is the size of a grapefruit and you’re pure fright?

That’s when the door explodes and these two crazy fucks go straight for your head. I mean, you are in somewhat of a compromising position — your twisted ankle and all. Anyway, they’re going to town on your head. Their intentions — it seems, by all accounts — is to beat you to death with your own furniture — shit you’re still paying off. After a few seconds of this humiliating scene, she directs him to help her pick you up; they’re bracing to throw you out your own window.

They each grab a hand or a leg. 

You finally start to fight back. It’s hilariously too late, but, you have to admit, this is very much one your most recognizable traits: Not doing shit until it’s fucking useless to do so.

“Let’s see if this skinny fuck can fly.”

“Once he hits the ground, that hot concrete’s going to fry his ass.”

“He’s going to smell like bacon.”

“Yeah,” she says with a grin. “Skinny bacon bitch!”

Exiting the window against your will, you remember that you had promised yourself you wouldn’t stay cooped up in the apartment all weekend, the way you’ve been doing for the last few months, feeling all woe is me about things. You wanted to prove to yourself that you weren’t in some ridiculously sad state of depression and that things were okay. 

It’s not too late to still try the writing thing, you tell yourself, your face twisted, hot, and wet.

Shards of glass suspended above you. The old lady is pruning flowers and watching Maury. When she sees you through her window, her face becomes a frozen image: two little Os, one big O. Everything else about her seems stuck in time and space. A cat next to a potted plant tightens its muscles, appears to smile. 

The weatherman said it was supposed to rain today, you say to yourself. It hasn’t been this bright in months.

The image of the school bus, the shirt, the old lady, the cat, the crazy guy with the gun and his wife who now looks like some Hawaiian flower blooming in a time-lapse, all collide then scatter, each piece moving away at nearly the speed of light until the volcano — that big, red, gushing, inferno rising from inside the earth —  is so far away from you that even it, too, is pure black.