Exit Nothing Read online

EXIT NOTHING

  Pat King

  Copyright © 2012 by Pat King

  (KUBOA)/SmashWords Edition

  www.kuboapress.wordpress.com

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  for Katie

  Bad Mojo

  What kinds of screeds were written in blood on my walls before I was born? None, I hope. Otherwise it means that the gods really are laughing at me. That’s too much, even for me.

  This world. This world is madness. This world is madness and only the mad are in love.

  My name is Nothing. I don’t do anything. I drink too much. I don’t eat enough. I’m only twenty eight but my body is already failing me. My hands shake a little. My cock doesn’t work right. Pain down my back. Given up, man. Given up. Nightmares every night. Sweat soaking my hair. I’m twenty eight. I sometimes wake up mouthing those words. Turning twenty eight was a system shock for me.

  I accept. I just accept. No more dreams. But all I want to do is dream.

  I am haunted by the women and the cities in my life. I fall in love with both flesh and concrete. Kaye and Anne. Philadelphia, Baltimore. I will never leave any of them.

  Kaye. I married Kaye when she was eighteen. I was twenty one. Kaye was smarter than I was. She was partially Catholic. At any moment, I was either fully passionate for her or totally repelled by her. Both intensities came in waves. For a time, her devotion to me, even in my most mad moments was unshakable. But then I left her in the middle of the night and drove from Birmingham, Alabama to Philadelphia. Left her with an apartment, bills, two cats. Things didn’t work out so well after that.

  And now, Philadelphia’s over. Instead, there’s Baltimore and there’s Anne. Anne is my sanity and I am her madness. She is my Mad Love. When I’m inside her I’m sane and she begins to travel through my madness. I’m not sure but I think she might want to devour me. She might want to become me. But she’s often next to me, even when I become a vapor and wander bodiless through the labyrinth of my marriage, Philadelphia, my nightmares, my childhood, my death.

  It all comes back to me. The women that I’ve loved and the cities that I’ve loved. It’s all the same thing to me. A strange and mysterious kind of love. A devouring, rejuvenating love. A working class love. The middle-class social compromise is dead to me.

  I vapor away, wandering certain posts continuously, haphazardly. My mind is a bleeding submarine. My laughter is disembodied. I don’t worship time. In fact, I don’t believe in it. I believe in dreams.

  But thankfully, finally, there are no more dreams.

  String Theory

  When I’m inside Anne, I feel like I’ve defeated Time. I feel giddy with discovering the secrets of timelessness. I think I’m getting there. I know my mind is reaching toward something. But what? Insanity? Metaphysics? Horrors?

  Probably a little of all three. And that’s just fine by me. I am beginning to open up to strange things. I close my eyes and sensations come back to me. Riots, violence, the scent of Anne’s shoulder after she’s gotten out of the shower. I think forward. I think back.

  I’m at work right now, at the deli counter in a supermarket about a thirty minute drive from Baltimore. Suburbia so clean that it squeaks. Howard County, Maryland, a very rich county. There is a very large woman in a yellow dress in front of me, watching me as I slice her lunchmeat. I know this woman. She’s here every other day or so. She likes her lunchmeat cut just right. You can’t make a mistake when you are dealing with her. She’ll make you throw the meat out and start over again.

  Suburban housewife want you achieve unachievable perfection. Demand perfection. Suburban housewife scowl as she smile. Ruined person? Best not think too deeply. Have brain meltdown.

  Her husband is here now. He’s holding a couple of big steaks in his hands. He argues with his wife about the price. They feign politeness toward each other. Too expensive, she says. It says in the circular that they will be on sale this Friday. Why not wait until then? But the husband insists that he wants the steaks now. He wants to eat them tonight. The husband’s hair is cut short, almost a crew cut. He has a neatly trimmed military-style mustache. He has the rancid smell of a cop about him. I can’t be sure, though. He must be in some position of authority. He fits the type too perfectly. Indeed, he definitely has dominion over his wife because he tells her that yes they are getting the steaks today and there will be no further discussion about it. Still feigning polite. His wife drops the matter. She has no power in their relationship. But she has a small amount of power over me. And I know that she enjoys it.