The Hungry Artist

VIII.

I like sex. A lot. But I get infections. A lot. Is God trying to tell me something?

I’m not the only one obsessed with God. Children of a Lesser God. The God of Small Things. Tell me all your thoughts on God, ‘cause I’d really like to meet her…Now that’s just plain silly. God is neither he, nor she, nor it.

Back to sex.

God is dead. Can you believe it? Now for that statement to carry the weight that it does means that God had to have been at some point, kind of a big deal.

And now God is dead, everywhere and all around me. Except for in the ceiling.

VII.

When I was a little girl, I used to think God was in the ceiling. And so I slept close to him. I searched for him in the dark. My sister told me that if I stared long enough and hard enough that eventually I’d see him.

God was in charge of everything. God damn you! So help me God! God damn it! Who was this God and what was it? It was every thing: the counter top, the wall, even the pillow, or the book when it hit (or missed) the shelf.

Night after night I stared at the ceiling. I saw Colonel Sanders, or maybe it was Santa Claus. I thought, “Now that can’t be God. God is boss, and bosses don’t smile.”

I saw bunnies and stars and crossword puzzles. Sometimes night would become light before I knew it, or in between blinks. I saw letters and numbers, and spots. Finally I saw what had always been there – a ceiling with lots and lots of bumps. I didn’t get upset or accuse my sister of playing a trick on me. I had faith. And I didn’t blame God because, after all, he had enough on his hands not to worry about showing himself to a curious little girl who had already seen way too many things.

I knew God would one day show himself to me, when I was good and ready.

VI.

I don’t use incense for God. I already told you I don’t think about God. I use incense to clear my sinuses. And to make my fingers smell like something other than semen or cigarettes. To keep me from having sex. One needs purifying from time to time. I’m a simple man.

She says men always want to kill her. Shoving their fingers in and out. Twisting and biting her nipples. Pulling her hair. They want to kill me, she says. And they do so every time.

V.

I don’t want you anymore. Not now. For sure – not tomorrow. Yes, there was a time when you were very young (you’re still young) and just the way it felt having your tongue swirl around my nipple, the way my b-size fit snuggly into your c-shaped mouth.

But now I watch you, slouched in that chair, the tips of your boots lightly touching the tips of my toes, and I feel nothing. You are here, yes, but already you are filed away in the appendix of my mind, I will visit upon only at the end, when I’ve forgotten the order and the matter.

IV.

There is that aspect of death where one can be killed, and then one is dead. But killing has nothing really to do with death, which is dormant and passive. Killing is about power and control, and getting off.

She said I’m the source of her infection. All I did was finger her. My fingers were sullied with incense.

III.

Remember all the names of her boyfriends? Please. Of course she doesn’t because she didn’t have any. We weren’t allowed to have boyfriends. Maybe in her little dream world she did. For her, it was all about books and stuffed animals and pets. That rat she called a hamster, I didn’t kill it. Although I wanted to, believe me. Everyone knows hamsters live only 2 or 3 months at most. Sure, the thing annoyed me, running on that damn squeaky wheel all night so I couldn’t get to sleep. But kill it? How? Did I slip sleeping-pill powder into its water bottle or spray Raid into its face? How would I have gotten away with it with her sleeping in the same room every night? Little sister always got what she wanted – pink walls, a pet hamster, the bottom bunk.

One time, I convinced her that sleeping on the top bunk was top notch, first class. Said you’d be closer to God. She was afraid of heights, but all the same, knowing I was underneath to catch her should she fall, she finally agreed. The sliding ladder would keep you from falling off in the middle of the night, with its long wooden bar. So once she was fast asleep, I tiptoed out of my bottom bunk and quietly removed the bar, knowing she’d have to get up to pee. And there she went bump in the night. I got majorly whipped for that cause the little witch went telling on me. Daddy chased after me with the ladder bar and thrashed it against my bottom. But it was all worth it. Once I heard her crash onto the tile floor, I shuddered with a chill of a thrill.

Yes I knew that Tinkerbell was her favorite prized possession. I’d watch her take the thing in her hand and hum to it. Even when it bit her, she’d stroke it softly like it was a baby’s forehead. I never meant it any harm, even when I said, “I hope that stupid rat dies!” We all know that words don’t really mean a thing. Once, when she was out in the kitchen, I opened the little rat cage and tried to pet the thing, out of curiosity and it bit my pointer finger. I might have reacted suddenly and swiped it across the cage by accident. I don’t remember exactly. I do remember tugging its tail once or twice and flicking a few shavings at it. But that wouldn’t have killed it. Yes, it was dead the next day, but I’m sure I wasn’t the cause of it. It kept up its marathon wheel-running that very same night.

It’s not the hamster I really hated. All I ever wanted was to have my own room. My own bunk bed. Then I could sleep on the bottom, or the top, whenever I felt like it. Little sis’ wasn’t all that bad to have around, really. I kind of got accustomed. She just got in the way.

II.

I’m a simple man. Shower every day. Clean out the ears every other. I don’t think about God unless someone raises the subject. Even then, the word doesn’t register. I think, “God.” And then it’s gone.

And what’s all this fuss about death? “So-and-so died today. Can you believe it?” As if dying were as remarkable as being struck by lightning. Lightning must strike just as we each must die, but to be struck by lightning you must be at the right place at the right time. No such luck with death. You just have to be.

I.

I don’t remember the names of all my boyfriends, but I can remember the names of all my pets.

First was Odie the Dog. Yes, like Garfield’s sidekick. Funny that – a cat with power over a dog.

Then there was Tinkerbelle the Hamster. Lived only something like 2 months. I’m pretty sure my sister killed it because of the squeaky-wheel sound she made in the middle of the night with her little running feet. My sis’ of course denied it, and maybe she didn’t directly kill Tinkerbelle. It’s hard to imagine, as mean-spirited as she was, taking her little-kid hands and pressing down hard on that tiny little neck. Still, I know she thought mean thoughts because she said, “That stupid hamster – I hope it dies.” And as we all know, words can kill.

Duchess the Rabbit lived longer than Tinkerbelle the Hamster. I don’t recall exactly how long, maybe on account of the fact that most of her existence was tortured. Back to that later.

That makes all the pets I’ve had up till now, not counting Vice the Cat, my current pet, whom I treat like a princess. So maybe Duchess would have been a more fitting name for Vice the Cat. Then what should Duchess the rabbit have been named? More of that later.

They say the way you treat your pets reflects who you are.

Who am I?

Looking back, I think I treated my third pet Duchess worse than my first pet Odie. But then again, that is debatable. What’s worse? Confining a rabbit to a small cage all day long, or tying the mouth of your dog with a rubber band until it nearly suffocates? Confining a rabbit to a tiny cage is kind of like slowly boiling a lobster to death. Well, there’s a similarity only to a point, because a rabbit resists at once, whereas a lobster doesn’t because it doesn’t know it’s being boiled to death. Still, it’s not long before the rabbit becomes quietly accustomed. On the other hand, the intensity of suffering a dog experiences while its mouth is clamped shut, even if only a few minutes, is of a higher order. At least that’s what I assume.

Mind you, I was not really aware of the cruel nature of what I was doing when I was doing it. Odie could still, after all, breathe with his mouth tied shut, through his nose. I got a kick out of the way he sounded with his muzzle all rubber-banded. How cute he looked swatting his little paw across his face in an effort to get it off. Add to that the fact that he wore my brother’s Osh Kosh B’Gosh t-shirt all the while, and that only ups the cuteness factor. Of course, I removed the rubber band once it seemed he’d had enough. His eyes glazed over and snot spewing out. I got no pleasure, however, from seeing Duchess confined in that cage. Mom and dad wouldn’t buy a bigger one because they said it would cost too much and take too much room. Keep in mind too that I would let Duchess loose once in awhile, when I could remember to do so. It was aggravating because she’d hop away and hide behind the broken-down freezer or in some corner where I couldn’t reach her. Yes, she must have breathed in the exhaust fumes when mom started her car in the garage, considering that mom made me sit the rabbit cage under the tool shelf, where it didn’t take much room, right next to the muffler. I suppose I could have protested and insisted on a more humane arrangement. But my folks were not to be crossed. I think I matured from my first pet to the third – from seeking innocent, carefree pleasure, to submitting myself to authority. Everyone knows you can’t remain a frivolous child forever.

Actually, I’m mistaken. About the order of my pets. Odie wasn’t the first. Tinkerbelle was. The short-lived hamster. Just like my childhood. I can only remember a handful of childhood incidents. The other incidents, which surely must have happened, seem condensed into a blur, like a gust of rain windshield wiped away in an instant.

Tinkerbelle’s scurrying feet in a see-through plastic ball. Getting stuck in a corner between the wall and the fridge. Dad saying, “You know that’s really cruel. That poor animal thinking it’s getting somewhere when it’s really not.”

When you’re a kid, it’s like everything is larger than you. Your parents. Your older brothers and sisters. Time. You stare up at time with its enormous hands, smiling a silly grin back at you. Boredom. You’ve got to do something with that great big gob of time, oozing from the ceiling, down the walls and through your fingers. So you watch your hamster run in a see-through ball down the kitchen tile, all the while getting nowhere, your dag slapping itself tirelessly in order to breathe. You feel your body burn with unspeakable pleasure. Until you want to give your pet rabbit more freedom, but your mom and dad, who are no longer enormous, but still hold an enormous power over you through their stern voices and through sheer force of habit, say that that little cage is room enough for small creatures.

Tinkerbelle was my first pet, then Odie. Not that the order of those first two really matters, since which one suffered more is debatable. What matters is that Duchess was last. Duchess, whom I found cold stiff one morning, after a night of heavy rain. Whom I left forgotten in her small cage, in the backyard all night. Duchess, who suffered the most, the suffering of which I had derived no pleasure from. Duchess, who should have been named…

The progression of my pets. The evolution of my character. I can’t remember the names of all my boyfriends.

(Author’s Note: This is the first in a series of fictional interviews I am currently working on. They are rough. They may do better recorded; next project!)

I entreated you to love me in so many different ways.

I entreated you to love me. In a roundabout way. When we stood on the edge of the ocean cliff, hugging our own bodies for warmth, staring into the sunset instead of each other’s eyes, I slipped my arm underneath yours, and you obliged.

When holding hands became as routine as breathing, I entreated you to love me by saying I love you. I said it first. And then I said it again. I said it in entirely different ways than I had said it to anyone before you. Still, you were not moved to say it in your own unique way. Instead, you grew weary and said:

Don’t say the same things over and over again, just as all lovers
do, for they imagine they will win love over with their use of
many words.

So then I made each of my many words count:

Interlace your fingers with my toes
and gently nudge my sleepy feet

Slip through my slamming door
all wrapped in a blanket for two

Stick around longer than my cat’s nine lives

Love me
Do.

And you did.

When my dreams became too lucid and I called you in the middle of the night, you came over and draped your body over mine. That kept the strange shadows circling my bed from reaching me.

I had discovered a poetry that never repeats. And just when my choice of words won your love over, my love grew weary:

When you send me
a dozen roses,
I will place them in
a can of peach juice,
and they will drown
in sweetness before their time.

Don’t love me.
Don’t.

But sometimes words are not enough, and you are still here, loving me.

(Excerpt poem from “Myths & Meditations”)

“So that I would not ask them to praise me or to denigrate me, but merely to tell me if this is the case, if the words which they read in themselves are indeed the ones I have written.” – Proust