Polysyllabic

I saw it coming. I really did. Inevitability is a funny thing like that. Crushing inevitability, like being clubbed to death with a Magic 8-ball. You know the stove is hot, so you touch it. This rainwater I am choking on as I lay here fell from the sky as it has done for millennia. There is no escape. There never is. I guess I could foreshadow everything and just say I'm going to kill the guy, and you can't stop me. I can't stop me. He can stop me, though, but he doesn't. That's why I don't have faith in humans. Self-preservation is the pinnacle of mankind's achievements. Survival of the most desperate.

And all that remains is me, him, and the truth.

I left my apartment this morning, my hovel, my pad they might say. It was raining. And, before it was raining, it rained. Pluperfect, they call it. The past of the past. Always raining. The streets are desolate. Empty of hope, of faith, of purpose. These people are desolate. I am no better. Thousands of people walking thousands of ways, and not one breath they take is a breath of life. They are breaths of existence in the most basic sense, but they do not impart what the writers would call true life.

No one seems to notice the lack of sunlight, or the pervasiveness of plummeting water, because they're too busy staring at the sidewalk, hoping they don't break anyone's back, or hoping they don't fall into a drainage grate on the curb. The last person that did that lost his shoe. He didn't dare chase after it, seeing as the alligators down there had probably already eaten it.

Alligators? Yup, we got those. I saw one last week. And, if an alligator hadn't eaten it, I wonder if he/she/it was wearing it. Alligators wearing human shoes.

I walked four blocks before turning left, arbitrarily. I live my life arbitrarily. On this street, a woman was walking her poodle, and they stopped to take a bathroom break on a streetlamp. The poodle, not the woman. That kind of thing didn't happen in this part of town. I'm reminded of "don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining." Well, it's both.

I turn right, 37 th street. This particular block is especially barren, and not even metaphorically like the streets frequented by those dull-witted mortals. It is empty of form, color, empty of things. It looks like it lost all its style and flavor twenty years ago. Funny, so did I.

I turn left, North Whitmore. Or South Whitmore. Might not have been Whitmore, I don't know. There were two guys arguing in what I think was Spanish. One accused the other of stealing his garage door, and the other responded that he didn't even own shoelaces. Man, it's a good thing those people aren't in charge of stuff; I've become quite fond of using shoelaces, and I don't think I've ever had a garage door. Or stolen one. The logistics of garage door larceny are mind-boggling.

It's about now when I can feel him following me. Again. Who? God. Well, most people call him God. I don't. I call him Steve. I think I call him Steve because the first time I became acutely aware of his presence was while I was watching Short Circuit with Steve Guttenberg on my little six inch black and white television. Ironic, since a Steve Guttenberg movie is the last place one would expect to find God. Now that I think of it, that TV isn't mine, anyway. "Thou shalt not steal."

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." No problem, Steve.

I knew he would come for me here, though. He always finds me, no matter which streets I take. I'm Steve's own little Etch-A-Sketch cursor. Man, he's a crappy artist.

Anyway, where was I? I think I was at 8th and Plumb. Yeah, it was Plumb; in the conservatory, with the revolver. Revolver? Oh, right, this thing. It's just like my dad's. They were his dad's, and his dad's dad's. My dad doesn't have his anymore because he's dead.

He was in Vietnam. Ask him about it sometime. Ok, don't really ask him. It bugs me when people go to graveyards and talk to the gravestones as if it were their loved one. One way conversations freak me out. That's why I think it'd be really creepy to work at a cemetery. Cemeteries are like tiny fields of forgotten gods. Each life, deified in death. That's something that has always puzzled me. When a guy dies, no one ever talks about how he never tipped waitresses, or never held the door open for a lady, or bragged about his many illicit relationships. He is flawless, his soul draped in the white robes of Valhalla, Elysium, or whatever you choose to call it. Another reason I don't understand people. The only virtue people like that guy have is the lone fact that they never went crazy and killed anyone. Every civilization from the dawn of man has been sustained by this one principle: don't go berserk and kill everyone. To adhere to the rule is just as self-serving as breaking it.

Anyway, he was in Vietnam, sure. For eighteen days. He usually left that part out of his stories. He'd go on and on and on with story after story, and my little cousins never knew he was lying. Well, not exactly lying; confusing the truth. See, the stories he told were actually the movies Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now. I got a kick out of the Apocalypse Now stories, because according to my father, he was Robert DuVall, Dennis Hopper, and one of the tribal men that Colonel Kurtz hangs out with. My dad was born in Montana. He's not tribal. Didn't Dennis Hopper die in that movie? "This is the way the world ends."

He blamed his inability to sleep on his "tour of duty." A tour of the White House lasts longer. If any of us walked through a hallway at night, he'd freak out. He'd drop to the ground and call for a flare strike at 034, 012, Delta Bravo. My grandma told me he was just a light sleeper because he wet the bed until he was 15, so he couldn't ever get a good night's rest.

About three years ago, my mind changed about my father. He wasn't confused, hallucinogenic, or delusional. He never got fancy terms. He was nuts.

He'd spend hours cleaning his rifle. The rifle didn't work, but he made sure it was clean for inspection every week. It didn't work because a bullet jammed in it and triggered a small explosion that burned my father's left palm. It was his trophy of battle. He got it while he was drunk and shooting at the local fauna around the base he was stationed at. Apparently, the knee-high grass posed a clear and present danger to a marine sitting comfortably in a guard tower.

For the most part, though, everyone considered my father harmless. His flights of fancy were inconsequential, and who cared where he really got that burn, or that necklace made of human teeth. Oh, I forgot to tell you about the teeth. To prove his savagery, my dad ripped out one tooth from every man he killed. It turns out that the teeth were false. He had found a set of dentures once when he was in the medical tent to get an infected splinter taken care of. I'd wager that if I looked real close at those teeth, there would be a little sticker that said "Made in Vietnam." My dad, being the eternal egotist, would then claim that "All them gooks got those stickers in their mouths!"

I can say that for his part, my father never abused me. He slapped me a few times when I cracked wise, but he otherwise contained himself well. I guess I can be called fortunate that he was a sleepy drunk. He didn't scream, throw things, hit people, or drive cars into light poles. He watched Johnny Carson, ate Fritos, and snored.

If he was drunk, we could usually count on him to not "relive the horrors of the war". I guess at the one time it mattered most, he was as sober as a three year old.

My mom came home from work late. My dad was asleep on the couch. He heard a can fall. Thought it was a grenade. He hit the deck, and crawled to the kitchen with perfect covertness. He ended up stabbing her with a steak knife. I guess that's when he came to.

He grabbed his gun, the one just like this one, walked outside into the street, and put the barrel in his mouth. They said they found a piece of his skull all the way down at the old Ermy place. Their dog was gnawing on it.
But, I'm not like my dad. I know what he did, and I knew how crazy he was. I really knew. Now, I'm the one that has to live with it, with the terror, the unspoken paranoia of my aimless steps in this suburban deluge.

I guess it doesn't matter that he's gone, and can't help me. I'm not sure that I really want his help. All he'd tell me is gung-ho catchphrases that were drilled into him at boot camp, which was the most action he had ever seen in his military service. He'd tell me things like "Were you born worthless, or did you have to work at it?" That's when he got confused with the movies. Or, "This is your trial by fire, boy!" Trial by fire? I'm pretty sure this is actually just hell.

It seems weird to call God, my stalker, my deliverer, my proverbial monkey on my proverbial back, Steve. Steve just doesn't sound deific. But then again, what deity really IS deific? Judging by the statues, Buddhism fully embraces the Sunday Buffet. I wonder why more old white people aren't Buddhists. They love buffets.

My hand brushes the cold metal of the revolver stuck in my belt. The rain keeps a beat. My heartbeat. Three-three time. Ever notice how many songs there are about rain? There's almost as many songs about rain as there are songs called "Breathe". I'm serious, browse through your local jukebox if you don't believe me. I'm holding my breath.

He's close. Oblivious passersby pass by inattentively. It's a good thing they can't see me. Or him. I'm not sure which one of us is more frightening, really.

I find my opportunity. He's staring at me, blankly, giving me this cocky "what do you think YOU'RE doing" look. "Leave me alone!" I shout. This gets some bystanders' attention for a second. I'm just a drunk bum to them. Since I'm not holding a crumpled up paper cup, I get no spare change. It's ok, they didn't have any.

I draw my weapon. That gets more people's attention. Everyone is asleep unless threatened. Man's base nature, survival. Not survival, fear. Fear of pain, fear of a cold empty death. Fear of loneliness. Fear, terror of God. I know them all. I devised them all.

My eyes burn from the sweat of my brow, but I cannot close them. I dare not. The pain dissipates my illusions, leaving me alone with what I would call my destiny if only it were more grandiose. I am fully aware of myself. I sense every drop of blood as it surges through my arteries and then through my veins. My blood and my breath are the only things that are keeping me alive now.

Without realizing it, I had already aimed my firearm. The mechanics of a revolver have always fascinated me. Or, they did, until I stopped caring. Until now. They say to squeeze the trigger, not pull it. I pull it anyway. I control my destiny.

The passersby are no longer passing. They are frozen in a ring around me. None of them help; they're all just standing there. I meet their eyes. Each one of them. I can't read their expressions. I never really could. Maybe it's a kind of illiteracy. I don't think they can read me either. I'm another language, one that's been out of use for too many years to tally.

I am amazed at the clarity of my thoughts. When you rid yourself of crushing uncertainty, the one obsession that haunts every man, your delusions turn to vapor, your fictions burn away like the morning sun burns fog. Could it be that everything I've wanted can be found here, at this moment of this lifetime? What if this isn't really what I wanted, but what, deep down, I needed. I see now. I require it more than I've ever needed a breath of air or a drop of water.

And all that remains is the desperate truth.

My mother isn't a tragic murder victim. She's a secretary. On her next birthday, she will be forty three years old.

My father isn't dead. He is alive and well, and works as a schoolteacher and minister in the middle of that landmass called the United States. He was barely 16 when the war in Vietnam ended. He has never, and will never own a gun. I'm not even sure he's ever touched a drop of alcohol, or said the word "gooks". He thinks Johnny Carson is a hack.

If this were a movie, right now is when the cheap techno-industrial song would begin playing. You know the one, right? With the simple drum loop and the repetitive guitar whose distortion is as crunchy as an underfoot light bulb?

Now, the rain lives on as my only compatriot. Steady and sure, I am reminded of its presence every second of every minute. If only mortals had been this trustworthy.

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