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So last night I arrive home from seeing a zombie movie and I am all by myself, except for the fish, which is usually the way I like it. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and I wanted to sing some songs or make interesting conversations with shadows but then I remember the fish. I am a fish person now, a man of great responsibility. "C'mon Arnold, we're going out!" By this point I have renamed the fish Arnold. So it's just the two of us on the front porch and already past midnight. I'm smoking and telling the fish about the wonders of beer. "You see Dwight (I had renamed the fish Dwight); you drink this, and all of a sudden all your problems melt away like a hound in a kennel fire. Wait, that's not a good example, but just take my word for it Enson." (I had renamed the fish Enson) The highlight of the night must have been when that guy walking his dog walked by and I challenged his dog to fight my fish. He did not accept, therefore he must have been scared. Me and the fish felt good about that. I renamed the fish Champ. And the beer was cold.Mornings catch up too soon for me these days. 35 missed calls, two text messages and three voicemails. The girl always made me pay for it when I leave my phone all by itself. And 5 minutes later she is already walking up my stairs. "Whattup shnookums" She has a vicoden haze in her movements and every word is pained. She is searching my room for contraband. I am a victim in my own home!"Where's the alcohol?!" she screams."I drank it all, the fish told me too!" I made a mental note to rename the fish 'Button'."How much?!""Eighteen gallons!" I may have exaggerated, but I was angry. Where was my peace if not in my own room? "Get in bed, you look like shit.""I took too much vicoden last night.""Just get in bed."So she did, and that was nice, searching once again for the peace which I had before her arrival. But she's stubborn as hell, and demands she cannot rest at my place, so against my better judgment I let her go home again. But she's on the phone, as always, and we're fighting again, as always. I was trying to break plans with her so I could spend some time with my family and she is flipping out. My aunt and uncle are going back to Florida in two days and I wanted to see them. But she is crazy, and making up crazy words, and I was beginning to feel a panic attack. "Calm down!" she tries to tell me, but I don't want to calm down. She had worked me into hysterics. She wants to talk about everything and I can't stand all the meaningless words, they just frighten and mock me. "Everything is going to be fine," she says trying to sooth me. "I don't want everything to be all right. I want buildings to collapse and planes to crash! I want there to be more orphans and homeless people! I am so upset now and you won't leave me in peace!"Luckily she was already home and passing out from medication and sickness, so that got me off the hook for spending like a zillion more hours with her on the phone. "Fuck this shit Freddy," (I renamed the fish Freddy). I didn't want to have a girlfriend or a family or even a single friend in the universe after that. I was so upset and dizzy, and screw everything else.Out came the whiskey. Just me, the bottle, and the fish. Drinking makes me a shitty thinker, so I have forgotten the fish's name very early into this latest episode of binging, but that didn't stop him from making turns in his little plastic cube. He swam up, he swam down, he was wonderful. The drink was wonderful. My air conditioning was wonderful. Everything was so wonderful, and then my eyes closed.The events that happened next are not so clear. But even a person in a completely sober state or reckoning would have a hell of a time keeping up with this tornado. I remember screaming, absolute bottom of the throat shrieking. And I thought, well this isn't peaceful at all. She had come back, found me and the bottle. I was the only one in bed though. There was no snuggling or kisses, or any of that good stuff. She was screaming, and pouring my wonderful bottle of whiskey all over everything! My floor, my clothes, my bed. Then in a dramatic Tour de' force she flips open the window and hurls the bottle out the window."I can't believe you threw out that good drink." I was getting up and stretching out after my initial blast of adrenaline had wretched me from bed."WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING THIS TO YOURSELF!" She screamed. "Why are you doing this to me?" I asked back. Then she hit me in the face, twice. Later she admitted that she really hurt her hand doing so, and that kind of made me proud. I asked her to hit me again, she obliged. It kind of felt nice, I haven't been physically assaulted in a long time. Naw, but I didn't hit her, I came close to later on, but I haven't gotten to that part yet.So we're screaming, and she is throwing everything she can get her hands on at me. But I just keep on telling her things she doesn't want to hear on purpose because I was getting deeply disturbed. "Don't you love me?" she asks, "Less and less every day!" I scream. Which really isn't true, because in hindsight this fight was pretty fun. Usually we argue, just talking, and that is so draining. Now things were airborne, I was getting bruises on my arms, and my face was still sore; it all seemed so much more productive like this.For some reason I think she could pick up that hurting me really wasn't doing the trick to hurt me enough. She ran off and I found her in the kitchen cutting up my license. "This is so you can't buy any more alcohol!" "Dammit woman, you're nuts absolutely nuts." I admired her thinking, but any of the places I buy alcohol from already know me from frequent visits, nice try though honey. Now my wallet is a mess, and I have to go stand in line at the RMV. I think I will take her, just so she has to go through that torture with me. But I am trying to put back my wallet, and my hung over mind, just trying to get an understanding of what the fuck was going on. Everything was so perfect only 15 minutes earlier. Now everything was a mess, and everyone was yelling. I got back to my room and I noticed among the missing and wrecked, that there was no water in the fish bowel."Baby, where's the fish?""I flushed him down the toilet!""YOU FLUSHED HIM DOWN THE TOILET?!?!? WHAT KIND OF FUCKING CRAZY BITCH ARE YOU?!? HOW CAN YOU FLUSH A FISH DOWN THE TOILET?!?!?" Sure enough, I checked, and there was heaps of fish gravel still at the bottom of my toilet bowel. Now I was ready to hit her. That was my companion, my amigo. Let it be said that I believe his last name before death was Samson. But I'm too much of a pushover, I can't hit her, what the heck is that going to solve. Even though she looked like she was having a good time when she hit me."I'll be back at six, (it was five at the time) sleep and sober up.""I'll let you hit me again if you agree to come back at seven.""I'll be back at six!" And then she was gone.What the hell had happened? It was like a thunder strike, or some other act of god that came down to destroy my little room in my little life. It's all I really want, just a little room all to myself, I don't want to bother anyone else, just mind my business and go on trying to save my sanity like the rest of everyone. I locked every damn door and window in the place. I was still wearing my pajamas, and I just threw on an old shirt, probably soaked in whisky along with everything else. I grabbed a pillow and just walked out of there, I walked all the way down to the park. "Why is everyone else so crazy?" I thought. Why are there younger brothers, and clouds with letters in them? Why is a tree only a tree? And what if a tree was more than a tree? Why can't the ice-cream man deliver? And where was my peace? I looked for it under a small tree in the park. Just me, the pillow and no crazy woman around making noises and flushing friends down the toilet.