This may have been a bad idea.
It seemed funny at the time, although I’m not sure why anymore.
I read in a book once, can’t remember the title, that if you make a suicide attempt you have a free pass out of school for a few months. School’s not that bad, really, just boring. This seemed like a good idea at the time…
But the knock at the door wasn’t my mom, and I can’t get the belt untied from here. I hope she comes home soon.
God, this was a really bad idea.
When I came home, I was still laughing. A brand new house, factory sealed and ready for inhabitants. Even the water was hooked up and working, which made it that much easier to loosen the seals and flood the place. Thousands of dollars worth of damage~ they may have to tear it down and start from scratch. We almost got caught, too~ the rent-a-cops pulled up just as we were booking it home. We had to hide in the little fort we made, dug into the ground and covered with camo net and branches. We could hear them screaming into their radios, calling for backup while they tried to figure out how to turn off the water. Fucking pigs. Make ‘em work for their paycheck, instead of sitting in their patrol cars jerking off to kiddie porn.
Will was supposed to help, too, but he wasn’t home when we went over to get him. Oh, well, next time. We will definitely have to do that again some time. Much more entertaining than tomato sauce on the stucco-
Why are the lights on? The parents should have been asleep ages ago.
I closed the door behind me, quietly, trying in vain to get to my room before they heard me. Not that it really made a lot of difference~ we stayed out until all hours of the night on a regular basis, and they never cared so long as we didn’t get into trouble. And since we never got caught, we never got into trouble.
‘Chris?’
Shit.
‘Chris, honey, will you come in here, please? Se have to talk to you about something.’
I stuck my head in the doorway, looking pointedly annoyed. ‘I’m really tired. We were running. Can this wait?’ ‘Running’ was free running, or parkour. It involves scaling buildings, jumping from one to another, and most importantly knowing how to fall. Some friends and I had taken it up recently and it made for a wonderful excuse whenever I was out late; since most of these sorts of activities constitute trespassing they have to be done at night. To this day I have no idea, given how strict my parents were about everything else, why they were always ok with this particular hobby.
They were both pale, sitting stiffly in their chairs, hands folded in their laps. Mom looked as if she’d been crying. I mentally ran through the list of things they might want to discuss~ books and movies I shouldn’t have, things of questionable legality they may have discovered. I’m pretty good at covering my tracks, but you never know.
‘Sit down.’
I didn’t move, except to shift the backpack I always carried from one hand to another. I made my face expectant, with a hint of impatience.
They were silent for a moment, and my stomach tightened. For god’s sake, get on with it.
‘Honey, it’s Will. They- his parents found him about an hour ago….’
I don’t clearly remember going to my room and barricading the door. I do remember my father pounding on it with a force I didn’t know he possessed. ‘Chris open the door. Now. We need to talk about this. You need to talk about this. OPEN THIS DOOR.’
I didn’t, of course. I was shaking uncontrollably at this point, unable to move even enough to take off my jacket let alone walk the hundred miles to the door and somehow get it open again. Not that I would have anyway.
They decided to station themselves in the hallway, taking turns muttering useless clichés about how all things work together for good and other such drivel. I’m assuming that’s what they said, anyway. Moments, or hours, or days passed before I was able to put on my headset, the soothing sounds of black metal pummeling my eardrums. I’m sure I thought about something, I’m sure I cried. I’m sure I was hungry at some point, and needed to pee, I’m sure I picked up my cards and started to practice some new techniques I’d learned. This last, at least, I know for sure because it was weeks before the blisters and gashes healed enough for me to pick them up again. I must have shuffled and cut and dealt and fanned for days.
After a while, I don’t know how long, I did leave my room. The parents had left for work, and the brother was… well, no one cares where he was. I certainly didn’t, so long as he wasn’t where I happened to be.
The hallway to the kitchen seemed much longer than it had even when I was small. There was a small plate of food in the fridge~ an uncommon display of consideration on the part of my mother. I ate without heating it up and then, still more than a little dazed, chose the strongest belt I could find in my father’s closet and shut my door.
That’s how Will had done it~ with a belt. He was much shorter than I, though, and the rod in the closet wasn’t high enough for me to swing properly. I racked my brain for other options.
I must have gotten angry then~ angry at Will, at myself, at anything that was handy. The usual stage of grief, I suppose, only this, too, is merely a black period akin to those during a night of especially heavy drinking. I needed new furniture though, and new clothes and the window had to be replaced. Everything had to be replaced, so thoroughly had I destroyed whatever was unfortunate enough to find its way into my hands. My parents were not pleased, but they said nothing. I suppose they were preferred the destruction to the anticipated alternative.
The worst part, though, was the coming weeks. Everyone tiptoed around me as if I’d been the one who tried to off myself. I went with some friends to visit his mom. She was an understandable wreck, but we all were, I suppose, so we just sat there in our mutual grief and played the game, saying the things we were supposed to say and leaving when the script ran out. Thing is, I don’t think anyone- even his mother- was taking it as hard as I was, myself. But maybe that’s an arrogant thing to say. I don’t care. I’m still pretty sure it’s true.
After the funeral I started spending more time with my brother and his friends. Mindless conversation with people who hadn’t known Will was vastly preferable to being around people who had. But one can only stand mindlessness for so long, and gradually I retreated into myself, into my books and cards. I made a point of showing up to church functions, not that I was given an option, but suddenly the absence of connection to these people and things that had once been so important became painfully obvious~ to me, at least. I don’t want to say that part of me died with Will. That’s overly dramatic and ridiculous. But the thread that joins people is fine and fickle and that had snapped with the belt when they cut him down.
I’ve always been very self-aware. It’s a bit of a weakness, in a way. Anything and everything is examined and analyzed ad nauseam in even the most insignificant of situations and this tendency took hold of my mind with such force that even had I been so inclined I could not have controlled it. I was not so inclined, as it happened, and after some years of dedicated effort the effects began to show, if only to me.
Everyone has a moment of crisis in their lives, a moment that alters them irreparably. Most people don’t encourage this change. Most people don’t decide in advance who they want to become, what path they wish to take, at such a young age. Who they become is usually a by-product of years of living, not the result of a carefully executed methodical formula.
‘You do like her though, right?’
Shrug ‘Yeah, sure. I mean she’s hot and all so, why not?’ I grinned.
‘So ask her out.’
‘I don’t want a relationship, though. You know that. I’m going to be a bachelor.’
‘No one said you had to marry her.’
I laughed. ‘Well obviously. Ok how about this: I’ll flip a coin. Heads, I ask her out. Tails, I don’t.’
Lucas laughed too. ‘Oh, that’s real nice. Alright, go for it.’
I flipped. Heads. I grinned and dialed her number. ‘Hey, Sarah, it’s Chris. I was just wondering…’
‘She said yes?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Of course she said yes. Who do you think you’re talking to, here?’
‘I think that’s worth at least one man point.’ Years ago the 4 of us- Lucas, Dan, Mathews (whose first name was Jerry, but because of me no one in the youth group at church called him that) and myself- had developed a point system based on the manliness of a given act, covering everything from casual asides to sex and whatever else came up that seemed manly. At any given time everyone was certain that he was winning. What they invariably failed to take into account was that I never lose. Not that it made any real difference, and no one got anything if they won, but even so.
‘1? What kind of shit is that? It’s worth at least 5. I’ve been messing with her for weeks now. One minute she thinks I’m in love with her, and the next she’s in tears. I could call her back and say ‘o by the way, I’ve been fucking your sister for the past month. We’re still on for Friday though, right?’ and she’d cry, maybe, but she’d be there.’
‘Dude, that’s kind of fucked up. I mean, you’re treating her like shit.’
‘O i am not. Just having a little fun. I’ll be nicer now that we’re together, I guess. Maybe.’ I laughed. Lucas shook his head. He didn’t approve of my games, but that’s because he couldn’t play them. He’s always the one on the leash, bending over backwards for a girl who would, in all likelihood, leave him for me if I so chose. I wouldn’t do that, of course, because he’s my friend. But if not for me they always leave him for someone else. Always. I would teach him how to play, but… well, if I did that I couldn’t manipulate him as well. And really, with someone like Lucas, if you’re going to spend any kind of time with him, you really have to know how to maintain control of the situation. Otherwise he throws a fit when he doesn’t get what he wants, and you have to try to pacify him… He might as well be a girl in that respect. So I don’t teach him, and he complains that I’m mean to women. Maybe I am, but I tend to look at it as a social experiment. I like to see how people react under different circumstances. It’s research.
The problem is, sometimes I get sucked in. Every once in a while I realize I’m beginning to genuinely care about the person and it’s a struggle to regain control. I have to distance myself, disappear to think, to read, to contemplate, and then I can return, once more in full control. Women don’t tend to like this, and despite my mastery of the art of lying occasionally they suspect that I’m not telling them everything. I always have to laugh at this, later, because if they were aware of the full scope of things they know nothing about… Well, I won’t allow that to happen. And all you need is a little doubt. They can catch you red-handed at something and with a few choice words and some Oscar-worthy acting you’re not only back in their good graces but usually they’ll give you a few extra brownie points to boot.
In this way I can maintain a relationship for exactly as long as it suits me. The desire to appear ‘normal’, to avoid drawing attention to myself, demands that I have the occasional girlfriend. Appearing normal is of the utmost importance. Moderately preppy clothes, hobbies and interests that, while not strictly common, are not seen as deviant in any way, a solid group of friends with varying degrees of insight into who I am beneath the bullshit~ such things are indispensable. I have, of course, made mistakes in regards to who I share my real passions with, but no mistake is so grave that it cannot be managed and eventually rectified.
For instance, only a few people know that Machiavelli’s The Prince and The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green are my bibles. These are the philosophies that have shaped my life, because during my months of introspection, it was these works that seemed to be the most truthful, the most real, and the most conducive to my eventual rule of the known world.
This, of course, is my ultimate goal. I have conditioned myself to be a man of power, and so shall I be. And if not the world as a whole, I will undoubtedly rule my corner of it~ this I can guarantee.
illogical labyrinths 