A Fragment of My Nightmares (In Installments)

This is the lowest point of my life and ironically I'm at the top of a 12 story building looking down at the end of my rope which looks remarkably like a noose. I'm about the worst person that I know and for some reason a lot of people think I'm a really nice guy. I'm an alcoholic, a bum, and an addict. I'm addicted to sex and porn of all varieties and all sorts of nifty intravenous drugs. When I say I'm an alcoholic I mean it in the most extreme way that can possibly be expressed. I black out as soon as the alcohol seeps into the porous membrane of my tongue, I become a complete asshole, and make horrible decisions, life and no. I haven't had a steady job, ever. I haven't worked. period. In about a year. I've been a whore. Yes, guys can be whores, too. I don't know how to manage money. I'm a slob. I've been a red card hustler. And I've given the members of my horde of sexual partners a rare variety of STDs, STIs, and broken hearts. Though I've never hit a woman, I've torn some of their dreams to pieces and emotionally gang-raped them on a whim.

I've already killed myself, not just metaphorically as with my hopes and dreams and chance at a bright shiny happy future, but really killed myself. They said that I was going to die, and then I miraculously survived. They said I should thank god, and then put me in a mental institution. Fuck god.

After I got out I felt a little better. No-- that's a lie. It was around that time that I was dating Sin, a miserable little bitch that slept with all of my friends. I was the idiot for always taking her back. actually, wait-- I wasn't dating her, "[she] was fucking me for the rent" (which is a direct quote) and this was one of those times that we were technically broken up so she could date this kid who looked exactly like me, no joke.
I guess that's not it either. I was dating her and She was using me. And I knew it. Deep down, I knew and I kept letting her cut away pieces of myself. Starting with my self-respect and ending with my life. No one can take your dignity but you.

I guess I never really got over Sin. I loved her for all that she was, evil, petty and fucked up. She had been raped by her uncle and his sons. At the tender age of 8 she stopped being a child. She was a whore for the tribes whom I can't really speak of for fear of death, well, I guess I can at this point. I'm not really talking to anyone but myself up her. I'll think about all of that later with the confabulations in my head playing all of the minor roles, and me the brilliant star.

I always wanted to be a star. I think everyone does at some point. Well, even if I kill myself I have my little slice of infamy. Really. I've walked around being homeless and sang in just about every major city in the US of A, and a bunch of random people told me I was really good. I even got a gig once where I got to play at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida. They bought my cd's and my tapes, which I kept in my knapsack, and I used their clean hard cash to buy dirty hard drugs, which I inserted into my veins in an attempt to flood my blood with nice fluffy warm morphine, anphetimenes, and cocain, and made hate to whoever happened to want to see me naked, which isn't that many girls and about ever gay guy on the planet.

Maybe that's why I liked Sin. She thought I was hot, and she was gorgeous. Or maybe I was just in love with her and that was what made her pretty. Alas, She's a dessicated shell of what she once was (just like me) and it's hard to tell if she's still good looking now when I stalk her on myspace, a veil of tears obscuring my vision as I flip through old photos of her sitting at my family's computer in my house wearing one of my too-big-for-her shirts plaid scratchy shirts, her hair pitch as night, her eyes as cold as a winter stream, and her cute little girl smirk, like she has secrets aplenty and will never, ever tell. Really she's just a compulsive liar, and a whore.       

She was easy, that's another reason I fell for her. It bothered me a little, that she slept with me on our second date, and was only 15 at the time, but I buried it, deep down in uncharted territories of Tom, where no one should ever venture. Well, I guess I'm there now. A little voice saying, someone who says "I can't believe we haven't slept together yet" after knowing you only two dates is most likely a little whore, but I took what I could get. Girls have never liked me, I mean a few have a lot but as a race they find me a little hard to deal with. They called me Creepy Tom in highschool. I played D & D, and wore sweat pants. My socks never matched. Once a friend slapped me for what I thought was no reason. It turned out I was wearing matching socks, "Who are you and what have you done with Tom."

I'm trying to remember when everything started it's trundle into the insanity and depressed me-a-sack-of-shit spiral. Ah, yes, when I started drinking. My mom is full irish (so is Sin) and had always told me that my grandfather (who died the year I was born and whom I never got to meet) was an alcoholic and that I should never start. At 10 to 15 I didn't think I would, but these things have a tendency of happening, especially in the small miserable little town of Daralect, Ak, where I was born and raised.

I've been through so much interesting shit. Almost none of it good. I've committed insurance fraud, hopped trains, climbed skyscrapers, stole cars, and played some truly rock'n shows. I've robbed people using nothing but my charisma so that they put the money into my outstretched hand, knowing they've been played but still walking away smiling. I've fucked guys, I've fucked girls, I've been in threesomes and made some internet porn that actually got a lot of views. I've met a slew of celebrities. I've harbored runaways, criminals, been a harbored criminal/runaway myself. I've done a bunch of shit I'll not even admit to myself for fear of disbelief. And it's all about to end as a bloody spatter on the sidewalk. Recognizable only by the dental records.

Maybe this is a bad Idea? Maybe I should get down from here? And go back to what? I'm a fucking homeless person at the tender age of 24. I don't have a fucking life to go back to. I made sure of that when I crashed my parents car and paraded through the house hitting on the highschool exchange students that were staying there. I'm a fucked up, broken hearted widow. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. I'm a widow. Me and Sin were married for a time. I even got to wear her necklace. She was a witch, you see, pagans have strange ideas of marriage. I got a tattoo. It meant different shit than she thought it did, but she was flattered all the same.

"This is all your fault bitch!" The words are torn from my mouth in a violent scream of anguish and hate and sorrow. The greatest part is she wouldn't even care. Last time I killed myself because of her, she was fucking my friend Jacob. On my bed. Isn't that awesome? I kill myself because my girlfriend is cheating on me, and what does she do? She cheats on me while I'm in the hospital wishing I could see her beautiful face just one last time. But I'm the idiot asshole who didn't dump her. My hustler friend, (who was practically my father) 'Cash', told me she stopped being my girl the first time, and just became a whore. He told me she was always a whore and I had never really been dating her. He told me a lot of shit about it and I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up but didn't for fear of getting shot. He was a real ganster. A really big bald black guy, with a pimp limp (from a gunshot wounded knee), and a cane. He ate chicken everyday. What else is new. Maybe that would have been better? To get what I deserve and go to hell by someone else's hand. Hell! Hah! what a childish fairy tale concept. It's fucked up that christians are nice (or act nice anyway) people because they are afraid of going to hell. Why can't people just be good people without having to be scared into it. Look at me! "Hahahah!" Another bellowing belly aching knee slapping laugh for that one!

Fuck, now I'm crying again. Why do the jokes always end in tears, nowadays? It's not funny. I think that the universe is ruled by irony, but I'm a crazy alcoholic drug addict loser so you should never, ever take my word on anything.

I was such a nice kid. There I go again. I was the horniest kid ever. jacking off all the time. trying to seduce old ladies. One time this woman crashed her bike on the hill behind my house because we carried gravel from the path and spread it all over the road. I raped my dog with a pen. I peed on my cat, I also put him in a box filled with pillows and threw it down the hill behind my house. What! I would have volunteered for something like that, it seemed like a fun idea at the time, I was even a little jealous. Speaking of the hill! The old man who lived below us. He was half-deaf. We rolled rocks down the hill, big rocks, which crashed into his house, and when he was finally roused we would hide behind trees listening to his retarded sounding roar and his 'funny' sounding words, that no one else would say to us or even attempt to define. I think that kids are inherently evil. But maybe most people haven't had my childhood experiences. I was never raped or anything like that. (Not like Sin. Man, they had a hayday on THAT bitch. But we're talking about me. We. It's just me up here. She's probably one of my personalities I dwell on her so much, becoming more real in my head than me.) I got beat up a lot. I got tied up. duct-taped. I've always been really skinny. Like, REALLY skinny. when we did that body fat ratio test in P.E. in high school, my teacher told me that I should be dead. No joke.

I saw him earlier: Mr. Barrowi. He didn't recognize me in all my homeless regalia. rags. shit/puke/who-knows-what stains. yellowing teeth jutting from receding bleeding gums. I say I saw him, because I'm quite positive he didn't see me. If you have ever wanted to be invisible like in Hallow Man just become a bum and you'll see what it's like. Sometimes it's really cool, others not so much: when you're sleeping under a bridge; when you haven't showered in weeks; when you can never seem to get dry or warm; when you can never, ever get out of debt and you're sooo very lonely. That's probably the worst part of driving off all of your family and friends. The loneliness. The aching need to reach out and touch a person that isn't some other filthy stinking bum, or crackhead, or whore. A real decent person.

Who am I talking to? Who are you?

You silly. I'm your soul.

Whatever, I don't have a soul.

Tom. You're fooling yourself. look at your life. you're not really that bad of a person. and neither was Sin. You're both just confused and scared in this fucked up world. No one is a saint, no one is perfect.