CHAPTER 5: THE MANIFESTO OF ALAN POTTER, PART 2

When dismembering a body, you tend to hear a lot of familiar sounds but in a strange context. A lot of them are sounds that you don’t really think about when you hear them in day to day life, but the associations can’t be ignored when you’re cutting up a body, especially for the first time. Human cartilage sounds a lot like the pieces of a chicken when you separate it from the rest of the bird at the dinner table. Cutting flesh and muscle is very similar in both sound and feel to carving raw cuts of meat. Hearing these sounds and feeling these feelings in this new and delightfully gruesome setting I felt very alive, perhaps for the first time in my life. The adrenaline shooting through my body fueled me through all the cutting and hacking and bagging and hauling; adrenaline and a little encouragement from my brother, but we will talk more about him later.

I’m sure you’re wondering how we got from Monday at work to 11PM Wednesday, and my new found love of human dismemberment. I do suppose some backtracking is in order.

I got the call about my daughter’s car accident shortly after noon. My ex-wife Samantha called me from the hospital. Normally I would be thrilled for any excuse to leave early from the soul crushing banality that is my job, but there was no joy in learning that Erica had been in a car accident. Samantha assured me that there were no life threatening injuries but I still pushed my shitty little Volkswagen beyond the boundaries of speed and safety on the public roads in arriving at the hospital. I nearly clipped an ancient looking beast of a woman in her Buick on my way into the parking lot.

When I burst into the ER I thought Samantha’s jaw might hit the floor. Although my elaborate daily forgery of personality could hide my demons from my boss and most of my coworkers, it never did work on Samantha. She could tell just with a look that I was out of sorts, on not in the way a typical father would be checking on his daughter at the hospital. I hated the way she was looking at me. It was a look she gave me often ever since our split. Sam gave me a look of sadness most of the time, as if she was constantly in a state of mourning for the perceived loss of the person she imagined I used to be. Early on it took the form of pity, but in the three years since our divorce was finalized, the look had slowly shifted to one of contempt, bordering on hatred, as if it was my fault for continuing to exist and reminding her of what once was.

“Jesus Alan. You look like shit,” Sam said.

“Please, not now,” I said. “How’s Erica?”

“She’s ok. She’s sleeping now,” Sam said. “Sprained elbow and some whiplash, but no long term injuries.” I went into Erica’s room and kissed her on the forehead. No matter how tormented I felt, Erica always brought me some measure of peace. She is the one good thing I’ve done with train-wreck of a life.

Because Erica was asleep and the pain meds would likely keep her that way for most of the day I left the hospital quickly. I had no desire to remain for the inevitable conflict with Samantha and I despise hospitals. I’ve always found them wildly unsettling; husks and shells of human beings lumbering around in open-assed dresses, or laying in beds with uncomfortable sheets, waiting for the reaper to claim them. No thank you. When it is my time to go, give me a quick death, or even the type of death I have given people in the last week or so. I’d rather be ripped to shreds by a pack of wild animals than to slowly deteriorate in a white room being constantly assaulted by a swelling sense of inevitability and the overwhelming stench of death and disinfectant.

I exited the death-factory and encountered the cursed ball of oppression you call the sun, its ability to maul my sense of sight having grown since I was inside. I put on my shades and decided that, having already been excused from work for the day, I’d find a place to get a bit faded. I phoned up Marty, my best friend in the world, who suggested O’Fallon’s, although he wouldn’t be free for several hours. We set a time for 7PM, and I went home to take a nap.

I arrived for my rendezvous with Marty at almost exactly the appointed time. O’Fallon’s is a typical dive that tries and fails to pass itself off as an Irish pub. The tacky shamrocks and the Irish name attempt to hold together the illusion, but in reality the place bears almost no resemblance to the neighborhood pubs one might find in Dublin. Still, the place is clean enough, the tap list is respectable, and it relatively cheap. Marty and I shared many a pint in O’Fallon’s during the course of our friendship.

I found Marty finishing the last swallow of his first beer or possibly second beer. When he noticed me walking up he rose and embraced me in the typical bro-hug that never failed to irritate the living shit out of me.

“What’s up bro?” Marty asked with a fair bit of tipsy enthusiasm. “I haven’t seen you in a hot minute.” Marty’s speech patterns matched his deliberately tossed looking hair. I remembered with amusement how a girl he was hitting on a few weeks back remarked that nobody in landlocked state had ever seemed so constantly prepared to go surfing.

“I see you are still aspiring toward that unemployed beach bum actor look. How long until you buy a van and find yourself living in it out in LA?” I asked at least half-jokingly.

“Hey man, beats that corporate douche-suit you’re always stuck in you crypt-keeper looking motherfucker,” Marty jabbed back. We both laughed.

For the next few hours I felt like the person I used to be. I was happy, enjoying drinks with my friend, but feeling no need to drown in them. We talked of good times past and aspirations for the future as if we were still wide-eyed and hopeful twenty-somethings rather than the walking mid-life crisis posters we had become. It was all good beer and good times, at least until Marty received a very suspicious text. I witnessed him look at his phone and suddenly his eyes had a difficult time meeting mine.

“Booty call?” I inquired.

“Not exactly,” Marty replied, suddenly seeming so uncomfortable that I thought he would squirm out of his skin. It was very odd. Marty was man-whore, not typically averse to filling me in on every detail of his sexual conquests, but whoever was messaging him that night, it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk about it. Perhaps he was turning over a new leaf.

“I’ve gotta get outta here broseph,” he said. “I got the tab.” I wasn’t going to turn down the offer so we said our goodbyes and headed for the door. It wasn’t until I got to my car for my very ill-advised drunk drive home that it happened.

“He’s lying to you.” I heard the words as clear as any conversation of my life. I even glanced around to be sure, but I was completely alone. “Follow him. He’s lying,” the disembodied voice hissed. I didn’t even think about it, I just listened. My car slid in two cars behind Marty’s and I followed him all the way to my ex-wife’s house. When I witnessed their passionate kiss at the front door I knew without a doubt that this was not the first time.

I still loved her.  Our marriage ended years ago, but I am very much of the opinion that love never truly dies.  Seeing Sam and Marty kiss might as well have been as icepick driven into my heart.  Ex-wives are generally free to do what they please and I am not so lacking in self-awareness that I think I should have a say in who she dates, but I felt my best friend should still be off limits.  Her betrayal went right to the heart of me, but his triggered a response less laden with sadness and more fueled by rage.  That primal, cave-man instinct that lives within all of us began constructing a rage in me that built minute by minute.  It grew from the closing of the front door and swelled uncontrollably as I saw their silhouettes intertwined in the window of what used to be my bedroom.

I ceased all conscious and rational processing of my actions as I exited my car and walked purposefully toward the front door.  I felt my heartbeat in my temples as my vision narrowed.  My fine motor skills all but disappeared as I fumbled for the key I maintained to the house in case of co-parenting emergencies.  My fingers eventually managed to insert the key and turn the lock as the background noise of the night evaporated into oppressive silence.

I picked up speed ascending the stairs and as I kicked my way through the bedroom door the voice from before pumped violent laughter throughout my skull.  Unfortunately, the next thing I remembered was waking up in the hospital, handcuffed to the bed.  All of my righteous anger didn’t prevent Marty from kicking my ass.

Next Chapter: Chapter 6: HOME