Posted by NL on September 21, 2004 at 12:15:19:
Worst Story Entrant-- for the archive
The Iron Horse
Yawrbilly had once been a fairly intelligent young man, but he suffered progressive degeneration of the brain. He was not so far gone that he could not see the decline. In fact, though he could not tell anyone about it (because he was no longer articulate enough to tell anybody much about anything) there seemed to be an island in his brain, surrounded by oceans of desuetude. He stood on that island sometimes, all alone, with a light breeze ruffling his hair, and marked the passage of the tides, observing the slow but persistent advance of the high water mark. It was a ring of scum, like a bathtub ring. That ring was the line of death, of brain death.
Boy oh boy, did he ever feel like shit. It was so hard to keep things together. That cheap wine last night probably gave the disease an extra boost. But by golly, if there was going to be rot, let there be royal rot. Start the day with some vitamins and a fresh apple. In the bathroom, because of the coldness of the season and the lack of insulation in his cheap garage apartment, condensation dripped from the window sill and misted all the walls. Fungus of some sort, like a black fuzzy mold, grew on the baseboards. Everything must be rotting, everything must rot, he mused. Oh, what a choice he made. Once, before the onset of disease (still not properly diagnosed) he'd prepared himself to be a writer, but it became obvious he had no talent. He made everything he wrote boring and predictable, even the fantastic things he wrote, even the smashing crashing tales of intergalaxy adventure, were boring, and so poorly constructed you couldn't tell one character from another. To do that, to write such execrable crap with such sincerity, one had to be a really horrible no-talent. And maybe he had no talent for the relatively simple game of life as well. Maybe his instincts led him to choose such a dwelling so that in time interior conditions would mimic exterior conditions. It would have been just like him. Then he and his "house" could fall down together, like Usher and his house, except he didn't own the place and would probably be evicted soon. How dare he compare himself to Roderick Usher anyway, a great man? Or to Lou Gherig, who gave his name to a disease that might very well be Yawrbilly's disease?
After responding to what he'd have described in his fiction as a "call of nature" and wolfing down a fistfull of vitamins, he considered whether it might be worthwhile to make a little breakfast. He still had some pork sausages left from last night, but he'd found a hog bristle in one of the greasy patties and just thinking about it made him want to puke. Why must he eat such terrible swill, especially since he probably didn't have long to live? Why not become a holy vegetarian, and dine on the humble green things? Well, he'd think about it. Think about it! Oh gawd! In the meantime he would brew some tea. Hot tea, of course, would have a pernicious effect on the vitamins just taken, or at least, that was his theory. They'd dissolve too fast, and enter his system too fast. That could make him sick. That could even poison him! No, forget about the tea. Forget about everything. What he really needed, short of an artificial replacement brain, was something sweet. He craved cold cola drinks. There lay the true genesis of hangovers-- hypoglycemia in an acute phase. Get that blood sugar stabilized, and the hangover would evaporate. Gatoraide was probably the best specific remedy for hangover ever devised. Aspirin was no good because it irritated the stomach lining. Carbonated drinks did the same, though they supplied needed sugar. Gatoraide soothed the stomach, supplied glucose and electrolytes. Drinking depleted potassium and sodium-- these essentials were all pissed away, and those elements were so vital for nerve function! Yes, they were even vital for vigor. Really, he could make a great sales pitch for Gatoraide. It was one thing he felt he could sell and not compromise his integrity. But for him all such thoughts were futile. "God HEP me," he said, using his voice for the first time that day. Not very articulate! And there was his greatest sorrow! He was losing his powers of expression. Everytime he opened his mouth, the words that fell out appalled his inner self, the self still untouched on its shrinking island. Sometimes he talked to himself, impulsively. He seemed to be doing that more than usual lately. He sang a little song: "Oh brew a cup uh tea, and watch-- the water fall!" He had in mind urination, which cups of tea stimulated. And then: "Alas, alas, I have no ass, I sold it to a Jeeeew..." Something led him to recall a Bob Dylan song. But then he sang: "Con-den-say-yay-yay-yay-TION!" This was his Condensation Song, all of it, that he sang whenever he saw the bathroom and bedroom walls, sweated all fall and winter long and by spring absolutely covered with black fungus. He knew what he was up to. These were infantilisms. For all he knew, in times to come, he would add his own quota of dew to the misted walls, by pissing against them. As he dressed, he looked around his little dwelling, at his few remaining possessions. His guitars were gone, because he had lost the muscular control and coordination required to play them. He still had his typewriter because he had always been a lousy typist, and the loss of maybe half of his brain could not even degrade what little had been there all along. Though he still typed a little, the words were going. Before the disease he thought he had been on the verge of a real breakthrough, and maybe at last he had the key, the key unlocking the secrets of fiction. Maybe at last he could make a decent living as a free lance writer. Now he could not even read his own notes anymore. He could make out the words, he still understood most of them, but the attitudes, the ego and self-delusion were more than he could bear. "Wotta prick," he'd sometimes say, of that pre-disease self. "Wotta asshole."
Since he wasn't going to have breakfast, due to his hangover, and not tea, due to his confusion, he was going to see his doctor instead. Maybe that would be the best thing, because last visit Dr. Glick had intimated that she would begin a new but dangerous course of treatment. That sounded interesting. It sounded like fun. Besides, Dr. Glick had big tits. He was not so far gone that he could not appreciate big tits.
Yawrbilly was not supposed to be driving anymore, but he did it anyway. The last time, when he showed up at the clinic in his pickup, those who knew of his condition tsked tsked at him. But the worse he got the less he could see any reason not to drive, and the more he enjoyed driving. He seemed to be driving better than ever. His approach to traffic problems seemed more direct and impulsive, which seemed to earn respect from his fellow drivers. He even had a little song for the road. It went like this: Yo ho ho, you bastards. Yo ho ho. Yes, let some stupid so-and-so get in his way and by Christ he'd run them down. He'd mash them flat. And as he groused and cursed his way through the traffic, hurling his battered blue '65 Chevy pickup this way and that, he realized that this was what his road song was all about. Fuck 'em all. And let GOD sort them out! His mood grew sour. It was hard to remain cheerful, suffering what he suffered.
Darkness fell, and it was late autumn, a time of year when Yawrbilly in happier times would feel the presence of the old, true, gods of man, the bloodthirsty ones, the ones who could be pleased best by blood rites. He was still amazed by Dr. Glick's suggested therapy. It was all written down in simple words. Whenever he examined the sheet of paper he'd been given in the clinic, visions of Dr. Glicks's tits got in the way. She seemed always to be so sad, and so kind. So what if it was the research aspect that interested her? He could spell out the words, and he could even read them, and he did, outloud, in his chilly apartment, even as the light dimmed. The words sort of swam around in the gathering dark, but he could read:
Dearest Yawrbilly, as you must realize when you are not dazzled by my big tits, the brain is not by any means a reality-seeking instrument. It is a crude tool for the construction of fantasies-- fantasies much like your godawful fiction. If in your fantasies you shred my big tits into bloody rags of meat with an instrument like one of my scalpels, or do other savage things to my beautiful body I can only say, more power to you. In fact, have your fun. Eviscerate me! Stamp upon my female guts, celebrate, celebrate, the spillage of my blood! In fact, I am yours, and you are mine. You have very little mind left. But your body, despite excessive drinking, methamphetamines, and a chaotic diet, is still quite impressive and in my own fantasies you take me by force and fuck me fore and aft, and, yes, you cut me severely with one of my scalpels and I bleed and scream and cum like a demon. Surprised? You should be. You must realize by now that you are as isolated as any human being can be. I never wrote any of this shit. And I never saw you today. I've never seen you. I don't exist.
Wow! That was true. It was those fictional ambitions again, an overactive but essentially boring imagination fueled by meth and Mad-Dawg 20-20, that insidious jewish invention for exterminating the most goyish of the goyim! Good God! How much of that shit had he guzzled last night-- last evening? He knew it was rotgut-- hold a fresh bottle up to the light and there were always little things floating in it, like strands of rockcandy, strings of weird crystals. But it sure was good for a cheap drunk. Add the meth for a more interesting experience. But, if I was really dieing of a brain disease, Yawrbilly thought, would it be so much different? No, it would only be kind of nobler. I'd get some sympathy as a victim, instead of being a fucking loser slowly killing himself.
The day was really about over. Now was the time for a normal person to go to bed, but he was was just then sobering up. This was the time to take a stand on that island, let the wind ruffle the hair, smell the rotting things in the black ocean, and mark the high tide line, which was closer to his chapped and reddened bare feet, again. The tide always came in higher. He wondered how it would feel to drown.
A quick trip to the package store before it closed got another fifth of Mad Dawg, but there was no more money for meth, alas! Yawrbilly turned up his hissing space heater, the blue and red and yellow flames danced, the ceramic elements in the heater glowed cheerily red, and he bent to his typewriter:
"Yawrbilly had once been a fairly intelligent young man, but he suffered progressive degeneration of the brain. He was so far gone he could not see the decline... "