Posted by Real Rache on September 19, 2005 at 21:20:01:
Copyright 2005 Rachael Ross all rights reserved.
Author’s Note: This is a fictional story. Any resemblance to persons, events, or locations is pure coincidence. On the other hand…In the words of my old friend Jules, “Are you finished? Yeah? Well, allow me to retort…” -rr
PS...I did NOT reply to Jackal on the NB Public Board, so while I appreciate your efforts to defend me. I don't respond to those (usually) so um, just pick a different person to save. Okay? Thanks. -rr
The Lonely Death of Jack L.
By rache
The mornings were the worst. The surprise of it, waking up as himself, as if he’d had a good reason to believe he wouldn’t. Jack L…Jack Lazarus rising from the dead. Not reincarnated at all. He’d been dreaming of his father again.
“Do you know what disappointment is, Jackie Lad?” His father always called him that. “It’s when you see your kid grow a personality that you don’t much care for.” His father was fading fast with the sunrise. “That’s real disappointment.”
Jack sits on the toilet. Not because he needs to, but it gives him an excuse to read his book. He rubs his eyes, feeling the little flecked bits of morning sleep like grains of sand across his tired face. He opens the book at random. It was his doctor’s idea. His therapist, a real head shrinker. Jack L. for Lobotomy.
“Take this book, read a little every morning, Jack. Just read a page or two, not much, and think about it.” He’d thrust a skinny paperback into Jack’s unprepared hands. It was called ‘The Lazy Man’s Guide to Self-Help.’
Jack read it aloud, but softly, and his voice echoed off the porcelain and tiles and glass in his bathroom so that there were many voices and many Jack’s and they talked all at once.
“Everyone is special. Everyone is unique. I am special and unique. I am a Listener. When I am listening to another person, I am proving my self-worth. It is a shared experience and builds a better world around me. It elevates and…” Jack read for five minutes and then stood, pulling up his boxers and flushing the toilet out of habit, rather than necessity.
“The best part of you ran down your mama’s legs.” Jack looks around, but the voice is gone. Nobody here but Jack L. “L for Lochia, don’tcha know!” And Jack looks at his book, frowning.
He replaces the book in the small wicker basket on the floor, alongside his old weather beaten copies of Hustler and Penthouse that he’s thrown away several times, but always rescues later. They are his guides to self-help too, but he doesn’t read them aloud. And they really don’t help all that much either.
“She’s special. She’s unique. I’m special and unique and she wouldn’t give me the time of day. I’m a Looker. When I’m looking at her, I’m worthless and immaterial. There is no experience, no world we share. It lowers me…”
Jack licks his lips and puts his magazines out of his mind.
Jack stands in front of the mirror now. He isn’t an ugly man. Nor is he particularly handsome. He is bland and mediocre and eminently forgettable. He stares at himself, memorizing his face and practicing his smiles, again on good advice from his doctor. He has a smile for almost any occasion now. Good news, greetings, and jokes that aren’t particularly funny. (“Hey Jack, what has four legs and gives blowjobs? You and your mother! Ha-ha”) He has smiles for birthdays, weddings, and funerals, and even when he needs to be patronizing. He is particularly good at patronizing people with a smile and it’s strikingly similar to his self-deprecating smile. That’s the one he uses most.
Once his face is properly exercised he opens the medicine cabinet and reaches for his toothbrush, but it’s the gun that draws his gaze. He isn’t supposed to have it, he knows, but there it is all the same. Jack ignores his toothbrush and lifts the weapon carefully, massaging it in his hands. He closes the medicine chest so he can see himself holding the gun.
Sometimes he strikes poses with it.
“Jack L.” He might say with his best British accent. “Jack License! Licensed to kill!” And he’ll point the weapon this way and that, glancing at himself from the corner of his eye.
Or, other times he’ll step back and look at the mirror. “Are you talking to me?” Jack shakes his head and tries again, wetting his fingers under the faucet and shoving them up his nose so he’ll sound stuffed up. “Are you talking to me?” He looks around, arching his brows when he turns back to the mirror. “You talking to me? You must be talking to me, there ain’t nobody else here!” And he pulls his gun up fast and grins at his reflection.
But today, he just holds it, looking at it. It feels good in his hands, molded just right for his fingers. He rubs it across his crotch and wishes his penis would get hard, just once.
“What’s the matter, Jackie Boy? Can’t get it up?” The voices echo, bouncing around the tiny room and converging in his head.
“What?” Jack looks around, blinking his eyes.
“You’re a real specimen, lover. Homo Non-Erectus!” Her voice now and Jack covers his ears, pressing the gun painfully to his head.
“Jack L. Jack Love! Licensed to thrill.” Jack strikes a pose against the woman’s laughter, but his penis is limp and he frowns like a little boy.
“Get yourself some help, Jack.” She says, with no small pleasure. “Get them cut off or something.” Jack L…Jack Lobectomy, “Free at last.” she giggles and Jack frowns and looks away for a moment.
“You know what you are?” Jack’s reflection is smiling.
“Omnipotent.” Jack holds up his gun, pointing it at the ceiling so his mirrored self can see it and admire its authority.
But the mirror isn’t impressed and the smile changes, from good natured to cruel, with just a slight pull of the upper lip. Jack has practiced this many times, knowing its effect on people. “No Jack, that’s not right.” The mirror chides him like a simple school boy. “You’re just impotent, not omni at all.”
“Sorry lover, its still 50 bucks.” *POP* she’s chewing bubblegum and Jack can smell it. He hides his head under the pillow.
“That’s okay, buddy.” The man shrugs. “It can happy to anybody.” The door closes softly and Jack rolls over reaching for his pillow.
“Maybe girls like me aren’t your thing.” Jack stares at her Adam’s apple, bobbing up and down as she talks. “I appreciate the thought though. You’re sweet.”
“Daddy?” His little girl waking up, feeling Jack’s shadow under her nightgown. Jack slips out without a sound.
“On your knees, bitch!” Jack’s Mistress is cruel and domineering, but she can’t make his penis hard no matter how hard she hits it.
“You can hurt me if you want.” She’s begging for it now, bound and helpless and willing. Jack rubs his penis frantically, but it hangs there. Not omni at all, even for someone eager to believe.
“Suck the gun, Jackie Lad!” The voices, bouncing around him, refracting around him now. “Go on, you’ve tried every other fetish known to humankind. Don’t be afraid…Suck the gun, laddie!”
And Jack has tried everything. He married a woman with a daughter, just so he could try incest. He paid men and women and transsexuals for their sympathetic time. BDSM, top and bottom. Death fetish, enemas, and midgets. Dogs, snakes, and horses. But he never tried sucking the gun.
Jack looks at it, still in his hand. “Jack L.” He looks into the mirror. “Jack Loaded. Jack loaded for Lust. Jack loaded but Lacking. Jack loaded and Lame. Jack Lost to everything and everyone.” Jack Laughs.
He opens his eyes as wide as his mouth, staring at himself as he pushes the odd shape of the weapon between his teeth. “Just a pull now, Jackie Lad! Don’t disappoint me again.”
Jack sighs around the barrel and closes his eyes. Impotent meets Omnipotent for a drink. “How’s it hangin’?” Omnipotent says with a smirk. “You should know.” Impotent replies with a well practiced smile. And while Jack thinks of that, he pulls the trigger.
*SQWACK*
*SPWAT*
*GAHK*
Jack’s head jerks backward and he yanks the gun from his lips, cutting the roof of his mouth with the sight. He barely notices the sensation though, or even the small taste of blood. He’s choking loudly, trying to cough and regurgitate the piece of plastic lodged in his throat. The rubber suction tip of the toy dart is way down in his airway, blocking it and bringing his bland body to sudden life. His lungs flex, heaving for air, and Jack drops the orange plastic pistol to the floor as he tries uselessly to give himself the Heimlich Maneuver.
Jack bounces off walls, crashing into little framed pictures of flowers and tea pots and kittens that his ex-wife loved and Jack hated. He breaks a towel rod and sends the aluminum clattering across the tiles. He spins around, clutching at his throat and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror: The self-deprecating smile of a man about to die a most inglorious death.
But his penis is hard now, finally. Jutting upright and proud and unnoticed even as Jack collapses. Blue faced and sweating and staring at his gun until it hurts too much to stare at anything anymore.
end
rache696@yahoo.com