Why I Committed Suicide (17 page)

After her and her colleagues got bored with their steady barrage of insults and threats, she let us go, but only after breaking our Christmas presents and making a show of having us pour out our own Goddamn booze in the bushes. I was so steamed by then I threw down the bottle she handed me and tried to break it on the roadway but the hot soft asphalt wouldn’t break the small sealed bottle. This unleashed another torrent of insults and lectures from her. By that point I would have gladly given up the rest of my life in prison to kill this one person and I felt like it was morally justified because I would have been serving the greater good of society by deleting her cancerous presence. Honestly, if I hadn’t felt like I had the obligation to get Jenifer to immediate safety I would have attacked and at least taken out one of bitch-lady’s eyes before her dog or her fellow merry men could have even reacted.

We finally got in the car and drove out of there as fast as we could. Jenifer went absolutely postal. She turned up the radio as loud as it would go and drove as fast as RedOne would let her, screaming epitaphs and pounding the dashboard with tears pouring from her eyes while I clung onto the “Oh-Shit” handle for dear life. As she slowly calmed from molten lava into steaming rock, any efforts I made to diffuse the situation with attempted lighthearted humor were shrugged off, which was good because I was still so pissed I didn’t really feel like being a good guy and consoling anybody. When we finally stopped about an hour later in Shinbone, AZ or some place, I got 4 dollars in quarters and prank-called the inspection booth, telling them I was coming with a truckload of guns and that I was going to blow their bacon-flavored snow cone stand off the fucking highway. It was stupid and juvenile I know, but it made me feel better even though I spent most of the $4 trying to call information and actually find the number and I probably only spoke to a confused and now very frightened tollbooth operator. Still, it made me feel somewhat vindicated and we got out of there just in case they could trace the call and send a patrol car.

I also called my Uncle Dennis and Aunt Sandy in Phoenix, kind of as a courtesy call, but I ended up promising to stop by. When I told Jenifer we were stopping down the road she was pissed. All that was on her mind was the evil-lady and getting out of this fucking state as soon as possible. I kind of concurred but I promised we would stop by and this is my Aunt and Uncle who I’ve always looked up to and thought were cool. Jenifer doesn’t know them so I understand her hesitation but at the same time I need an emotional and physical rest. I think if we can stop for a night, things will cool off a little bit. I certainly don’t want one negative incident to create a wedge between us or follow us like a dark cloud all the way home. I also don’t want our first long road trip together to be tinged with some black voodoo of incompatibility. That would be a disastrous shame. Rest will relieve stress.

Tap tap tap

This is my heart in my hands, This is my hand on my heart.

Tap tap tap

—me

Talk about an attitude readjustment. It turns out that my aunt and uncle’s house was the perfect place for us to stop. Instead of racing home bearing animosity against the “Grand Canyon State,” we are still here resting our bodies and enjoying our vacation again. Dennis and Sandy are treating us so cool. They have a humongous house with a heated pool and a hot tub in their big backyard next to a giant trampoline for their two children. They have a little boy Derrick who is older than their little girl, about 3, I suppose. Cassie, or Cassandra, and Jenifer seem to be smitten with each other and it’s so cute to watch them play together. It’s like observing two little blonde angels that could be sisters or perhaps mother and daughter. Cassie seems to have formed a bond with Jenifer and surprisingly only-child Jenifer, who has never shown the least bit of interest or excitement around children, has fallen in love with her little friend. Cassie looks so much like the child we might one day have together that seeing them goofing around on the trampoline and the way she follows and imitates Jenifer’s every move makes me want to live with her forever. I can sense Jenifer feels safe here, the way she holds me so close while we sleep together at night tells me that she secretly pines for an eventual family lifestyle with beautiful children, a rickety house filled with love, a big dumb dog and maybe a little cash. I can’t lie and say I don’t feel the same things; there is a touch of God in this place.

Dennis and Sandy have given us our own section of the house to stay in, literally a guest wing with it’s own bathroom and a giant soft bed to lie and love in. I always imagined some fraction of my family would be modern enough to acknowledge we sleep together, I just never thought I would meet them. Because they are treating us like human beings, the general awkwardness that goes along with being around my relatives and the nervousness and apprehension I get about Jenifer not wanting to stay with family has worn off. We both feel comfortable and the evil Arizona incident is finally behind us. At night when the kids are asleep we get to relax into a deep coma in the vapors of their steaming hot tub while we get drunk with my Aunt and Uncle. My Uncle seems kind of disappointed that Jenifer and I are not normally big drinkers, even though he manages to keep getting me to do tequila shots with him and I wind up shitfaced. I thought I had learned my lesson after the dog biter of a hangover I got the first night we arrived. Tequila. Blechhh. It’s an acquired buzz, I gather.

The best reason for staying up late is getting to hear Dennis and Sandy’s mesmerizing stories of where they’ve lived all over the world. This was all B.C. (before children) of course. Wonderful rambling tales of nights in Iran and exotic fruit markets in the back alleys of Egypt. It’s interesting to hear how different cultures simultaneously help and harm their women under the guise of isolation and protection. I suppose we oppress our American women in different ways, but I still like to think we’ve made progressive strides as a society. I also heard them say that crime is virtually nonexistent over there because if you are a thief and you get caught stealing they chop off your right hand or execute you on the spot. Apparently the left hand is reserved only for wiping the ass! So if you cut off somebody’s right hand, nobody will give them food or eat with them since they have to eat with their ass-hand. I guess it’s like the “stink finger,” only on a hand sized scale, over there. Jenifer and I stay up with them and watch bad action movies on the VCR and just hang out mostly. I suspect that sometimes my aunt and uncle are reliving some of their youthfulness through us because they want to hear about ALL the details of our limited traveling experience. They ask questions and listen with interest but I think they are just cool people who get a lot more out of life than average folks. Plus even though nobody in my family ever seems to piece it together it’s totally obvious they were/are with the CIA and how fucking cool is that to be part of an international spying team!? I see them as two lovers with mutual intelligence that got them great jobs and long paper to do whatever the hell they want. Plus I find it reassuring that given the freedom to see the world, Dennis and Sandy still ended up with a beautiful family.

Their children are nefarious early risers so we are not getting to sleep in late here, but that’s ok. It’s sweet to see how Miss Cassandra can tame Jenifer’s morning monster with sheer adoration and innocent fascination. I’ll open an eye and see the door slowly open with a tiny
swoosh
noise on the carpet. Then a little blond mop of hair furtively bounces through the door to see if there is any reaction. I suppose Cassie’s not used to having somebody try and sleep late while she wanders around and after a few minutes of playing an awkward game of one sided peek-a-boo with no response she either decides Jenifer is feigning sleep or she’ll summon the courage only children possess and tiptoe into the room. She sees me watching her but since I am not the object of her affections I merely receive a conspiratorial smile. Cassandra will pat her on the head and stage whisper a loud “Jenni-fur, are you sweeping?” Once Jenifer responds that yes, she is in fact sleeping, the battle is already lost. My aunt might come in and chase her out of the room but Jenifer knows already that it’s a futile effort.

I’m really happy here. I love seeing the feeling of raw maternal-ness gleaning in Jenifer’s sleepy eyes, but if I told her that she would probably punch me. “Alas,” insert sweeping sarcastic hand motion here, “It’s so hard to be a sister figure.”

We’ve visited with my grandparents a few times since they “Winter” in Arizona and live near here. I love my grandparents, their old-fashioned logic and traveling RV lifestyle really appeals to me. I can also tell they like Jenifer a lot, which is important to me, but I can see they are not exactly sure how to react to her nose ring. To them it’s like meeting somebody you really like and then finding out they’ve had a sex change. Once, I brought a black girl, who was a good friend in high school, over to my parent’s house when my grandparents were visiting us in Texas and it nearly gave them a heart attack. I suspect that Jenifer’s having blond hair and white skin is a relief to them despite the nose ring and that they think it’s just a phase she’s going through. Raising four boys and my mother certainly qualifies them to think in terms of “phases” with no reproach I suppose. Like I said, they have old fashioned ways but they are good respectable people and I regret not being able to communicate my admiration of them in any tangible way. I suspect they understand though, being grandparents and all. Jenifer just talks and talks to them, innocently oblivious to their slight discomfort, and it’s obvious she’s won them over with her honest and open manner.

It’s funny for me to observe how much of my mom is
in
my grandparents. That may sound silly but she inherited their slight uptightness and amplified it with a squeeze of psychosis.

Tomorrow we’re going to try and go for a ride in my Uncle’s plane. He actually built a plane from a kit (see? CIA!) in his garage and since he’s a licensed pilot he’ll periodically take relatives up in the air and just hand over the controls to see how they do. I’ve always just liked cruising along looking out the canopy and watching the myriad of landscaped grids go by in a kaleidoscope of crazy patterns, but every time I’ve been up in the air with him he scares me shitless by making me fly. My brain starts screaming,
“Hey, he built this fucking thing in his garage!”
Or,
“This thing is made out of the same stuff my parent’s swimming pool is made of.”
and my imagination creates scenarios involving prolonged fiery death. The plane is made of fiberglass, it is no bigger than Jenifer’s car and it’s an ass-backwards looking bird with the big wings and prop on the back-end and the small ‘steering’ wings on the front. To fly in it is different than cruising around in a regular small plane because instead of feeling like there is something solid & secure steadily pulling me through the air, it feels like something powerful is thrusting me hell-bent-for-leather across the sky. It’s really a totally different sensation altogether. We’ve already been out to the hangar where he keeps his 70’s Corvette (with the motor ripped out) and other miscellaneous junk. It’s sort of his attic away from home with big toys inside it. Jenifer’s eyes actually bugged out of her head when my uncle dragged the plane out by the nose with his hands, thinking maybe he was joking about going up tomorrow and then secretly confronting her own mortality. Hell, we thrive on excitement! How many girls do I love that actually went bungee jumping on their own? Adventure makes her wet but I don’t think her parents would be too happy if one of my relatives killed her.

We’re both feeling so rested and psychologically on top of our shit that we’ve decided to extend our vacation. All it took was a slight expression of interest in Carlsbad Caverns and my grandparents plotted a route to get us there and they even had glossy pamphlets. My grandparents are the king and queen of glossy pamphlets. They have information about everywhere because they’ve been
everywhere
you can go in a motor home, even Alaska. I want to be doing what they are doing, randomly traveling, spending money on impulse items and collecting glossy pamphlets, but I don’t want to have to wait until I’m really old to do it.

It was so nice to see loving family again and I was sad, hell we were both sad, to be leaving Arizona behind although I was proud to be able to show Jenifer that our life together wouldn’t necessarily have to pattern itself after my parents. The love practically oozes from my grandparents and I was glad to see their appreciation of Jenifer blossom. I’m supposed to be their favorite grandson since I was over at their house so much as a child, but I don’t think they can really have a favorite out of the fifteen million or so grandchildren they have. I’ve always suspected that being the so-called “favorite” was a clever manipulative scheme devised by my mother to motivate me to make the honor roll or some such. Plus if I am their favorite then there must be something in my future that will fuck up the standings, my lifestyle almost guarantees it. Oh well, whoever I am and whatever I go through will have to be good enough. I expect to make many mistakes in the next few years to properly insure my eventual correct placement in society, I am gearing up for getting my mid-life crisis over at an early age and then focusing on nothing but steady progressive steps towards world domination. Plato said “Each man’s ultimate justice comes from within.” I never want to look back and
say
I wish I had tried “   “ and now I’ll never get the chance ever again,
plus
while I’m pursuing my gluttony I’ll try to get all of my fuck ups out of the way and eventually be proud I found the conviction and strength to fix them. That’s my theory anyway; it never pays to be smug and contrite because God laughs while mortals make plans.

Ever since my youthful subconscious was manipulated by the colorful smiling dinosaur on the roadside signs of south Texas advertising Natural Bridge Caverns near San Antonio, I’ve had this urge to explore caves and an unexplainable craving for Stuckey’s. Carlsbad Caverns was cool and I imagine it is still cool now that I’m gone. Carlsbad Caverns is the essence of cave-y coolness. We followed a lonely winding stretch of road through New Mexico’s desert hills and ended up at a strange place in the middle of nowhere where there’s a building and a parking lot built to hold more cars full of people than could possibly fit inside the building. The entire area seemed suspiciously absent of life as if an alien abduction ritual from the nearby mysterious Area 51 had taken all the people and parked their cars in an orderly fashion out in a convenient desert parking lot. A cosmic valet. It’s so hard to believe that underneath this area of “nothingness” is enough trippy natural artwork to make Salvador Dali doubt his sanity. I thought we would be constrained to a guided tour and handheld through the caverns but basically we paid admission and got turned loose into the bowels of the Earth. You have to stay on the lit walkways and it’s obvious these caves have lost a little of their raw natural beauty because of the constructed paths but I suppose if they weren’t easily accessible I wouldn’t be here.