Winger

I'm not nearly as fucked up as Ray thinks I am. He tells me, "Winger, you don't know how close to the edge you are, man", which is quite something from a guy who routinely does twice as much hash as I do.

Ray's thinks that every-fucking-body has to be just like him or else they're one step short of killing themselves. But I'm doin' fine. Just 'cause I don't get off on working fifty hours a week on the assembly line like him, and 'cause I don't own a turtle and a microwave, like him. Maybe because I don't want to get myself a new whore every weekend like him, maybe that's what it is that makes him think I'm livin' close to the edge.

The thought of it all makes me really tired...

There were these two pieces of toast, man. They were fucking human. One had a moustache and glasses. The other one had blonde hair and a dangly earring. They were flinging strawberry jam on each other with these really huge spoons. It started out innocent. Standing firm at twenty feet apart, they each dipped their spoons in their own huge jam bowls, and came out tossing. The jam was going through the air so fast I couldn't see it. They were hurting each other. The guy with the 'stache screamed, "I'm the toughest, and I'll prove it." And he was blindsided by a huge gob.

Waking up, like now, hurts even more than any of those dreams I've been having. I nearly stepped on my ashtray when I got up to get my Gatorade. It's the light green kind, in a bottle. It always makes me feel better. I drink it warm, so it doesn't hurt my teeth. Ray thinks that's pretty fucked up. He tells me, Winger man, you never see any of those high-paid pro athletes drinking warm Gatorade, do ya? I wish he'd shut up.

Sometimes Gatorade is really damaging to my senses, like when I stare into it for too long and my hand starts shaking, and I go into a sort of trance...

Holy shit! The ocean's turned lime green man, and the waves are swooshing back and forth, and it's all making my head feel like one of those Christmas ornaments you shake up to get snow falling. Except it's summer, but sometimes it feels like winter, I get so cold. Anyhow, I really fucking hope there's no body swimming out there, in the swooshy green water, 'cause I don't think they'll make it to shore, man, I really don't.

I put the Gatorade down, and laid down on my futon. I had to get my head straight. Sometimes it takes hours. Ray says that if I had a job, I wouldn't feel so fucked up all the time, because I'd have a higher sense of self-esteem. I told him to go fuck himself with his self-esteem.

When I woke up, I had a funny feeling in my stomach. I looked around my room, at the white walls, and I swore they were closing in on me. I had to close my eyes and hold my head.

I needed a cigarette. I looked around the apartment. I got into so much of a nick fit that I threw all my clothes onto the floor. When I threw down my heavy sweater, a load of dust zoomed up my nose and made me start coughing, then sneezing and stammerin' around the apartment. I sat on my chair, with my elbows on the table, and tried to pick all the dust out of my nose. A really big sneeze caught me off guard and my head snapped forward to where it went clunk on the table. I musta passed out cold, because the next thing I knew...

I was at Farm Aid man, on the stage. There were thousands of people in the crowd, a major party. I looked to my left and fuck me, there was Johnny Cash, talking to some woman singer. On my right was Garth Brooks and Willie Nelson. They were arguing. Willie's beard was twitching. Garth hauled off and decked Willie, knocking him to the ground. Willie got really mad, and kicked Garth, popping his knee right out of joint and making him scream. I yelled, "Way to go Willie. Kill the fat bastard!"

I got up with a big welt on my forehead and I didn't remember how it got there. I looked in my freezer for ice, but I don't have an ice cube tray. I had to use my last beer on my forehead.

I think I stopped the swelling, but there's gonna be a bruise there, and I know Ray's gonna ask about it. He's gonna say, "Winger, did you get drunk and fall down?" And I'm gonna say, "No, I didn't fucking get drunk!" And he's gonna puff on his cigarette with that same fucking superior look on his face that's always bugged the crap outta me.

We're good buddies, but sometimes he gets too much for me, bugging me about my lifestyle. Like when he says, "If you had an ounce of motivation, you could be a really good bum." Once I got mad and smashed an empty coke bottle over his knee. Usually I just leave, even if we're in the middle of doing hash. He'll say, "Hey loser, where you going?" like he's kidding, but it makes me want to bash his skull in. I wish he'd stop with the criticizing.

I didn't see Ray for a couple of days, which is the longest I've been away from him in a while. I don't have a phone, so I decided to go right on over to his place. I needed him to fix my flashlight. I need it for the times my building has a blackout, and Ray's good at fixing things. He's even good for fixing a headache, when he's got some really good acid. Last time he had some, we smoked a whole popcorn sized piece of it. I asked him if he could see the beetles on the wall. He looked at me like I was fucked up, and so I described them to him. I said they were walking up and down the wall, along the stripes of the wallpaper. That was the last time I was there.

The hallway on Ray's floor has these really bright lights that make my head pound. I knocked on his door, three times. No answer. C'mon Ray, my head hurts, so stop being a prick. It was two o'clock, and Ray doesn't start work until four, so I knew he was home. I went back outside, where I'd seen the maintenance guy working. He knew me and let me into Ray's.

I looked at the apartment, trying to avoid the disgusting green wall on the right. Going into the living room, a bad smell hit me so hard that I had to plug my nose. It made me woozy, and I went over to the living room, to the couch, to sit down. On the other side of it was where I found Ray, on the floor, all sprawled out, his face tilted to one side. He had on only a pair of boxer shorts and a red t-shirt. The smell was worst by him. I sat down and stared at him. Ray, it's not like you to have the place smellin' so bad, I thought.

Ray's skin looked like white wax. It was like a really bad drug got a hold of him. I gave him a push with my leg. "Get up Ray, you lazy piece of shit". He didn't move.

I pulled the flashlight out of my pocket and laid it on his chest. "Hey man, I need you to fix this". No reaction. He smelled really bad. I picked up a pillow and whiffed at the air with it, trying to clear the air. "I think you should get up and take a shower man, or the maintenance guy is gonna have to quarantine you".

I went to his fridge for a beer. Some of the smell must have crept through anyway, because before I knew it...

There was this turkey, running around a farmyard with it's head off, bumping into things all over the place. The head was lying on the ground screaming, "I'm no good to you at the market, now that you cut my head off. No good. No darn good." A farmer was standing around with an axe in his hand, looking really confused. Two other farmers came up behind him. One said, "I think you made a mistake Jim."

I got up off the kitchen floor, dusting crumbs and stuff off my pants. My ass hurt. "Fucking smell". I limped over to the patio door and opened it, and I stepped outside for a minute to catch some air. I saw the maintenance guy and waved at him. Then I went back inside, back to the couch, to see if Ray'd woken up yet. He hadn't. I knelt down beside him, and was about to shake him, when I noticed a huge bump on the side of his head. It had a brown-red colour. I reached out to touch it. It was mushy. I jumped back. It reminded of the part in "Aliens" where the aliens burst out of peoples' bodies. I didn't want to touch it again.

I sat on the floor and it hit me: Hey, what if Ray's, like, dead? I wondered how the fuck he got that way? I didn't know anything about what to do with a guy who might be dead.

I figured I'd better take him to the hospital or something. I was thinking that they'd know what to do with a dead person. I went to his bedroom to look for clothes to put him in. I almost tripped over the baseball bat that was lying in the middle of the floor. What the hell is a baseball bat doing lying in the middle of the room? I wondered.

I sat down on his bed. Something was happening in my head, like one of those bad dreams I've been having...

Ray and me were sitting on the floor in the living room, across from each other. He was rolling the hash. We were both smoking it, and we were talking. He said something about some ad he saw in a magazine about k.d.lang. He said, "I'm not fucking going to listen to anybody who tell's me I shouldn't be eating meat when I really like eating meat."

"Fuck you. I fucking love k.d. lang and I'm not gonna let you dog her", I said, angry-like.

"You don't even fucking know who k.d.lang fucking is."

"Fuck you", I screamed. I got up, stammering around the apartment. I went into his bedroom and came back with a baseball bat. "If you say one more bad thing about her, I'm gonna bash your brains in."

"Aw, Winger, sit your fucking ass down. I'm too fucking stoned to care", he said. And I hit him. Again. And the bat went thud against his stomach and bang across his head.

"You always fucking bug me about stuff you should shut up about, always", I screamed.

"Holy fuck. Holy fuck", I said. I started shaking, and pulled hard on my hair, pulling it upwards. "Too much drugs man, too fucking much." I got up from the bed and started pacing around Ray's bedroom thinking, You can't fucking take him to the hospital, 'cause you fucking killed him, and they'll know about it.

The ambulance pulled up to the building about an hour later, after I told the maintenance guy about Ray. "I, uh, I think something bad's happened to Ray."

He squinted his eyes, like he didn't know what I was talking about. I wanted to tell him, 'cause he knew Ray.

"I think he's dead."

He went "Hmph", like I was crazy or something.

I looked at him totally seriously, and I said, "No man, really. He's really really dead."

He came to the apartment. As soon as he smelled it, he said, "Holy shit", and plugged his nose. Then he saw Ray, and his hand dropped from his nose. His mouth was open. He said, "Fuck. Holy fucking fuck."

The ambulance guys said the same thing. So did the cops. And everybody else who came by to see what was going on. The cops asked me questions about how well I knew Ray and when was the last time I saw him and stuff. Then they put the cuffs on me and hauled me into the back of their car. It smelled better than the apartment.

At the station, the fat guy with the suit leaned over me and said, "Did you kill him?", spitting the words at me.

"I don't know", I said. "I mean, I've been having these blackouts."

"Blackouts?"

"Yeah, I see things. They're like dreams, and sometimes I'm inside them."

"I see. Are any of these dreams violent?"
"Oh Yeah." I smiled big.

I looked up at the fat guy. He turned to the tall guy standing by the door with his hands in his pockets and said, "I think he's staying for a while."