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Genre: Drama / Fantasy

Synopsis: When a despondent woman makes her first ever diary entry, THE MONSTER appears, and all things forever change…

TO THE LEFT OF THE BIG GAPING HOLE

Cassie’s room is square with sky blue walls, and a white ceiling. The curtains and shades, black. The freshly varnished, parquet floor sparkles beneath the beam of a lamp.

On a wall near a window hangs a solitary, small painting of cotton-candy-blue clouds that seem to kiss a mountaintop; at the foot of the mountain, stands a lone tree. In the foreground is a green field whose tiny yellow flowers sway in a soft breeze.

Cassie sits at a desk, reaches inside a drawer, and pulls out a cellophane-wrapped book with the word, “Diary” embossed in faux gold on its cover. She peels off the wrapping in a slow, deliberate manner. Eyes the cover, opens the book, and begins to write.

Entry: March 12, 2007:

I must admit I’ve always thought diaries to be silly things, even as a child. Once, when we were about eight, Jilly thought I’d read hers, though I hadn’t, and she locked me out of her room for three solid days.

Yet, here I am with you as my confidant.

As a first-timer, you’ll have to be patient with me, but I do think in the end, you will be pleased. Your pages will no longer all be blank, as I will fill you with news of my life, and therefore, at least you will have a purpose.

Lately the shades have been down… I pulled them down three days ago.

Lately, I like it like this. “Push, push, in the bush”!1 Engulfed by the dim of my start-up-bunny, that just won’t start no matter what battery I inject. No matter how much acid residue I spew.

Here, and there, I peer out, trying to remember when “out” was okay, but it’s beyond my recall now: the onslaught did me in.

I thought the worst was 2004. That’s when I found sweet, Methadone Danny’s works inside a pipe under the bathroom sink. When he got home, I shoved them in his face. He said, “They must’ve belonged to the last tenant.”

“Yeah, right,” I screamed. “The last tenant just happened to be a fucking junkie, too! How could you do this to us?”

He just stared at me, but I could tell he was holding back that sly smile I once adored.

All that bullshit he gave me, in ‘03, about how he hated himself after he dropped Emma on her head when she was just two.

“I had an epiphany,” he said. “Fuck, I could’ve killed her. I went to this clinic. Got on the program. They got me straight. And now my dose is halved… “

I said, “It’s not heroin, though, right?”

“No, it’s like a prescription, a drink, and they do urine tests every day, so everything’s monitored, and…”

Danny hung his head.

“What, what’s the matter?”

He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I’m a junkie. You shouldn’t be with me. I could’ve killed my kid. I’m a low-life!”

“That was five years ago, Danny. You’re not that person anymore, you’re on the program now, and you’re not gonna go back to it ever, right?”

He wrapped his arms around me so tight, I almost couldn’t breath.

“Answer me, you fuck!” I screamed again, as I threw the hypo at him. “How long Danny, two months, six, from the very start? It’s my bathroom too! You knew I’d find it, didn’t you?”

“They must’ve belonged to the last tenant,” he repeated casually, as he walked toward the door.

He looked back. He didn’t have to do that, but he wanted me to see the smile after all, and I did.

I watched the door close behind him, then magic markered the new, kitchen floor cherry red with the inscription, “Die, fucking junkie liar!” Packed my things and left.

I came back the next day to get some old photos I’d forgotten, and “Te-ree” was sleeping on the sheets I paid for.

Two months later, he sent me a letter: “I am totally sober now, I don’t do drugs (no pot, no drinking, no narcotics of any type). I am in N.A., and one of the steps is quote, ‘We make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all.’

I have apologized to my family, and some friends that I knew during my drug days. I have new friends that are drug and alcohol free.

I am so sorry for the things I did to you. I was a selfish, drugged up bastard who only thought of myself. I was a liar, and a cheater of your heart. I took your love and turned it into hatred. I know that you wanted to be happy, and I was not. I was always angry. I made your life a living hell!!

But now, I am a positive, happy-go-lucky guy. I have undergone hypnosis to release my guilt and negative ways. My friends and family cannot believe the changes I have made since I have quit doing drugs.

Though, I would like to be your friend again, and make music with you like we used to, I don’t think that you ever want to talk to me again. And believe me, I understand that completely.

I hope that things with you are good. I hope you are happy and have found someone to share your life with. I hope your mom is doing well.

If you feel that you can write me back, that would be great, and I would very happy. If you want, you can call me, at my sister’s house.

I am going to be in NYC for about another 3-4 months. Then, I am moving to California to be with my good friend Allen, who was the most important person during my recovery.

So, if you can find it in your heart, and want to see for yourself that I am a completely different person, then all you need to do is write me, or call me.

P.S. If you don’t contact me, I will never write you again. I will respect your privacy. That’s a promise I will keep for the rest of the days that I am alive.

I am so sorry for what happened between us. Danny.”

A month after that letter: an overdose of crystal meth, outta luck in the E.R., his heart flat-lined for good.

I found out when his mother saw me in the street, a week after he died and stopped me.

She said, “Dev’s dead. His lips were blue on the table.”

I never knew why she called him “Dev.” I asked Danny more than a few times. He’d always say, “I don’t know. She likes to, I guess.”

Funny thing is, the last song we cut was called, “Spat Back From the Grave.” It’s not actually funny. Maybe it is. I can’t tell anymore.

It got worse in 2-thou-5. Mom had a heart attack. She called me while it was happening. She was so very calm.

“I’m on my way,” I said.

“No,” she said, “I called Jena, she called Matt, and he called his supervisor at EMS. The ambulance will be here any second. Meet me at Lutheran emergency.”

“No, I’ll be there in—“

She said, “Don’t argue with me. See you at Lutheran.”

They put mommy on “Sister Morphine” before the open-heart, triple bypass, and she was flyin’ through the stratosphere.

I was terrified she’d fly higher, and be gone. All I could think was, “She’s gonna die. I know, she’s gonna die.”

Afterwards she blamed me for it all. But it wasn’t my fault.

Arteries.

Blood pressure.

Insane temper.

That’s what did it.

She still says, “When I’m dead, you’ll feel the guilt!” I already do, though, I don’t know for what. It’s like a stain she dyed me with when I was born.

2006: The call came a month after. From his mother. “Chumly” was dead at forty-four. Congenital. Heart. Defect. Like his father.

He always said, “I’ll never live to know our kids.” Of course, we never had any.

Why did she call me a month later? For what?

The papers had already printed the story about a small-town-boy who went to the big city, loved a young rocker chick for near a decade then, tore out her heart, came back, and started up a band called, “Just Above Ground.” Ironic ain’t it?

The funeral had already been. In the dead of a Nova Scotia winter. Buried next to brother, Kris, killed in crash at seventeen, who himself was buried next to daddy, James. All words had been spoken without me. Why did I need to know? Why? Fuck, why?

She said, “I thought you had a right, but don’t call here no more!”

I said, “But I didn’t call.”

She slammed the phone in my ear. Gee, thanks for the update

. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any… March, 2007: an Aide, at the Home, mistook Grandma’s age for eighty-seven, and she snapped back, “Listen, if you’re gonna count my years, add ‘em right. May I be eighty-six before I turn eighty-seven, dearie?”

I brought her magazines and candy. She shook her head. Said, “No! Go! Just go!” then, threatened to have me thrown out if I didn’t promptly do as told.

“I’ll just stay for—” She buzzed the Aide.

I left. All I did was bring her magazines and candy …

Three days later … The Home called, told mom to ring the hospital, wouldn’t say any more. A “kindly” doc, at the hosp said, “Yep, I see it right here, at, uh, 5:03 am, she died of a stroke. He was conveniently ‘paged.’ Said, “Sorry, gotta go” and hung up.

So, there went Danny, “Chumly,” Grandma, and almost mom, too.

I told myself, if one more thing happens, I shall be done with crying, and when I am done with crying, I shall be done too with all things.

I made a “plan” just in case: a plan stashed inside a vial, which I hid in my dresser drawer. Hoped I’d never see it again. Hope there’d be no cause to use them.

But then it happened…

Jet, my Zoo-Blue, who made me laugh, really laugh, for the first time since I was ten. Belly laugh all the way to pain laugh until I’d punch him, and he’d make me laugh some more.

If I could still cry, I would…over him.

That night, as he hung his head out the window, and I stood for the last time on the porch stair, I begged him, “Please, let me come up.”

He said, ” I can’t. Can’t let you see me this way.”

I said, “But I’m already seeing you.”

He started to cry. Said, “Goodbye.” Closed the window.

I banged and banged on the door.

The police came. They told me I’d better leave, and I did.

I called. No answer. No answer. No answer.

I came back. Rang the bell. No answer. No answer. No answer. No answer.

Not one drop of alcohol in his body. Not one drug.

Nope, he drove off that bridge out of sheer vengeance against his life and left me behind to figure it all out on my own.

This is the aftermath of it all: sick with experience. Gutted. Drowning in the gargantuan void…

Out of happiness pills.

The edifice, wrecked.

Only the door left standing, with a sign that reads: “STOCK EXHAUSTED. PERMANENTLY CLOSED. RESURRECT ON YOUR OWN.”

I’m barricaded in now against daylight and pirates: built a fortress from mud and the weeds of dreams, against exposure, and live here, in the dark of this cave.

Yet, down, way down, further still, lurk the cruelest of hours. The one’s that will back my time into its final corner, and command it, “Halt.” These hours are coming for me… I know.

Across the street, beneath the tracks of a railing “L”: a 24-hour Laundromat. Its strobing, neon sign pulses and sears through the blackness of my shades, and my heart.

It’s 4:30 am, and he won’t stop…

He won’t shut up!

He is drunk, and happy, and sings gregariously of THE MONSTER: the one that swims toward me, the one that soon will come for me. Consume me…

He sings in Japanese, and I don’t understand Japanese. I don’t understand Japanese, but I know his song is about me, for me. I don’t understand Japanese, but I know it is.

He is relentless. The drums of my ears are gashed open. My brain is on fire-pilot.

There he goes again, laughing … laughing … laughing, like a nasty child. I hate him!

What must it be like to be drunk on laughter, and happiness, infused with wine, and thin air?

What must it feel like inside a body that waits not for and fears not THE MONSTER?

I want, oh, how I want… But not … one … tear.

He sings, and he sings, and he sings, and he laughs, and he laughs, on … and on … and—

Silence.

He is gone. Vanished into happiness, wine, and thin air.

THE MONSTER is here with me now. Shrouded in the placenta of the great abyss. He drips on my floor. Gestures me closer.

“I have to pack to some things,” I say.

He shakes his head, “No.”

“Madam, Princesses must be obedient;

For a medicine now becomes expedient. ” 2

“I need some thing from my drawer.”

He shakes his head, “Yes,” and smiles. It is a strangely comforting smile.

He goes to my dresser drawer. Takes out my plan stashed inside a vial, and hands it to me. I follow it, though it is a hard plan to swallow:

“Of five ingredients—a diapente,

Said the governante, fading lente…” 3

“I am ready now,” I whisper.

He extends his hand.

I take a last look at the cave that is my room. It is blurry and spinning.

I grab hold of THE MONSTER’S hand.

The railing “L” shrieks in the distance. It is still dark outside and darker still where THE MONSTER leads me.

I think a final thought of my life: forgive me, mama. You are all I shall miss, but I am long overdue … somewhere … TO THE LEFT OF THE BIG GAPING HOLE.

The lamp flickers.

Blackness.


Citations:

1. Musique. “In The Bush.” 1978.
2. Sitwell, Edith. The Collected Poems Of. Duckworth. London. 1930.
3. Ibid.

~ Justine ~