Someone, probably my roommate, Gloria, is knocking on my locked door. I don't want to open it, but I'm not sure if she is going to go away. I haven't eaten in 2 days, or slept. I have been doing some research about the affects of alcohol and cocaine on one's mind. And some other substances that will remain nameless. You see, I live with a girl named Gloria, she is a college student. I use to be too. She is ok, but I don't really like living with people. She continues to knock on my door. I am curled up in a little fetus position on my stained carpet, with a screw driver in hand, naked, itchy, trying to fasten some bolt together, smoke in mouth, lines on dresser, drink near side, cat staring at me confused.
"Are u ok in there? I haven't seen u around the house for a few days. Oliver? Can u hear me?" she asks.
If she only knew.
I always gave the responses you were spose to give at times, like a Muppet.
"I'm fine, thanks Gloria, just want to be left alone so I can finish building my robot, thanks though."
"Your robot? What are u talking about?" She says in a timid voice.
"I'll show u when I'm finished, now leave me be please, I'm fine."
"Well, ok, I'm off to work, I'd really like to have a talk with u soon."
I start puking silently. I hear the front door shut. I don't say anything. She is gone for a while. I get back to work. I'm somewhat of a scientist in my own mind u could say.
I continue to build on my robotic experiment. If u want to know what it really was I was building, well, it's hard to say. Now that I look back at it, with more sober eyes, even though I'm drunk while I write this, I suppose it was my creation. My big gift to the imaginary world.
But what it really was = was a manikin I had stole from a mall one zonked out night less sun going down day. I had hid the manikin in my basement, (our basement Gloria) after I had made it home, with no cops, for 3 weeks; it stayed in a secret door in the basement which Gloria and me never went in. She didn't even know about the door, I had found it on one of my last expeditions. The door that is.
So there I was with my cat still staring at me, purring, rubbing my hairy leg. And then there was this, this monument to Clippert St.
I had painted the manikin all blue, and before the paint had a chance to dry, I had stuck cut out newspaper clippings I had been collecting for years, articles of interest. I wouldn't be living there much longer, and I was well aware of this fact. After painting, pasting, smoothing the surface's, I brought out my beer bottle cap collection, must have stuck a zillion on that manikin, as it was beginning to take shape, form, life.
Then the hard part came, I glued a banana on its belly button, after painting the banana purple, with grayish veins through happy meal boxes. It was turning into somewhat of an 'Ork'. I wont get into the original ork for now.
Whatever I was creating was a welcome change. This manikin needed a wig. I drove coked out of my skull- to the mall again, so paranoid I thought every single car and eyeball in the world was a cop or FBI agent, looking to get me. I almost had second thoughts about stealing the wig, but this was my art project for the time period. I parked out front of Sears, engine running. Walked in trying to act normal, hoping no one would catch my eyeballs. I saw another manikin, made a quick grab for its wig, eyeballs darting in every direction. The wig seemed to be glued to its head, and the entire manikin came crashing to the floor, as my hand tried to rip the hairy thing off its head, man, I was very close to a heart attack.
All these Sears employees came running up to me, as I struggled with the manikins wig.
"What the hell are u doing?" this chubby employee lady with a mustache screamed at me.
I put my hand inside my coat pocket and stood up.
"Back the fuck off, I've got a gun, and will use it, a jellygun! now back up! All of you!"
They all looked pretty scared, and some customers were running in all sorts of directions, kids screaming, I had to hurry now. I finally got this super man like strength, and ripped the wig from the manikin's head. Moving slowly towards the exit saying
"Get back, all of you! Don't try to be a hero. I'll spurt you with my gun!"
I sped off in my truck, with wig in lap, lit a smoke, speeding through parking lot in a pure state of insanity. I had to get home. This project needed hair. My robot like fetus growth.
I made it home, almost crashing into the side of my neighbors house, wig in hand, I ran for the front door half puking.
Once I was in my room, I grabbed the wig, pacing around in delusion, while nervously pulling out more coke to snort, which would obviously just make the situation more confusing. I did what I needed to do, then put the wig on my ugly art project, and began to pet it.
"Get the hell away from it!" I yelled, at my beloved cat, cause he almost knocked it over, snuggling against it. I kept peeking out all the windows in the house, thinking anytime a cop car would be pulling up.
My white trash neighbor Paul was suddenly making his way across his dead lawn, over to my front door. That fucker always came over at the wrong times. Gloria told me once she had gotten out of the shower, and he was standing outside the bathroom door, stinking of whiskey, with a sick grin on his face when she opened the door. He claimed that the front door was open, and that he thought I was home.
Gloria said the incident had scared the shit out of her. I told her he was probably harmless, but I didn't know much about the dude. He did have some prison tattoos, no front teeth and such. His wife was this fat Mexican lady who collected unemployment. He worked as a carpet layer. They had the biggest bong I had ever smoked out of. And every time I was over at their place, she bossed his ass around, and yelled at him all the time and shit. I'm pretty sure she wore the pants in their dysfunctional family. She had two of her kids living there as well, from a previous marriage. I always felt uncomfortable over there. But I felt like that in most places.
Welcome to Clippert Street. Lansing Michigan, where the slumlords never return your phone calls when your basement is flooded with shower water and toilet turds again. Drowning rats, families of mice stuck to glue traps. If you could only open the windows, but it's 0 below out and shit. They always call you back when the rent is late. And if you're phone got turned off, don't worry, they will knock on your door at 7 a.m.
Welcome to Clippert Street where the guests come and go, in such varied persona's I cant keep up. Welcome to pager numbers and relief with in fuk ups 5 minutes away at the pay phone next to the Iranian ran liquor store.
The bar with the flashing sign in the freezing midnight snow. White everywhere u look on the ground, the sky raining more flakes of chilliness. Sometimes I hide in the backyard in the bushes with my Walkman on for hours at a time. It is more peaceful then dealing with the everyday bullshit. Shivering with a sleeping bag, as if I'm some Boy Scout survivalist serial killer on the run type creep.
Anyway, I soon told Paul, at my front door, to get lost in a subtle yet friendly way. He wanted to borrow 10 bucks, which I didn't have. Then he started saying…
"You look a lil wired dude, you wana share a line?"
"Ok dude, hurry up though, and get in here quick."
He had helped me out on a few meth lines many times when he was holding, and I wasn't. Mutual respect brother.
I rushed him into my messy bedroom and locked the door. He started looking around at the mess, and the robot, and my wired cat and said….
"What's that stink? Smells like dog doo doo in here bro."
"I need to do my laundry," I responded, quickly racking up 5 huge lines of coke in a panic.
"What the hell is this thing?" Paul asked, touching my artwork.
"Don't fuking touch it dude! It's a project i'm working on, you want a line or not!?"
"Well, ya, sure I do man."
"Then don't ask anymore questions!"
A few mumbles from both parties under shallow love your neighbor Marlboro red puffs among the stink echoed for a second.
I quickly wish him a farewell, pushing him out the front door, as he bums a smoke off me. I sort of had a grudge against him cause he had to work at 7 am every morning, and my bedroom window was about 2 inches from his driveway, where he parked his souped up stoner mo-beale piece of shit car. He loved to rev it up for a good 10 minutes at 630 in the morning. And I had just maybe if lucky fallen asleep about an hour before this daily ritual. One day after selling enough weed to have some extra money, I decided I would put a stop to his car contributing to my insomnia. I went out to the lumber store and bought some of the thickest plywood they had, thinking I could just nail this wood over my bedroom window to solve the problem. It didn't work. Paul even helps me put it up with his electric drill. He was pretty cool about it. Our houses were just to close together. That's the ghetto for you.
The plywood didn't work, and I continued to be a walking zombie from no sleep, and drug abuse. I became extremely paranoid about everyone and every thing, but couldn't seem to stop my way of living.
Anyway, I was waiting for Gloria to get home from work, to show her what I had made. My little gift to Clippert Street. Even to her in a way. I truly loved Gloria in my own bizarre little way. We were becoming good friends in a fake sort of way. We would stay up late and talk about this and that. She'd have a few puffs off a joint, maybe a wine cooler. I would always keep it a secret as to how I was slowly but surely in a self-destructive circle of abuse that I may never get out of. These are things she didn't need to know. I really wanted to have sex with her, and didn't see what the big problem was. She fucked different guys every weekend in her room she had picked up from the college bars. She was a college chick, a fake partier. I did everything to excess. Always had. But tonight would be different. I was going to be completely honest with her and see how she reacted.
It was a beautiful moment; going over it in my mind, petting that wig was freedom. I connected a few more wires to my art project and plugged it in, finishing off the last of my cocaine and booze. I dry heaved for about 10 minutes while laughing in-between my up chucks at my creation sitting in my stinky room.
Gloria would have to love it. She would just have to. We would fall in love and have passionate sex every night. She would see my true genius. She would hug me with her huge breasts and say…. "Take me! Take me!"
At least that's what my messed up mind was thinking. I was so excited and ill at the same time. The pressure was on.
I actually took a shower and put on my best-stained shirt from the back of my closet. I brushed my teeth. And tried not to think about how I was out of booze, out of smokes, out of Mr. cocaine, Mr. devil himself.
She opened the door in her nurse ER uniform, while I sat on the couch trying to still feel happy. The only problem was, I wasn't happy anymore. I felt like a mad man. I felt my anxiety and depression more then I had ever felt in my life.
"Hello" she said, nervously.
"How's it going?" I managed to whimper, as the coke was eating away at my throat, gulping, it was hard to talk many times.
We ignored each other for about another hour, as she sat on her bed, talking to all her friends.
I finally got my balls together for a moment. Stood up, feeling like a big piece of loser shit. I marched into her room, grabbed the phone from her hand, and slammed it down saying…
" I have something to show you Gloria."
She looked a little scared, as I grabbed her by the hand, and led her into my dungeon of sickness.
"I built this for you." I said, turning it on. It began to move. The lights worked and everything. even the wires were working. Its manikin arm lifted to its wig head, as it's robotic voice murmured the words I had programmed into its memory… "I love you." It's lips moved in the early morning light of this clippert street nightmare of soul porridge.
I wish I could say it was a happy ending. I wish I could say that I didn't move out the next day. I wish I could say that I didn't smash everything in the house. I wish a lot of things. But mostly, I wish I had never opened up to her. I wish she wouldn't have called the cops. I wish I wasn't a felon. 3 weeks later she tried to seduce me.
By that time, it was far to late for anything, the robot manikin had been burned, and Paul gave the wig to one of his pit bulls as a toy in time. Her tears meant nothing, and my tears turned to piss in the back alleys of Lansing bars every night. I mostly moved on, and didn't give it much thought. I was very trained through my wars, blocking out things like that. When almost opening up to see there was no reason at all to crack my snail shell for anyone. I moved to another slumlord palace. Did what I did. Moving was the thing. Always had to be moving my entire life. Leaving a small stain among the people I met in the cities and states. Feet, wings, arms, words, emotions never lasted long enough. There are many Clippert streets in the world.
This story Copyright 2001 Nicholas Morgan.
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