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inane annals
Purgatoried Their Torsos
by MrhL | 02 Feb 2008, 21:17

It's February, it's cold, it's 8:00 am. I live in a house called Purgatory and have just come home from eight hours in hell, Lonestar Foods and Petroleum, 75 at 82. There is only one room in Purgatory completely isolated from the winds and cold and that is where I am, sitting on the edge of the bath tub with a space heater between my legs, a cold Corona in my hand and Pretty Cat at my feet. Sanctuary, I sigh, sans relief, and hunch over the heat. I look at the toilet, seat up, stained and unflushed... a frat-house in February. The house was built in 1908 and was feeling the years, and feeling the cold. Pretty Cat purrs and I toast the Velvet Elvis on the wall, then my reflection in the broken mirror, and last, dear reader, I toast you....

9:30: I've been up for only twelve hours now, but have very little to do. I emerge from the bathroom a little buzzed and contemplate the living room. "Living," or maybe it really is living... or maybe it's dying. The hardwood floors, which had been lovingly restored just over the summer, are now coated in black—a combination of mud, beer and cigarette ash and butts. I walk about the room, the sticky mess pulling at my shoes, wondering aloud when someone else is going to wake up, and perhaps I might just wake someone up myself. The floors won't be like this for long, at least—at some point in the day eight kids are going to show up and do a half-assed job cleaning the house. I can't really complain; I wasn't too enthused when I had to do it. But I did steal the squeegees. Jonny and I stole the squeegees, that is. That's how we clean it, don't you know. First we dump soapy water on the floor and stir it around with a mop, and then we squeegee it out through the kitchen door. It's quite a sight to see, that river of sludge. So I walk into the other living room, the one with couches only slightly less filthy than rest of this place. I sit down on one and pull a blanket around me. These couches are pretty nasty too.

I turned to the deer head mounted on the wall and think about the first time I really noticed it. Just the month before, actually. Lyndon, Jonny and I were getting altered and we brought along a pony keg of cider and some funky brownies to spice things up. "Everyone" was in my room and I had to walk around for a bit. I wandered into the living room, turned my head and there it was. The head was mounted at eye level and someone had hung their graduation robe fixed with a white collar, a broom affecting outstretched arms. Our eyes met and the Christmas lights strung up in his antlers flashed madly through different patterns, changing every 30 seconds while in the background Deep Purple was in the middle of some insane keyboard solo. I remember asking myself if I should be disturbed by this sight. I suspect it was Ashley's doing. It was her deer head, after all. I hadn't really known Ashley before she moved in and I honestly wasn't sure if I'd like her. She wasn't in our fraternity; in fact, she was in a sorority, but they were cool girls and we needed another name on the lease, another person to pay rent. I guess I grew to like her; she was nice to have around. She'd cook. And she did provide the deer's head.

Pretty Cat hops into my lap and nuzzles my face, bringing me back to this morning. The worst part about morning is that I can't get loud. I like my music loud. Sitting on the couch, looking at Pretty Cat, I wish I were listening to some loud music. I take another sip of beer and light a cigarette. I can't tell you how convenient it is not worrying about finding an ashtray—in this place, you're living in it. I breathe deep and close my eyes.

Leaving the living room I spot a reminder of better... well, warmer days. Framed on the wall is a receipt from Drigg's liquor store. The total approaches $1,300. Sometimes you have to throw a party and sometimes you have to throw many parties. And then sometimes you have to throw a big party, and those are our reasons for living here. Four kegs of XX, plenty of Corona, Modelo Especial, Negro Modelo, Tecate, etc. and cases of cheap, cheap tequila all provided for the throngs of students at Austin College, except, of course, the freshman guys—supposedly because we wanted first dibs on the freshman girls that show up. In case you didn't notice the trend, the party is called S.O.B. It was Lyndon's idea to frame the bill. Lyndon is the type of friend that wouldn't even get mad if you were to get drunk, pass out in his room and then piss on his coffee table. Or maybe I'm just the kind of friend that's hard to stay mad at.

Last semester had been fun. I wasn't working this terrible night shift at the gas station. I kept normal ("normal") hours. I saw my friends more than just in the morning when I went to bed and in the evening when I went to work. But I was also in school... College, Take One. This place might not have been good for my study habits, I muse to myself, but I didn't really have any to begin with. Though I had cultivated a drinking habit before I got here. What was I doing there, at A.C? I didn't care about my classes, even the ones I was interested in. I was only willing to do so much and if it wasn't enough it didn't, doesn't bother me. That's really nothing new; I really have no idea how I graduated high school with honors. I guess that really doesn't mean anything.

I walk into the kitchen having made a decision. I decided to make an egg sandwich. While I wait for the egg in the microwave and for the English muffin to toast, I'm looking at 111 spoons fixed to a piece of particleboard with a single fork placed among them. Some kind of metaphor for my life, I shrug my shoulders. I had the idea for it since middle school but hadn't bothered constructing it until last year. The spoons I stole from the cafeteria. I hadn't intended it, but the piece became a sort of picture board: all kinds of postcards, photos new and old (mid 90's), someone's PI ticket. The microwave beeps and the toaster pops, I slide the egg onto the muffin and throw an American single on top. Breakfast in hand, I walk into my room where I am greeted by all the sights and smells you may well have come to expect, dear reader...

I turn on my computer and put on a recording of Brion Gysin's permutation poetry. "Junk is noooo good, baby. Junk is no baby good." I sit down on the couch I made out of the mattresses I found in the room. A twin box-spring and two futons. I sit on the couch and look into the eyes of the porcelain monkey I keep on my coffee table. "Baby, is junk good? No. Baby is good junk? No." The monkey is a grotesque relic of my childhood, smiling-scary-wide eyes, gripping a chalice in his hands—greed. It used to be a lamp but the top broke off, leaving only and a chasmic hole in the back of his head. "Is noooo junk baby good—is noooo baby junk good—is no good, Baby! Junk!" I smile back at him and take a bite as Pretty Cat gets comfortable on my bed. I'll be joining him soon. "No good baby, junk is!"

I start coughing a bit and Robin walks into my room. She is, hands down, my most attractive roommate (sorry Lyndon) and the girl with whom I share a bathroom but, alas, never a bed. She smiles as I offer her the pipe and asks me how my night was. What can I say? That the new guy who was supposed to work the Subway didn't show and didn't call on his second day. That the ordeal put me behind several hours so I didn't have a chance to eat my nightly turkey sandwich. The egg sandwich in my hand is the first thing I've eaten since yesterday morning. I tell her it was fine. She massages my neck for a moment and then heads for the shower.

I survey the coffee table to find my cell amongst the debris of empty and half-empty beer bottles. I have voice mail from yesterday that I haven't checked, but now seems like a good time. I don't know why Mark called me in the middle of the afternoon—he knows I work nights. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I take my shoes off, followed by my socks. I throw my work shirt, the only shirt I wear these days, onto my desk chair. I finish my beer, *86 and then my password. The messages play—I am informed first by Mark and then by my mother that Isaiah hanged himself the day before. An empty bottle falls to the filth, my floor. I look at Pretty Cat. The sacred cat licks its ass.

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