The Convulsion Factory

clear as their demises, and still no one understands. They’re all too busy crying foul to pay attention.

So I ask you: What chance does the average underachiever with a death wish have of being understood?

I went my own way the next several days, placid through my angers. Didn’t bother watching the forecasts. Rain or clouds or sun, I’d gotten to the place where I preferred the surprise to the tipoff. Then the next round of free weekly papers came out, the ones you find at all the better bars and bookstores and coffee shops. The ones whose deadlines I’d caught after borrowing from Megan. I swept down on them and brought home one of each. Sat on the couch as the ebb and flow of life went on under our mad roof, browsing the classifieds until Megan came home.

“I’m writing again,” I told her. “I wanted you to be the first to know.”

“Are you really?” She seemed very happy to hear this, and she was so decent, you know, she didn’t even say the obvious. Oh yeah, well how about writing me a check sometime soon?

“I’m putting together a portfolio,” and then I handed her one of the papers, folded back the way my father always read them, and left them for the next person. I showed her where to read, my ad under “Special Services.”

SUICIDE NOTES

FOR ALL OCCASIONS

•

Don’t waste that last opportunity to have your say … you’ll never get a better chance to explain.

• Custom-written just for you, or choose from among our many demos.

• Blame laid, guilty consciences eased, more.

And on it went, with my evening number and suggested hours, but of course I realized I’d have to be flexible. Emergencies do come up.

“That’s morbid,” said Megan. “But I admire your ability to find a niche.”

“Most people need help just writing a resume,” I said, and she nodded, remembering. I’d helped her write one two weeks after I’d moved in.

And for all the days of soul-searching, I actually felt good about this. It could prove to be a valuable service, one less thing to worry about at a really shitty time. Making money off the misery of others? I didn’t think of it as selling out. I preferred to think of it as buying in. I’d been there, could relate.

Eagles do fly higher than vultures, but at least they both get off the ground. After that, what really matters?

Megan and I curled into the couch, and then each other, and we talked until the phone started to ring, and once it started, I wondered if it would ever ever stop.

Heartsick

i. need

The wet spot is still on the bed when they retreat, come first light of morning, or sooner. After she sees the last of their backs out the door there is plenty of room in the bed, but still she sleeps atop the wet spot. Cool beneath her, sticky to the touch. Beneath her hip sometimes, other times her back … perhaps even her shoulders, depending on earlier acrobatics.

Awake and dreaming, tracing fingers through that dewy patch, their mingled fluids — mostly his, the ever interchangeable he — and she brings its musk scent to her nose. Then dips her nose to the source itself, breathe deeply now, as if to swim in their communal pool. Or duck beneath and drown.

The wet spot is still fresh when they leave.

But Stefan is different.

Connie, awake and dreaming, all nude and half covered by the rumpled sheet. The visible breast is small, firm, pointed. Her hair still crimped and now in stiff clumps, last night’s mist having lost its hold like so much surrendered self-control. And will she cry? No, no more, at least that’s one benefit of lowered expectations.

Two can play the game, gender being no barrier, affirmative action and equality: I can be just as callous as you, bastard, and if we were at your place instead, you couldn’t keep me from that door. Just you try.

Sure. Sure.

Just try, once, just … once?

Connie smiles dimly at the ceiling with lips that recall the press of another’s. Oh, the places she’s put her tongue. In retrospect it’s probably best she never sees them by true daylight; the night adds so much more mystique. In the dark, anything can dwell, any promise hold a core of truth.

Fan above, blades of wood and cane, slow circles for a draft to cool moonlit sweat, flesh on flesh, ghost white on silver. And if this ceiling could talk, what 3AM murmurs might it have learned, parrot-fashion?

i don’t usually do this, really i don’t … but it was your eyes i think

don’t you hate that smoke smell, so do i, isn’t this better?

your hands, i love the way your hands feel, i need them here

i love to give head

i’ll do anything you want

need them here too

okay? okay?

walk your dog now? i thought you said earlier you didn’t have any pets

Sometimes these exchanges seem as rehearsed as they are spontaneous, and probably this is so. Identical players memorizing identical scripts of hunger and desperation and pathological fears of loneliness, endlessly played out by new pairings of performers. On interchangeable stages.

But Stefan is different.

Endeavoring to persevere, Connie has tried pursuit, a follow-up of the heart once the ice of loins has been broken. Pop-psych gurus, “Don’t be afraid, men are flattered when the woman takes the initiative,” and now she has a whole shelf filled with pastel paperbacks she’d just love to cram down the throat of the next self-appointed expert. Here you go, digest this and see how it correlates with actualities out there, see if you can look me in the face then.

And then…?

…maybe I’ll buy your book anyway. It can’t hurt. Can it?

Taking the initiative, she knows all about that. Connie knows romance. Knows her heart and her soul, knows that fairy tales really can be hammered out of them with enough force.

The catered lunch at Andy’s office, address right there via Tuesday night’s exchange of business cards — are you surprised? she asked, flushing with obvious pleasure, and yes, oh yes he most certainly was, then had a question of his own, and her face began to crumble like a broken mask. connie. connie martin? we met … the other night, we … um…  Standing unprotected in a strange office she’d never seen before, and how brutal the air suddenly felt in her throat, on her eyes, peripherally aware of the caterer in his white jacket, starting to squirm and shuffle his feet and refusing to look up any more. She supposed it was his idea of discreet pity. Share her embarrassment and maybe he gets a bigger tip.

Overpriced luncheon, trout almandine, taken home in the world’s most humiliating doggy bag. White wine half-drunk in the taxi, one batch of leftovers eaten in front of evening TV news and quickly thrown up into the toilet,