Chuzz wants to die. He wants to die now.
He has a gun and it is beautiful. He stares at it all the time. Well, the time that he isn’t staring at his monochrome screen or whacking off to Asian anime fetish porn. He stares at it, and he thinks about how cool it would be to see the barrel for the last time. Just look down it, study the tip of the lead ball and contemplate it accelerating up said tube and into his head. His biggest question is, ‘Will I hear the explosion as all those little grains of gunpowder ignite?’
After groaning for a half hour, he finally rolls to his feet and tugs some dirty white underwear on. They were on the floor, but the puke missed them. He is pretty sure they were washed last week, so he has a day or two to go. He squishes through his own filth as he rips his puke-covered shirt off and tosses it in the corner. Steady now, on his feet, or not so steady since the floor insists upon swaying under his blurry eyes.
Little bursts of light *pop pop pop* around the corners of his eyes. The headache just gets worst as he gets farther off the ground until it is a full-bore sum-bitch that grips the back of his skull and throbs all the way to his forehead. Like something is holding him in a vice. Something is squeezing the life out. Someone is turning his brain to mashed potatoes.
One stumbling step goes squish in his vomit. Looks down, gross. Fights the urge to puke again but can’t help it, and the only thing nearby is his fish tank. Chuzz throws the lid back and unleashes another stream, which will keep those little meat eaters happy for a while ’cause he is pretty sure chunks of his gut came up. Have to check the pH balance later, he chides himself and laughs. Ha ha; pH balance. Those little leeches won’t last a day in that stuff.
Then again, weirder stuff has happened to Chuzz. Even weirder stuff is about to happen.
Splashes some water under his pits. He sniffs them and decides he should probably get in the shower. He tries to dig a towel out of the basket, but there isn’t one. When the hell is his mother going to get his laundry done?
Glances in the mirror. He’s already got three days’ worth of dark growth; it can wait another day, so fuck the shave. Little toothpaste swished around with some pure potato vodka that he makes himself.
Right as rain, and he is ready to get to work. Had to pop the lid of the bottles of pills, though, didn’t like that one little bit. The government can track him that way, and he likes that even less.
Always trying to catch the Chuzz up to no good. He is way too smart for that, which is why his pills come to a PO box and are delivered to a woman named April P. Umbrella. His Internet doctor makes sure everything is on the up and up.
Pills, not the blue one ’cause it isn’t Wednesday. Or is it? Some regular painkillers with a side order of Depakote for the bipolar. Lithium for the voices and Zoloft for the depression. A pair of methadone for Phil. He goes to his companion and shows him the pills. A handful of heaven. Phil stops masturbating for a few seconds and opens his mouth wide, then it is all adoring grins while he beats his meat like it IS Wednesday night. Chuzz shakes his head and goes back to the tiny bathroom.
The thirty-watt bulb doesn’t illuminate much in this chunk of nirvana. It makes the yellow yellower and the shit stains on the toilet seat darker. Makes the layer of scum in the bathtub a little more tolerable, and it makes his skin seem almost normal.
He frowns at the thought of stripping off his clothes and standing under a white sheet of searing agony as water that is barely above freezing does its best to tear his skin off. He could pay his heating bill and get some warm water, but he only has enough extra cash to pay for his Internet usage this month.
Can’t lose his website. If that goes down, the gays will take over and then it will be the end of the world. The damn end!
He douses his hair with cold water, and his hands come away oily. He uses a roll of Bounty to dry off his long hair then runs the old silver hair dryer for a few precious minutes. It almost depletes his entire reserve on one battery—one of hundreds of potatoes sitting in lemon water, rotting and creating electricity. He walks naked back to his pile of clothes and digs through them. At least one shirt doesn’t smell like shit, so he puts it on. Maybe he should just drag his clothes upstairs and wash them today.
Not today, please not today. He has things to do, places to go and cocks to suck.
No not suck, never suck! He goes to investigate. To map out where the damn gangs hang out with their rock-hard cocks on display. Bastards; every one of them will burn in the fires of hell.
“Ain’t that right, Phil?” he calls over to his orangutan, who is lying on his side, head lolled back so he can stare at the ceiling. Drool runs down his hairy chin and coats his neck. One eye is closed, and the other is a slit. He keeps stroking himself even though he is limp.
Stupid monkey, or should he say stupid ape? The semantics are frequently lost on his drug-addled brain.
Probably feels like shit. Just like me. He gets a flash from last night. A drunken game of patty cake with Phil. They were making out. That can’t be right!
Stands up, looks for pants. There they are, across the room over his computer chair. The space seems vast, but he will make the pilgrimage for his pants. One shambling step after another sees him at his destination and then with pants. Life is getting better.
“Phil, wake the fuck up!” he calls to his pal in the corner. Phil holds up one hairy hand, his only hand, and gives Chuzz the finger. A hairy finger. Fuck you buddy and then some. His hand falls back lifeless. Snores filter across the room like a train leaving the station.
He takes a Jenny Craig breakfast bar and tosses it to Phil. Fine, suck on that.
“Fucking Phil,” he mutters.
Tosses some clothes on the pile of vomit, and the place smells a hell of a lot better. Contemplates breakfast, but his stomach still feels like hell. Still feels like it is filled with acid. Like he is going to puke it all out at some point in the very near future. If there is even anything left in there.
Need calm, center. He goes to his tiny refrigerator and extracts the carton of homemade buttermilk. A few quick swallows and he feels as right as rain. Funny how the texture is just like the stuff he puked up earlier. Well, goes out, goes right back in. Time to head to the store and then it will be time to get to work.
He takes his mother’s beat-up Camaro to the grocery market. He ignores his neighbors, who are packing up to move. Trucks backed into garages like the whole neighborhood just sold to some land developer. Maybe it did, but Mom played hardball and refused to sell. Now they will have to build condos around her house.
The store’s parking lot is a madhouse. The line stretches a half-mile, but he knows a short cut. Chuzz cuts around the back of the parking lot and noses between a pair of large hedges that scrape the car. Someone catches sight of him and honks their horn from the line, but fuck them. He hits the gas and fishtails through the gravel, shoots past the back of the store and zips around to the front. He parks in a tiny space marked with a handicap sign. He takes an old towel from the back seat and covers the sign. He’ll only be a few minutes.
Inside, more lunacy waits. People run all over the damn place buying up cartfuls of canned goods and bottled water. The shelves are almost bare, but he finds what he needs after a few minutes of looking.
Chuzz can’t stand waiting. He’ll do anything to avoid a line, including feigning injury. He scores a place at the front of this one with a limp and a downturned mouth like every step is pure pain.
It doesn’t hurt that he is feeling a little foggy today as though he were walking in a dream. Not one of those stupid nightmares he has every night, but a dream where everyone around him is a character and he the lead. He smiles when he has to, looks sad when it is appropriate, and tries to make as much eye contact as possible. This serves to control those around him like he is their puppet master. He reckons that’s why he gets his way. Always. And if those tricks don’t work, he resorts to his favorite weapon in his arsenal.