The Egotist Read online

  A couple months later, Fredo is dead.

  I know it sounds like a dimestore novel, but I can’t help thinking that everyday life is a lot like being in a war. You never know who you can trust. Hell, you don’t even know who’s carrying a gun!

  On top of that, if there is anything I would equate to my existence I suppose it would be the two words Uncle Fredo wrote in my sketchbook that day.

  Just goes to show that you never know when a handicap is going to say something smart.

  BOOK FOUR

  FAMILY

  The Straw Maker

  Old Wiley Pickens

  had all the fixins

  for turnin’ his hay into straw.

  He’d sit up at night

  smokin’ his pipe

  working like mad until dawn.

  Then one day there came

  a vixen so tame

  he proposed that he call her his wife.

  She giggled and swayed

  but looked to be paid

  and he swore that he’d pay with his life.

  So merry they made

  as they rolled in the hay.

  planning out kids and a home;

  when he suddenly straightened

  and put a stop to the matin’,

  for an error to him had been shown.

  He said,

  “If I’m to love thee,

  and you’re to love me,

  who’s going to change all the hay?”

  She just looked at old Wiley,

  winked at him slyly,

  then melted away into clay.

  Terms of Endearment

  Family is a relative concept. The dictionary describes a family as “a group of individuals living under one roof, usually under one head.”

  Under one roof? What’s that crap? What if I was living under one roof in a nut house? What if I was living under one roof on death row? Those people aren’t my family, I don’t care what society’s definitions are. Those slobbering white-robed fools, those murderous predators . . . those people don’t represent me. They don’t speak of my ancestry, or of who I am. No one does that - no one!

  You want to know my definition of family? Get ready . . . it’s ME. That’s it, that’s the whole definition - Me. I am my family, I am the representative of who I am. I am my past, my present, and my future. I am my ancestry, my lineage, my name, and my word. I am the dust from which I have been made and I live under one roof with myself. Ask me who I work for - Me. Ask me who I care about - Me. Ask me who I hope to marry - Me. What am I going to name my kids? Me, Myself, I. What company do I plan to invest my life working for? Me, Inc. What sports team do I follow - the Me’s. I am IT. I am all there is.

  Keep your peasants, your screwballs, your degenerates and murderers, criminals, buddies, sidekicks, good cops, bad cops, investors, lawyers, countrymen, quarterbacks, salesman, throwers, catchers, watchers, doers, liars, givers, takers, sons, wives, and daughters to your stinkin’ rotten ignorant self. They have nothing to offer me. You have nothing to offer me. You want to be in a family? Go live under someone else’s roof . . . there’s no room here.

  My father spent his life holding a roof over my head so that, at the end of the day, he could call me his family. Well, he cannot. I will not allow it. My mother, who left me when I was very young, was not under that roof. My Uncle, who was retarded and crippled, did not realize he was under that roof, even though, technically, he was. They are no more my family than the bugs that lived in the basement of that house, under that roof. If they are my family then so is the roach, and the spider; so are the termites, the bacteria, the lint, and the sewage. All of these things are my family as well.

  No . . . no, I don’t think so. Families are for the weak. Families are creations of institutional thinking. Schools create children, mold them into men and women, marry them off and begin the process again. Families are by-products, like diplomas and pensions; it’s all a smoke screen. It’s hiding what’s up in the hills. It’s keeping you stupid and in line. People live in a dark cloud of ignorance and they cannot break free from it, not ever, because the institution of society will not let them. Rats in a maze with no ending, except the rats aren’t trying to get out. They like the maze. They’re going to invest in the maze and see if they can’t fix it up a bit so that - when they die - they can leave part of the maze for their children. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, if you want out you have to break out.

  Don’t tell me about family. I owe no one.

  mother

  I only saw my mother once that I can remember.

  I was staying home, skipping a day of my junior year in high school. My brooding nature and over-inflated ego had just begun to bud, and although I was an adept young man physically, having matured in that sense a great deal, I was still in a catatonic state mentally, unaware of the enormous complexities around me and consumed by the couch in the living room and the school yearbook. Not to say that I was inane, but I had not yet fully realized the potential of what was out there and all that I could do to impact my surroundings.

  I had no real memories of my mother and know her only through stories told to me by father. I had no brothers nor sisters - that I knew of, anyway. My father rarely spoke of her, except to say that she left when I was very, very young. She had “gone away,” he said. Why, or who with, I never did know. I once tried to ask my Uncle Fredo about it, but he either didn’t want to talk about it or didn’t know who she was any more than I, which was possible given the timeline of the war in conjunction with my parents’ marriage.

  That day was sunny and I, like I said, hadn’t gone to school. I skipped school often and was frequently suspended for poor behavior, attendance and the like - so it all sort of worked out in my favor. My father didn’t really care that much whether I went or not. I think he just liked having me around. He had a pretty cool job at a movie theater, and he would always tell me to come down and visit if I “wasn’t going to be attending class” that day.

  I spent many days at that movie theater, seeing whatever I wanted for free. I would sometimes watch three or four movies a day, just skipping from one theater to the next. G, PG, R . . . it made no difference. From the ages of about twelve to eighteen, I spent a solid part of my life growing up in those big, dark rooms watching, mesmerized, the stories unfolding before me. I used to love the steamier R pictures, and besides, they had the best violence and the most realistic language.

  This day, however, father wasn’t working, and I had decided to stay around home and read and generally screw off. I had a journal that I enjoyed writing in very much, and when I die I suppose that will be part of my collective writings to be found in some old attic somewhere.

  (No journal from the time period mentioned was ever found, and it is believed to have been thrown out some time ago. - Editor)

  I probably would never have thought to watch the car in the driveway and the woman who got out of it, but as my father had gone out the door to meet her he had turned to me and said very sternly, “Stay put. I don’t want you coming outside until I get back.”

  Curiosity peaked, I moved across the living room and into the small dining room that hooked out from our kitchen. I twisted open the mini-blinds that covered the dining room window and looked out at our front driveway and the run-down neighborhood beyond.

  What looked to be a very nice car, to be honest I don’t know what model it was, had pulled up into our driveway. It looked out of place there, parked next to father’s dingy little Mustang. It had a color so bright that it seemed to reflect off the things around it. That car . . . I’ll never forget it. It was bright red, two-door, very sporty. It was a high-level automobile, for sure. Like I said, I have no idea what model or make it was, and haven’t seen anything since that looked identifiably similar.

  It just looked . . . nice. Shiny. Smooth. Radiant. Fast.

  Next thing I know a lady gets out of the car, and I knew it was her. I had seen the pictures my father had kept a
round and recognized her immediately. For a period of time when I was very young I had taken a picture of her from my father’s bedroom and kept it under my pillow every night while I slept. Why I did that, I don’t know. I refuse to apologize for anything I did when I was in single-digits and carry no responsibilities for my actions. One night, after about three weeks of sleeping on the framed photo, the picture disappeared. I never confronted my father about why he had taken it back.

  I remember her getting out and smiling at my father as he walked towards her. She seemed very young, standing there with him, smiling as he frowned. They talked for about ten minutes, about what I have no clue. They didn’t argue, and she never took off that smile. I found her endearing at first . . . she was very beautiful. After I watched her for a few more minutes, however, I felt myself boiling. Something about the way she looked at him, and then at the car. Pointing to his car, to his house, maybe to me - I don’t know. I was there at the window, watching it all, taking it all in. At the end, she just patted father on the cheek, and he, standing with his hands in his pockets, watched silently as she got back into her car.

  The shiny red car started up with a rumble, and I remember thinking about how very fast it must be.

  She pulled away, and I moved away from the window, back to where I had been sitting on the couch. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to look preoccupied, but felt more silly than anything.

  Father came in, went in the kitchen for a beer, then came out to the living room where I was sitting. To my surprise, he had gotten beers for us both. I wasn’t of drinking age, and he had never offered nor suggested that I drink, so this was a first. I had consumed beer before, but not with the parental so near, so on-hand.

  He popped both tops and put mine in front of me before sinking down into his own chair. He started sipping at the bottle with a real blank look in his eyes. Feeling a little odd, I picked up my own beer and took a long swallow. It was very good, I remember, very cold.

  He looked at me, a small smile breaking onto his face. I sort of smiled back. Not knowing how to approach it, I figured I’d just be direct. It was awkward, but the silence seemed more so.

  “Was that mother?” I gilded, sipping down more beer to try and make the question seem casual, as if it wasn’t the only time I had seen her since ages too young to remember.

  “Yep,” he said.

  He didn’t seem too rattled by the direction of the conversation, so I took the next step, remaining cautious.

  “What’d she want?” I asked, again going for the beer.

  He just got that blank look in his eyes again. Then he looked at me, his eyes hard, as if daring me to challenge his next statement. He uttered it with harsh disdain, and I didn’t challenge him. In fact, it was one of the only conversations we ever had about her, and I haven’t spoken of her since.

  “Son,“ he said slowly, as if picking his words carefully, trying to pick words that would work, words that would make just a little more sense. At the end, he seemed resigned, saying simply, “She wanted to show me her new car.”

  He sighed and sank back even further into his chair, taking his eyes off me. I thought about what he had said for a second, trying to weigh the implications.

  Soon, I found myself wanting to ask so many questions - needing to ask them. I couldn’t, so I drank my beer and swallowed what I could. My throat began to burn, I wanted to cry. The beer tasted horrible then, but there was no choice but to finish it. Silently, I drank the rest of the bottle while sitting awkwardly across to my humbled father.

  When I was done, I got up without a word and went to my room. I don’t remember what happened next. The hate would come later.

  Distant Relatives

  I sit at the coffee shop, sipping a latte and people-watching on one of my many days off. I received a phone call this morning from someone who claims to be related to me. I don’t really know how that could be, as I am an only child and my Uncle Fredo never married. His sexual life had ended in Vietnam, and I hate to think that I’m going to meet some mix-up of him and some war whore. I fear that I would laugh in their face if they told me that, so I suppose I’ll just have to wait it out.

  I told her over the phone not to come to my house, but to meet me at the coffee shop. She said she had just moved here and didn’t really have any way of getting around. She had a car, she said, but it wasn’t insured. I chuckled and responded, “Whose is?” and told her to drive it anyway.

  She had the voice of a young girl and she sounded American, anyway. If she was of Vietnamese descent, I didn’t catch any tonal inflections to indicate so. She sounded juvenile, and upon inquiring, she told me she was eighteen, and that was all she would tell me until I saw her.

  Never one to turn down a date, I acknowledged her and set up the rendezvous.

  “What do you look like?” she pryed during the brief phone call.

  “Well, if there’s a skunk in the flower patch, I’m it,” I responded dryly, not wanting to raise her hopes too high.

  “Ah, I see. Well, I can be there in about half-an-hour, but I warn you, I’m very nervous.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, we’ve never met.”

  “So?”

  “I just don’t know if we’ll get along.”

  “Why do we have to get along? I don’t even know you. For all I know, you’ve got me mixed up with someone else because, like I told you, I don’t have any relatives.”

  “Don’t worry,“ she said coyly, “there’s no mix-up. I’ll see you in half-an-hour.”

  Then she just hung up. Predictable girlish charm.

  So here I sit, waiting for this princess of mystery in her uninsured car. I have a copy of a DeLillo book, and it’s really got me pissed off and confident. If she takes too long to arrive, I’m likely to start turning over tables on this boring little sidewalk cafe. My head sways a bit as I think of such things. I get my bearings and look up from my book, scanning the surrounding tables, the sidewalk and the street. A car pulls up to a meter, straddling the curb, and I see her get out.

  Who is that, I think. She looks to be a bit older than the young age of eighteen she quoted me on the phone, and appears to be a “middle-ground” type girl, dressed stylish . . . yet subtle. Girl-next-door hot. Jeans and a good-looking shirt, all shiny and curvy against a prime body. She has blue eyes surrounded by naturally dark hair, falling in strands around her eyes and face, put up into some sort of small bow. Her face is puerile and amazing, giving her the look of a beautiful, voluptuous, tomboy. I’m startled by her, and feel my confidence shrinking as she scans the tables, one-by-one, for me. As luck would have it, I’m the only non-couple on the sidewalk, and she spots me quickly. We lock eyes, and I can’t help but stare at her. A feeling of repulsion sinks into me, I don’t know why. She sees me and smiles. I can only sit there - I’m stunned.

  She walks over to my table and I watch her approach, trying to keep my face from contorting. She sits down across from me without a word, and I feel myself drain. Her confidence is amazing, and I have no recourse for it. I think of jumping up and fleeing the scene, running for some kind of shelter. She is no boy-toy, I know. Her mind focuses her features, and her genuine happiness is constrained and well kempt. She is like a perfect sausage with just the right kind of mustard, and I feel my mouth water weirdly at the thought.

  “Hello,” she says, and I recognize the voice from the phone.

  “Hi,” I say, feeling more stupid with each passing second.

  “Are you the skunk?” she says, a giggle escaping her.

  I freeze. I’m crushed by her now, completely trapped in whatever spell she is weaving. Her laugh is like a vibration that goes through me, chilling my spine and raising the hairs on my neck. I feel like crying - I have no idea why! I sit and look at her and I feel myself nod slowly, my eyes recording her face as it lights up wonderfully, basking me with its divine glow. I can’t control my emotions, I’m a speeding locomotive and she is the engineer, pulling the levers
and shoveling the coal and trying desperately to keep me on the tracks. I am lost to her, and have no thought now but of her.

  “Good,” she says in response to my nod. “I would have hated for my first conversation here to have been with a stranger.”

  “But we are strangers,” I say, as nicely as I can. The words help me regain my footing a bit, and I position myself differently in the chair, just to show her that I’m not nearly as frozen as she might think.

  “True,“ she replies happily, “but I plan to change that.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m Beth, first of all. And second of all, I’ve got something to show you.”

  She reaches into a back pocket of her jeans, and I notice now that she carries no purse. She takes out a picture and sets it on the table, and I find myself not looking at it, but at her, watching her every movement, her every subtlety. I can’t help but stare at the bare bend in her arm, and notice how fresh her flesh looks. I feel like a vampire and desperately wish for her to be my first victim. I can think of no other pleasure than digging my teeth into her throat and drinking all that is within her. It’s impossible for me to stop making ridiculous analogies, I have no mind! She speaks again, and my lack of concentration is jerked once more.

  “I think we both know these people,” she says, giving me a look that seems to be one of someone holding their breath, and I wonder if she’s doing just that. I look down at the picture disinterested, not caring about any relation but her and I.

  On the table is an old photo of my father. He has his arm around a woman I recognize, and I realize, with no great bravado, that it is my mother, whom I have only seen in person but once. I really think nothing of it, still caught in the womb of my own lusty want. But then, like layers being pulled away, I begin to realize the pile of shit I am sitting in. Before doubt can step in to start raising some hell in my mind, she speaks once more.