Book Excerpt Part One

[This is an excerpt from a book-length project that I’m working on]

“I’d give you a hit off of this but I think you’re high enough already”, the flightless bird told me. He didn’t look like a flightless bird. He looked like Marlon, the guy from school who dressed like he was in the glee club except we didn’t HAVE a glee club. But, I knew if I tore the skin from his face, underneath would be bird, probably a cassowary. I had been giving a pretty emotional defense of the poetry of T. S. Eliot to a pile of laundry that was sitting on one of the dining room chairs. It looked like a pile of laundry but I spoke to it just in case it was some kind of doppelganger pretending to be a pile of laundry because I didn’t want it to take my soul or my first-born or whatever it was that doppelgangers take. I was a bit paranoid about the van parked in front of the house all day despite the fact that it was my van.

“Do you really want some of this?”, Marlon asked, unsolicited. He waved the half-joint in my face and I could smell a burning walnut shells scent. Maybe I was too high. I’d just tried to open a bag of chips but it outsmarted me and got away. Also, I’d finished the Red Vines and Chips Ahoy cookies and the paint chips on the window sill were starting to look like a viable snack.

“Class of ’79!”, someone yelled out. There was a scattering of whoops from those in the house that weren’t too stoned or drunk to answer back.

“But, if you really want some…”, Marlon prompted. It was hard to focus on him because I was watching the television. Someone unplugged it three hours ago but I was damned if I was going to look at Marlon and eat paint chips.

“Who wants to go to the city and see a one-man play about Herman Melville?”, the cacophony lulled for a moment and the guy added, “’Cause there’s gotta be major TAIL at something like that, am I right?”. So, he wouldn’t be coming out of the closet THIS semester, at least. A one-man play sounded fascinating, so I knew I was pretty high.

“Charlie is SO high right now”, said Susan, her coarse but lovely features coming into focus a few inches from my face. Her breath smelled like Sprite and vodka. She was spitting a little when she talked. I didn’t mind. “Are you okay, Charlie?”

Frankly, I didn’t even think she knew my name. I’d been admiring her from afar and through strong binoculars for quite some time. I tried to lift my arms but they didn’t work. She grabbed my by the cheeks and talked into my face as if I were a clown at a Jack-in-the-Box drive-thru. “Are you alright, Charlie?”, she asked again.

“He’s fine”, Marlon interjected, replacing Susan’s face with his own. “He just wants a little of this” He held up the half-joint, offering it to Susan… but, Susan was a drinker, like her mom. Children always take the vices of their parents because they know there will always be a steady supply of that vice, usually in a sock drawer or on a high shelf. “Okay, Charlie”, Marlon said my name like it was his first day as a person. I felt the end of a doob push up against my lower lip. “Just take a little inhale…” I did; then, I lifted my head but Susan had found another face to get into. I was mad at Marlon but instead of beating him to a bloody pulp, I took another hit…

And, the roof and ceiling went away and I was seeing the stars above. It occurred to me that I should avoid doing anything that might destroy the universe, like thinking up all the names of God. But, you know how, when you tell yourself not to think of something, that’s ALL YOU THINK ABOUT. And, the names of God flooded out of my brain. I tried to stop it by thinking of baseball or the theme to The Love Boat but it was impossible. When I got to “Zachory Zimmerman”, the first stars started to dim and then wink out. As the last names left my exhausted brain, the other stars turned themselves off and I could feel space curve itself around me. There was a bright light which I now know was my life passing before my eyes. My last thoughts were, “I wish I’d been able to open those potato chips”