The Liar, The Bitch, and the Floorboard

The woman was overdosing on heroin. Her, girlfriend, Jenny, was performing spur-of-the-moment satanic rituals at the hands of her drug-infected lover, which she believed would save the junkie from death. I knew she was making all of it up as she went along: the charcoal, the whispering, the restraint of her hysteria, but I kept my mouth shut; I’d never seen anyone die before.

I sat on the corner of the bed, open-mouthed, letting the smoke drift from my lips as it encircled its cancerous fingers around the strands of my auburn hair. I wondered how long until sunrise; until I was destined to peddle my way back across the dark road that cut through the forest and scared nature’s beauty. I wasn’t eager to be home; a twenty-mile bike ride, a final push of my smoke and alcohol riddled teenage body back through my screenless bedroom window. I wanted to be here with her.

I longed to be doing the dishes with Jenny again, in that tin can called a home. We used to stand side by side, laughing vicariously as we scrubbed away at piles upon piles of chipped plates and cheap mugs, until there was nothing but countertop. I wanted to be drunk, stoned, and away from responsibility, ignoring the bed-springs in the room down the hall as they collided against each other with each thrust. But above all, I wanted to be the one Jenny called love.

The center of my obsession circled the bed restlessly, smoking a cigarette as she spoke useless words toward the window. Her abusive lover slowly flailed her arms from side to side, murmuring something about doubling her dosage next time, complaining about a stitch in her side. I guess she wouldn’t be dying tonight after all. God, I hated her for that.

I extinguished my cigarette only to quickly ignite another one, inhaling the butane, rat poison, and whatever else came with the first drag. Sitting there contemplating this life, I felt anxious and a bitter sense of longing creep into me. I helped reposition the heroin addict, so Jenny could mount her and breathe mentholated smoke over the bitch’s forehead. I only assumed this was still part of her fictional step-by-step occult ritual to save her overdosing girlfriend.

As I stared at Jenny’s watery eyes that were focused on her own shaking hands, I suddenly heard a strange voice whispered in my ear. “This is not really your life.” I turned in the direction of these words, cigarette cherry spinning with me only to spark against the bedpost. The red flickering ashes lingered in the air and I stared at the bedpost. The sparks turned to ash and glided onto the sheets with uncanny precision.

My stomach churned and sputtered, and I glanced back to Jenny. This time my eyes perched between the cleavage that danced above her v-neck. A small dot of glistening sweat emerged from the divot in her neck, slowly finding its way to her breasts and I found myself licking my lips. I needed to pee. I could hear Jenny, still invoking her delusions of love, as I slammed the bathroom door.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this,” I explained to the cheap floorboard that glanced ever-so-slightly through the cracked linoleum, as I peered between my badly shaven knees and white panties, “but any buzz, no matter how small, is almost instantly amplified when you step into a bathroom.” The floor, creaking in boredom, did not seem impressed, and so I continued. “It’s true. I’m not sure of the precise physics of it all, but I think it may have to do with the coldness of the environment, the constant presence of water, and the usual introduction to the visual self when presented with a mirror.

“Also,” I rambled on, now fiddling with my zipper, “the figuration of a bathroom is quite odd; there are cold curves and slopes in places where it is not uncommon to put in some part, if not all, of one’s unclothed body. I mean, how surreal is that? And so, unlike the rest of the house, which can be soft, appealing, and casual, excluding the kitchen sink—the bathroom is a mysterious realm all on its own.

“All in all,” I concluded, “a bathroom callously invites the individual to be at their most vulnerable; a bathroom, my dear broken floor, is the most unusual room in the entire house. Therefore, if mentally impaired, an almost immediate sense of euphoria will flood one’s unconscious mind, inevitably making the area more nostalgic.”

With my closure to the significance of bathrooms, I grabbed the cheap toilet paper, cleaned an uncensored part of my anatomy, and flushed the pot.

I peered back into the bedroom, and then down the long, narrow hallway of the trailer. I pulled a coin from my jean pocket, flipped it, and pulled it from the air mid-spin. Then without looking at the answer, or back to Jenny, walked away from the disaster in the bedroom, out the front door, and into the darkness.