I Feel Dead

“I feel dead,” I say to myself under my breath.

Do I mean I am dead? Going to be dead? I don’t often know what I mean when I speak.

The words just fall out of the front of my head, and people nod. I wonder if my words have real meaning or if it’s just the sounds they like. Maybe this is what I mean by dead. It’s like being at my own funeral. Everyone is standing around me, saying how nice I used to be and how sad it all is; not enough of them are willing to reach into the box to check for a pulse. 

My favorite pills are the ones with the numbers scratched off. After that, I like Vicodin, Percocet, Norco, Fentanyl, Demerol, Morphine, Codeine, Booze, Weed, McDonald’s Quarter Pounders with Cheese, Sex with Fellas, Sex with Ladies, Sex with Myself, Jazz, Bach, Purcell, Mahler, M*A*S*H, and Cowboy Bebop. 

I do a gram of dabs a day to pretend I successfully fend off an old pill problem. That makes me stupid, and I am too smart not to admit that it’s my favorite part. Please steal from me that which I know. Take it all. All but the moments under trees or on the lakes—and leave me any meals in New Orleans. Besides that, I need nothing. Well, maybe this ashtray and this lamp.

We drove from Pontiac to Detroit for some reason. Drugs probably. The girls in the car kept screaming. They weren’t in distress or anything, just being druggy bitches yelling at other cars. The emptiness of the car now almost doesn’t make sense. My tires thud against the ragged pavement. I can still feel the burn of waking up too early in my eyes. The iced air is filled with the smells of coffee and the back-of-the-nose, top-of-the-tongue, carbon monoxide cloud that clings low to the road.

In the 90’s I saw a guy fly off his motorcycle and try to land on his feet on this very road. He was going too fast, though, and only managed to grind his legs to stumps before eventually curling forward in the toss and caving his unhelmeted head against the pavement. That would be nice today. A reason to just keep being late, to never come in. 

“Road’s closed, Boss.”

Have you ever tried to monkey-fuck a camel while driving? It’s not as complicated as it sounds. I pull the smoke from my lips and toss in another. Squinty left eye. Hawk right. Thread the needle. Hit a pothole and drive the hot cherry directly into my knuckle. Winge. Pull back. Rest my hand on my chin to steady myself. Fuck you truck. It’s lit. I toss the old smoke out the window. It’s sucked out the front window and into the rolled-down back. Let it burn.

“Good morning, Sergeant!” says whoever the fuck that was as I slink to my office to throw my shit in the corner and try to sneak out for one more pre-game smoke.

“Morning, Gillik.” I say. That’s probably a version of their name somewhere.

“I had some questions for you about today’s schedule,” says Gillik.

“Had?” I ask. “Good, it sounds like they’ve been answered. I’ll be in the pit.”

Gillik is needlessly stunned. Their eyes do that stupid thing where they get too small. You can see them retreating into themselves for some kind of response that doesn’t break my poor little heart; they still have many, many questions. 

“Follow me,” I say with a weak ‘come-hither’ wave. “What’s up?”

I think he’s telling me about his PT test or maybe his girlfriend. I can’t focus. I used to be very good at this. Is it me? Have I changed? Is it just people like this? There it is. Oh, we’re talking about his shit at the clinic. Poor kid probably smoked pot.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I say, interrupting him. “Come see me again after lunch and remind me.”

“It’s at zero-nine, Sergeant.”

“Then you better make it after breakfast.”

People often ask me about the smell in the morgue. They assume there is some rotten overtone. People never ask me about the smells in the kitchen. Out front, it smells yummy. Meat is meat. Cold, hot, and otherwise. Umami, the kids call it. The savory and sour smells of countless living beings being disassembled and reassembled. 

Salt is just about the only thing you eat that doesn’t have opinions on the matter before the meal. Bucket of rock-pussy oysters. Pan of severed handshakes in sauce. Wing night for the boys. Rubbing a pig’s tummy in salt, pepper, brown sugar, paprika, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, and celery seeds. A hellish aquarium of schooled fish broiling in a formation of glass-door ovens—that we may watch.

I have managed a long enough military career without having to bare-hand touch a dead human body. I do weird shit to a cow’s back with a hacksaw. I boil a thousand living beings alive at once. I watch their eyes cloud with steam and flavor. I peel open others alive. 

A big mistake people make throughout their lives is assuming other people share the same relationship with death as they do: I know what I’m doing every time. Crossing the hen’s legs like a serial killer. You just like it because you get to eat it. If there is even one chicken in heaven, there is a good chance I’m going to hell just for my recipe book.

Tech Sergeant Bowen knocks twice on the frame of my door. I must have fallen asleep again.

I forgot I was sleeping again. For so long, that was just a cruel hope. The clinic gave me some new pills to try. I’ll try anything twice. 

“What, B?” I grunt.

“You missed lunch.”

“Did Gillik get their shit squared away?”

“No idea. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Funeral detail in Romeo.”

“Where the fuck art thou Romeo?”

“North of here a bit.”

“Cool.”

My feet hurt so bad in these shoes. It’s a new thing. I’ve been wearing dumb shit like this on my feet since I was twelve. Now, though, it’s like their flatness mocks me. Shower shoes are probably better for my posture these days. Everything hurts. Standing. Sitting. Lying down.

As I stare down the barrel of nothing and maintain my military bearing, I do that thing where I let my eyes rest and turn the world into impressionism. 

Bokeh lights everything as she walks through the door to the chapel. I’d do the thing where you rub your eyes because she’s so hot—but you know, funeral. Are you with the bride or with the groom? Am I going to have to avoid eye contact with those titties and hand the flag off to you?

Good. Old dude in the box. Well, shit, maybe.

A softness breaks into me, seeing her. The lady of the hour, Little Granny Widow. I once went through a three-month period where I had to hand a flag off to a new widow every day—often before lunch. Staring over my steering wheel into the middle distance packing drive-thru in my cheeks so I could hurry up and have another smoke and get the fuck back on the road.

These people are so cute and fragile. B and I could both dismantle pretty much everyone in here besides that beast in the back. They know that, too. You can see it in their eyes. They look at me, at us with this look like, “Thank you for not killing me,” while they say, “Thank you for your service.” It’s crossed my mind, but that’d be like taking a tennis racket through a butterfly house and thinking you’re a mass murderer. Close, but I can do better.

I’m not gonna snap. Not much more than I have already. If this organ player doesn’t pick a new song I might lose it a little, but I hope to fuck I’ve seen the worst I’m going to see. Seen babies opened up like purses. Bodies left out like old cars in the tall grass. Flies of a violent size. The things are unnaturally large from their feasting. If you’re not careful, the greedy shits will start biting you while you’re still alive. 

On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Air Force, and a Grateful Nation, I present you with this token of our appreciation and esteem for your loved one’s years of faithful and diligent service. Salute. We’re off. Smoke’em if you got’em.

Colonel Vengeance. I bet he’d like that name, the little fucking dork. He’s trying his best to generate tears about a weak-dick war story in front of a room full of sociopaths and mortuary affairs experts. We see his tears are fake. They started real enough, but the bitch rode them out for effect. We will eat him later. He will eat this entire Squadron first.

Was it winter on the way here? Must have been. Snow fucking everywhere. Sun already setting. It can’t even be 16:00 yet. It’s 16:53 and I’ve been crying again. An empty military base is the same thing as a ghost town. I let enough of the frost clear to go but I’m still blinded by the laser-light-show of deep blue approaching lights. Torch trail the warrior made. Valkyrie signal in the mashed mirror of snow. Blue streak across the earth in defiance of the Lord. 

A stop for smokes and gas and pop and I’m home again, home again, jiggity jig. Did I eat today? How the fuck am I getting so fat? My scale is going to start picking fights with me in the morning if I don’t cut this out. I used to be so clean. Shame that shower scum can’t kill you. Not with those fucking little scrubby guys around. Those might kill me if I lace a paper bag with that instead of spray paint like the dipshits in the motor pool. Oh. I could. 

I really could these days. Sitting here dick-out on the couch in the atomic glow of whatever horseshit they’re making now—why not? First, I’m hungry. Then, I die. Pizza Rolls are not a fitting last meal, but they weren’t a fitting first, second, or third either. The criminal amount of ranch dressing in a criminally cute antique dish may not be enough for my midwestern lack of a palate. You know what? Since we’re doing the deed tonight … I’m going to do it. 

Mortification is the process by which a person either deprives themselves of something or endures significant hardship or suffering to attain a level of spiritual enlightenment. In 1348 Pope Clement officially permitted the practice of flagellation as a method of appeasing god to bring about a swifter end to the Black Plague. It didn’t seem to work, and Clement changed his mind the next year, condemning the practice.

I burn the shit out of my mouth with delight and joy. The roof of my mouth is immediately both raw and softly flaky as layer after layer of dead skin is scratched away by the starchy and tomatoey mess. Ranch and blood and oil. Umami, as the kids call it. I pad my tongue against the roof of my mouth. Apply pressure. I used to teach first aid. Or is that aide? I know those ones are different.

Something makes me think I should put on music before I kill myself, but I don’t. Like so many things, I look down at my records—I see them lying there, still and pretty. Better that I do not touch them. I do not risk scratching them. I want them here after I am gone. Isn’t that why we fought? So Boston, Kansas, Chicago, and Alabama still stand? 

For Christ’s sake, Bowie died. I don’t know if gay’s the right word for what I’m up to, but I sure would have loved just to sit across from that man and hear him tell me I’m gorgeous. Once would be enough. You know?

I open the sliding glass door, and the sound of the world at night floods in. The peeper frog screams, the crickets and whatever the fuck chirp. The velvet paper wings of moths bang into the siding as they make their orbit around the porch light. Pretty fucking nice night to do this.

I don’t know which pills will kill me, but I do know which ones I like—so we’ll start there. I may close the screen. If too many mosquitos get me they may get all the good shit. Rescued and eaten alive by the same bitchy bugs. This is poetic enough, right? I shouldn’t have to leave a note. They’ll probably find me tomorrow with the kitties from the complex peeling me down like a stack of pancakes. It’s cold, so it won’t get too funky unless I spend a little too much time in the sun. How are there bugs? How are there moths? There aren’t. Oh, wait.

No frogs, no moths, no whatever the fucks. It’s dead, or at least it feels dead. There’s this strange ripping sound over the water. The merging waveforms of rubber-meets-road as the cars sneak around the lake in ones and twos. The light thud-thud as they bump over some defect in the road. I thought it was summer.

Dying is taking too long. I was told 19-25 years tops. Also, these pills are taking their sweet fucking time. My foot slips as I step out onto my barren patio, but that could mean anything. I want to know where I am and when I am—and maybe if I am. That might be useful too. Forward, HARCH—don’t yell it. I don’t. There are a ton of benefits to living on a lake in southeast Michigan. For one, in the summer, there is plenty of boating, fishing, swimming, and any other kind of water-related outdoor activity. 

I’ve even seen people water ski on the lakes. Hell, I once saw a seaplane land on Cass Lake. In the winter, the lakes turn dark blue and green and grow choppy in the wind. When they freeze, ice fishermen and hockey players either head to old spots or fight over new ones. Another bonus is that you can jump into these fuckers at any time—fully clothed, with pockets full of rocks and sad letters in ink you forgot might get washed away with your body.

You can do all that on a lake too, and I want to, but I wake up face down in the snow and grass and millennia of old goose shit. It’s still dark but that could mean anything. My eye doesn’t open fast enough for me not to believe that the fluid inside hasn’t frozen like a Coke in the freezer. It feels like when I make it to a mirror, I will find an empty burst thing like a stepped-on grape. Maybe still blue? Probably not. I may need to deal with this pill thing eventually.

In the debate over free will versus determinism, does it matter? You’re still going to be held responsible. Even if you have no free will and are dragged across the surface of the earth like some asshole, you’re still the asshole. If you spill my blood and run the numbers, you will find a pale ancient soup of predeterminations. What do we do then? The weight of the whole of human history pushes you in one direction, and all the weight of human expectation pushes against you from another. Who are we to blame each other for anything?

The sun is up and I’m not dressed. I guess I’m not going to work today. My eye is fine, but there is a small black and white patch on my ear. I deserve that. Frostbite. It must still be winter. Did I close the door? Breakfast is not only the most important meal of the day to the Post and Kellogg companies. My guts can’t handle all that sugar and fat in the morning. Instead, I grab a Coke and two fresh packs of Camels from the carton stuffed into the butter drawer. Coffee would be good, but the last time I made coffee, it didn’t get cleaned for days. This will work. Anything ending in ‘ine’ should be good in the morning—well, good enough for me.

Coke and smoke in hand, I begin the arduous process of taking all the medications prescribed to me. When you have three or four pills to take, you can swallow those all at once. When you have 18 tablets and 22 capsules, take your time. Do I still have cats? I see cat food out. Weird.

Tense. Is that the way you spell it when a word happens in time with the feeling of tension? Past tense. Future tense. Very tense. Driving again. The sun is low and mean in the sky. Too bright at a dickhead’s distance from the horizon. Always right-the-fuck there. The sun isn’t quite going to explode, but it is going to expand out past the orbit of the Earth. Not today. If even the graveyards will be destroyed, what the fuck are we doing? At the stoplight, a Robin lands on my wiper blade. They tilt their head at me, or maybe just their own reflection in the windshield. It flaps off as the light turns green.