Noah Cicero - The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. II

I look straight ahead and say, “You made her laugh. That’s the first step to the removal of panties.”

Chang whispers to Janisa, “Your eyes, your voice, your arms, your very essence makes me crumble. I collapse like the Twin Towers when I’m in your presence. My cock swells, throbs. I need, I need to impale you with my cock. My hard cock is reaching out to you, trying to become friends with your vagina.”

“You is crazy,” Janisa says, laughing.

“Yeah baby.”

Janisa finishes her penis massage and walks away.

I say to Chang, “You’re more socially inept than I am.”

“I’m on SSI. I can do anything I want.”

“True. I’m a dishwasher. There are regulations I have to follow.”

“Yes, you must remain decent at all times. You must always put on a good pose so as not to tarnish the good name of your employer. I, on the other hand, am employed by The People. They employ me to be crazy, to sit alone in my little cell. Society needs people like me to look down on. They need me so there is always a definition of what crazy is. I am paid to keep a line between insanity and what is called sane. My insanity, even if it be only thinking I smell like shit all the time, allows people who think that buying a Hummer will make them happy to convince themselves that they’re sane. There are lines that must be drawn. Buying a Hummer equals happiness, getting Road Runner even though it is only a split second faster than DSL equals happiness, owning Nikes and not ADIDAS equals happiness, buying brand names is better than buying generic and it all equals happiness. See Vasily, that’s why they give me money, because I am a line, I symbolize insanity. Personally, I don’t think I’m insane. But they do. They have convinced themselves that I am beyond help, that I am mentally fucked. That I deserve a free small apartment, a food card, and spending money because they consider me insane. People, when they sign their name to take out a thirty year mortgage on a shitty stupid house in a so-called nice neighborhood, can think, ‘This might be insane, but at least I’m not Chang who thinks he smells like shit all the time.’”

“Are you planning on staying on SSI until you’re dead or something?”

“Yes, I refuse to go back. I feel ashamed, so ashamed, humiliated, I feel like I’m being ravaged by nonsense. The last time I had a job this girl said to me, ‘Have you heard that new song by Avril Lavigne?’ I stood there terrified. I did hear the song one night in the car. I couldn’t understand how parents would let their children listen to that shit. I would rather have my kids watch hardcore porn than listen to Avril Lavigne.” Chang yells so the whole bar can hear him, “I fucking hate Avril Lavigne!”

A random guy in his twenties yells, “So do I! That bitch is stupid!”

“Damn straight!” Chang says.

I yell to the bartender, “Hey, I’m buying this man a shot and then we’re going.”

The bartender brings over a shot of chilled Yukon Jack.

Chang throws it back and we leave.

I wake up on Sunday morning.

There is crying coming from the bathroom.

I walk to the door and see Sasha crying.

Sasha cries a lot.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Sasha always responds ‘nothing.’

“Sasha, I’m serious. You’re crying like a motherfucker in here.”

“Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her. I look like her, you know. And there she is, Lizaveta, staring at me from my own face.”

“You do look like her.”

“I know asshole, that’s what I’m trying to say. I look like her.”

“You know I have to look at you, and I see her. You laugh like her. You even stick your tongue out like her when you’re happy.”

Sasha sits there, holding her face, and says, “It is strange when people die; it announces your death also. It marks everyone. It puts into your pocket a little black rock that you carry around symbolizing that you will die one day. I never really knew anyone who died. We left Russia and had no friends here. Our grandparents are dead, but we left them when we were little and never got to know them. So I had not been marked by death. Now I am marked. You realize what death is when someone close dies. You realize it because you think of them all the time. ‘I want to call Lizaveta,’ I think, and realize Lizaveta is dead. Buying presents at Christmas, I think, ‘Lizaveta would love this,’ and then realize Lizaveta is dead. It is Lizaveta’s birthday and I remember I have to get a card for Lizaveta, and then I realize I don’t have to because Lizaveta is dead. And then I realize that one day I will die, and someone will think, ‘Sasha’s birthday is coming up, I need to get her a card. Oh wait, she’s dead.’ It means I’m not there. Lizaveta is not here. She just isn’t here. Lizaveta stopped moving, her heart ceased to beat, and we’ve put her underground in a box. Lizaveta no longer participates in the lives of people. That will be me one day, a person who no longer participates in the lives of people. The world will go on without me.” She wipes her eyes and cheeks with toilet paper. “Ever see those old graves with the Civil War emblems on them?”

“Yeah.”

“Those graves are so old, no one even puts flowers there anymore. Those men have been dead for over a hundred years. When I go to Lizaveta’s grave, I look at them. Those old tombstones, I read the names on them without wondering who they were, because I know I can never know. But I wonder about myself. Here, now, I am living. I am on this planet and every day I wake up to go to work in order to pay bills, to take care of things, and even try to suck some happiness from the day. But a hundred and fifty years from now everyone I know will be dead. No one will think, ‘Where is Sasha? What’s Sasha up to? I wonder how Sasha is doing?’ No one, not one living person. Even if I have kids, my great-great-great grandchildren will not remember me. Perhaps they might research their ancestors one day, but I won’t be anything but a name on a family tree. They will stare at my name and point at the name ‘Sasha Krymov’ and no emotion will spring into them. It will just be silence; because one day, I will be condemned to be silenced.”

“Sasha?”

“What?”

“I don’t need this shit when I first wake up in the morning.”

“You need this shit all fucking day!”

“I’m going to check my email.”

“Whatever.”

I’m outside the bar sitting in my car.

People I work with are inside.

They invited me here.

I am welcome.

They probably feel bad for me.

I know they do, everyone feels bad for me.

No, that’s not true.

No one feels bad for anyone else.

Everyone is a monster raping the earth.

Gina and Beth are in there.

I would like to have sex with either of them.

They both have boyfriends.

So it doesn’t matter.

So why am I going in?

I don’t know.

I never do things like this.

I never hang out with co-workers.

Hanging out with co-workers is a sign of getting old or dying.

I’m not dying; I’m just going to a bar.

My life is obsolete to theirs.

They are all going to nursing schools.

I’m not going to any school.

Gina wears Nikes.

I wear ADIDAS.

I have no life.

Neither do they, but they have convinced themselves they do.

And that’s the difference between them and me.

But that doesn’t matter.

Because with a proper amount of alcohol they won’t notice that I’m a stumble-bum who has failed at being human.

I’m human.

That’s true.

Crackhead Larry doesn’t think about shit like this.