Noah Cicero: The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. I

Tom wants me to do beautiful things, but I don’t believe him. How can I? He’s a man. Men don’t want women to do good things. Men want women to clean the kitchen and change diapers.

I go out to the living room and look around. There are dirty plates on the coffee table, cups with soda left in them on the floor, beer bottles on the end table, my socks, shirts, and pants scattered throughout the room. All the clothes left in the living room are mine, I wonder why that is.

Now it’s time to clean. I think about turning on the radio but I decide not to. I don’t even turn on the television. There’s no point in it. I want silence. I want to think. I need to think. I can’t stop thinking. I also must keep moving. I can’t stop moving or at least be watching a good show. I can’t stand being inert. When I’m not distracted, I start thinking. Remembering too. I hate memories. I have so many. If I stop for one moment, I remember moments from when I was a child. Such bad moments, so much humiliation, so much mortification. If I stop moving I’ll die, the world and its ugliness will consume me. I don’t want to know or understand the world. Tom tells me about the world. How there are wars, starving mothers, crying children, suicide bombers, genocide, disease, the ozone disappearing. Oh, I hate it so much. I hate it when he talks about it. He does it so objectively too, like he doesn’t care, like he supports it. I hate it so much. That’s why I keep moving, because if I don’t I’ll be reminded of the world. Then I’ll start crying. I’ll lie on the floor in the fetal position, start pulling out my hair, and just pant and cry. I cry because I’m powerless. I have no power and it hurts. Hell, I don’t even think I’m respected.

Every day I make up a new dream but I just give it up by the end of the day because I know there’s no point in it. I’ll die soon, I know it. If I don’t die in a car wreck or of natural causes, I guess I’ll just have to kill myself. Maybe Jesus will come back and save us. He’ll take all the sinners to hell and all the good people to heaven. Luckily, I’m a good person.

My first stage of cleaning is to gather up all the dishes and put them in the sink. I go around the room grabbing them up. Finally, I have them all in the sink. Then I turn the hot water on and pour some soap in it. I put a lot of soap in it because it’s very important to get the dishes clean. There’s a lot of bacteria on dishes, a lot.

I’m so sad. I can’t restrain myself. I cry as I wash the dishes. The future is coming. I know it is. I have no money, I have no health insurance. I can’t save, I want things. I can’t be loved. I can’t be myself. I work so hard and all they give me is money.

I want the beauty of the west, the mountains, rocky coasts, sea urchins, long strips of highway, endless fields and clear rivers. But all I have are these dishes. Dirty dishes that must be cleaned. Everything must be cleaned.

Two hours till war.

It’s six o’clock. Bush said at eight, people must die.

I’m going to Kendra’s.

I’ll hide out there. Are the terrorists coming?

I’m standing in my living room at my parents’ house. My dad is sitting on his special seat, my mom on the couch, and my brother on the reclining chair.

They’re watching the news.

The news isn’t saying much.

My brother says he’s going to fight on the side of Iraq.

My dad tells him to watch what he says. My brother doesn’t care. He rambles on about money and oil.

My mother sits there quiet.

My dad doesn’t know what to make of it. He’s confused, but it’s entertaining, and that’s why he’s watching.

War is entertaining.

I can’t take their insanity anymore, so I leave.

Each minute, the war gets closer.

I grab my keys, and put on my beret.

I leave.

I head out to my car. Turn it on and drive away.

A guy is on the radio talking about the war.

Speculating.

Speculating.

Speculating.

He says in less than two hours, we shall fight to preserve freedom.

Freedom.

America wants to give another country freedom. That doesn’t sound that bad, or does it.

I hope the terrorists don’t attack. I read in the paper a couple of days ago that the terrorists would fuck up America if we attacked Iraq. I hope they were just trying to scare us.

They probably won’t attack Youngstown, Ohio. There is nothing here of any importance. It will probably be New York again.

I went to New York City and nobody spoke English there. I felt as if I wasn’t even in America. Like I was on some strange island full of all the nationalities of the earth. Not America.

But what is America.

I’ve seen a lot of America. Oregon, California, New York City, Nebraska, Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, and the New England area. In all those places I found completely different people. People who had no relation to each other.

They all lived under freedom though.

None of them cared though.

They just wanted their home and their family to be safe.

That’s all.

The guy talks on the radio about war.

I listen and don’t know whether to care or not.

Should I care, or not care. That is the question.

I’m on a lot of medication. It’s hard to care; I’m numb all the time.

Every day has the same weather when you’re on medication.

The sun is neither out nor hid away by clouds. It just doesn’t matter.

I feel weird.

There is a lot of darkness this evening.

War.

I remember when I was little, watching the Gulf War on television. I wasn’t scared, I was excited by it.

Now I’m scared.

I get to Kendra’s.

I knock on the door of the trailer. Kendra opens the door.

There she is.

Kendra and all the history we’ve had together.

Kendra and I have known each other since we were fifteen. We are now both twenty-two. We’ve dated off and on since then. We have said I love you to each other many times over the course of seven years.

We were engaged last year for ten months. Then I had a threesome and told her.

I told her because I wanted to hurt her.

We go into the living room. She sits down on the couch, and I sit on the floor.

“What’s up?” Kendra says.

“I’ve been walking the world alone.”

“I walk the world alone too, but I like it that way.”

“Why, doesn’t it get to you?” I say.

“No, it doesn’t. I can do my own thing all the time. No one is bothering me; no one is fucking with my shit. Who needs people, when you have yourself.”

“You remain because you don’t like people judging you.”

“I know, I hate to have people thinking about me. I always think they’re thinking bad about me,” Kendra says.

“People think you’re great.”

“Yeah, but I don’t believe them.”

We sit in silence for a second.

“Turn on the war,” I say.

“Fuck no, I don’t care.”

“You don’t care?”

“Why should I care? It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Because it’s interesting.”

“It’s not interesting, it’s fucked up. I don’t have any time for war. I have things to do.”

“Like what?” I say.

“Paint my bathroom, and make curtains.”

“You’re right, you don’t have time for the war.”

“War is absurd. Human beings shooting at each other. That doesn’t make any sense,” Kendra says.

“Nothing makes sense. I thought America was civilized.”

“We’re not, honey,” Kendra says.

“I don’t wanna live in an uncivilized nation.”

“You have to, for me, I need you.”

“You need me. Why? I don’t do anything for you, and I piss you off most of the time.”