Dana Spiotta - Innocents and Others

MEADOW

It is that easy for you. I almost believe it.

DEKE

Sure. But that was just her. Different girls make me do different things, different ways in. I just get a feeling for it, and I want it so bad that it happens. And then, whatever, it goes away after I have done it a few times or less than that. It is nothing to me after, it is like the cigarette I just smoked. I just want another one, and then I forget the one I just smoked. I’m a chain-smoker, chain-fucker, chain-drinker. I am covered in chains. (Deke starts to laugh and cough. Then he starts to sing.) Whoa, whoa, these chains of love gotta hold on me, yeah. Chains, chains of love. (He stops singing.) Chains of love for you, Meadow—

MEADOW

Tell me about the time — or times — you slept with men. Or your stepfather, or something.

DEKE

I like fucking you, talking to you, being with you. (Deke starts to get a catch in his voice. He sniffs, looks into the face of Meadow in the foreground.) I want to do it over and over. There is only one other girl I felt that way about. In love or whatever. But it is more than ever with you; I get a feeling around you that makes me wanna lay down and do whatever you say.

MEADOW

(Quietly.) Then tell me all of it. The part you don’t usually talk about. The part you don’t even whisper to yourself, not in your tub monologues, not in your drunken presentations you rehearse for me.

DEKE

What? I have already told you about being shoved in the dirt. What do you want? I told you I fucked my ugly neighbor.

MEADOW

You are comfortable with that story, your being bullied. Your helpless desire for women. Your compulsion for sex. But isn’t that just a part of it?

She pauses. He looks at her, then looks off to the side, as though he is absorbed in thought. He doesn’t speak.

MEADOW

What I think, Deke, is that every victim has a moment of trying out being a bully. You have done some things that you don’t like to talk about. Things that make this story more complicated. Some messy ends you can’t make work for poor pretty Deke, all the boys beat him and all the girls love him. All this seduction and fakery.

DEKE

Am I supposed to talk or are you?

Deke shakes his head. Meadow hands him the bottle of Canadian Club. He grabs a handful of ice out of the bucket. He is muttering as he pours the drink, his gestures loose and slightly sloppy.

DEKE

I am not fake—

MEADOW

What? You are muttering.

DEKE

I am not fake! And fuck this. (He waves his hand at her and the camera.)

MEADOW

No. You promised to go all night long. That’s the deal.

DEKE

You are not letting me. You—

MEADOW

Tell me something, Deke. I will stop goading, I will stop talking, but you need to stop all this pretty wound stuff. As if the worst thing you have done is sleep with a middle-aged woman, you fucking saint. Our Misunderstood Man of the Mohawk Valley, a Lily-draped martyr.

Deke takes another sip and looks at her. Then he looks at the camera. He slowly stubs out a cigarette.

DEKE

You want me to be lousy. Okay. Let’s talk about Mel. Mel is not his name, because I don’t fucking know his name. He is just a desperate old dude, a gross, fat, ugly ordinary guy. And I have fucked a few men. It isn’t my thing, but I had the chance and at a certain point the wind could make me hard. So the novelty or whatever, curiosity. There were a few boys I enjoyed fucking so that isn’t what this was about. I was not feeling great, like getting pushed on the ground most days and pushed around at home most nights. I was fifteen. And it was so regular that he was beating on me — Mitchell, my tormentor — that I felt his body was more real than mine. It was a creepy feeling, to grow used to his shoving. I almost didn’t care. But I did, it is just further in, it is there coiling and festering. A need to hurt someone grew in me and it lay right by the desire and the sex. The pleasure, even. So fucking Mel, just a helpless loser. I found him in a bar in Fonda. I was playing pool in a t-shirt, and I had my eyeliner on. I knew I could get beat up, and I didn’t care. I was reckless. I felt so beat on that I was indestructible, ’cause that’s how it works. You are looking for pain, and it sends weird things out to the world. Someone is always up for that. I thought that is what would happen. I would get beaten or even killed by some biker or redneck gay basher.

He has stopped looking at Meadow, who is unmoving in the foreground. He looks at his drink, and then he looks into the camera. He is locked there, talking deliberately, like he wants to appear sober. His eyes are not amused or animated, just big and steady, looking in, and Deke now appears much older.

DEKE

But here comes fucking Mel, on his own destructive goddamned trajectory, like right into my out-of-control orbit. He picks me up, and like an idiot I let him. We go to his car, and I let him suck me for a bit. He looks so sweaty and ugly, which, I mean we all do when we are desperate and looked at with no feeling, I know that. Desire makes us ugly unless the other person is lost to it too, but I wasn’t. I felt so disgusted by Mel. His sucking and his gripping of my thighs. He is in the well of the fucking car, like an animal. He would do anything. Oh god, the poor fucking guy. Oh god. His poor stupid face, like I think about him sometimes and I fucking hit my head to make it go away, I am so ashamed. I just wish I hadn’t ever been like the way I was. I hate myself for this, and I don’t even feel like me in this moment. It is like watching a movie. But it is me, I feel this disgust, and then I feel like I want to hit him. I have never ever hit anyone. But here is my chance, like the moment I get on top of this feeling. Not in the dirt, not with some hungry girl or delicate person, but with a big soft ugly man, like a slug he looked to me, like someone weak. So I pull him off me. I open the door and pull him outside the car. God. Really fast. I feel this adrenaline in my body. And I start to hit him. Punch him. First in the stomach and then in the chest. I punch his nose and there is a crack. It hurts my hand, but I feel no pain. I am only a surge of hate and power. Like a monster, like a real monster.

Deke is crying, and his nose starts to run. He picks up the bottom of his t-shirt and uses it to wipe his face.

DEKE

Of course he doesn’t fight back, that isn’t his deal tonight. He does say “No, no. Stop.” It isn’t like he wants me to, make no mistake. No. He gives up and curls into a ball. Arms over his head and face. I kick him in the ribs, hard. I do. And then it is like I wake up. I see him again, this fucking mess. I just run. Just as fast as I can I run out of there. I run out of town and up the hill. Like miles. And so probably someone found him in the parking lot and called 911. Or maybe he took his broken nose and bruised ribs and just crawled to his car and drove home, ashamed, like I know how he feels, like when I am left in the dust. But not really, right? I don’t know. I leave him bleeding and fucked up, way worse than anyone ever did to me…

Deke stops and brings his hands to his face. He covers his eyes. And then he sobs, a stifled, strangled sob. His mouth contorts as he sobs again. His nose is running and he sniffs. Uses his shirt to wipe his face again.

DEKE