Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean
Jul 6, 2018 2:16:33 GMT -5
Camila Gonzalez, KEG, and 3 more like this
Post by Evelyn Kozel on Jul 6, 2018 2:16:33 GMT -5
I wake up screaming, drenched in sweat.
Six hours prior I was spilling shots of Jäger all over myself and slurring along with a Father John Misty song that was stuck in my head at Jimmy's Place on the other side of the Little Calumet River. A half hour after that was last call, and I stumbled into the night and fell into the backseat of Michael's 1992 Buick LeSabre, screaming obscenities at my therapist's answering machine.
Now, I'm praying that my head stops pounding and the room stops spinning before noon. The rogue, invasive rays of sunlight are fire on my eyes, an inferno inside my skull. With the sun in my eyes, I roll off the air mattress and push myself onto my feet. A quick glance down at myself and the faint odor of black liquorice in my sweat confirms that I crashed in my clothes last night. I pat myself down and grab my phone from my back pocket, squinting at the screen as the Always-on Display tells me the time: 7:53 AM.
"Fuck me," I groan.
The A/C's been busted for a month and a half, so the apartment is a sweltering pit. I'll call the landlord later today when this hangover's passed; it'll be the sixth time.
I stagger to the bathroom, almost tripping over the clothes strewn across the floor on the way. In a few more days, I'll pick them up, wash them, and put them back on the hangers in my closet where they ought to be. At least that's the story I tell myself so I can forget about it. I've been living here for two years and I'm still sleeping on an air mattress in the living room. My bedroom is empty except for the closet space and even that's been thinning out in the last couple weeks. July always sneaks up on me.
Eight hours ago I was pre-gaming at Michael's friend DeSean's sister's place in Chatham. DeSean was almost a child standing next to Michael, if you didn't look him in the face. I'd heard stories about the man (he and Michael met in prison), and none of them made me picture someone so ragged and malnourished, who was only an inch or two taller than myself. Then you look in his eyes and everything made sense. Michael told me DeSean was his cellmate. Michael told me DeSean looked out for him. I never asked why DeSean was in jail in the first place; I figured it didn't matter. It still doesn't.
The cold bathroom tiles feel like heaven on my burning feet. I leave the door open behind me and flip on the lightswitch, gripping onto the rim of the sink and pulling myself in front of the mirror. As I expected, the white Vans shirt I wore out last night has a few large, unsightly dark stains on the front, and I still don't recognize my own reflection.
Intellectually, I know that the girl in the mirror is me — there's no one else it could be — and I'm sure if you broke each part of my face down into easily digestible chunks I could come to the conclusion that we're one in the same. Those puffy, dark circles under my leaking eyes are most certainly mine. As is that red nose. Ditto the dried blood under the bottom lip. All the pieces make sense, yet the whole picture is alien. It's like I'm staring into the face of a caricature painting. Nothing has changed; therapy is a waste.
I turn away from the mirror and take a cold shower.
Seven hours earlier, I was seated in the back of Michael's car, musing aloud about whether or not I should firebomb my landlord's place.
You take a mixture that's one part laundry detergent, two parts gasoline. Grab a cloth rag and insert it into a glass bottle to act as a wick. The wick needs to be inserted before the mixture because the wick needs to be properly soaked in order to ensure a good ignition. Pour the mixture into the bottle via funnel, holding the wick to one side of the neck. Now you have a molotov cocktail.
Ask me how to make a car bomb.
I was sweating, but I don't remember why. I finished off the last of our Smirnoff Ice Red, White, and Berry malts and groaned. Arson wouldn't fix my fucking air conditioner.
A couple hours later, I'm in the passenger's seat of Michael's car, carrying on a one-sided conversation about the stupid anti-vaxxer lines on the new Nas album that probably would've killed my enjoyment of the whole thing if it were any good in the first place when I realize that I haven't been to synagogue in three weeks. I'm sorry mom. I'm sorry God.
Michael nods along, keeping his eyes on the road. This is his standard operating procedure. Has been since I've known him, though he's been damn-near silent since he got out of jail. I've taken to filling the gaps in our conversations myself. He may like quiet, but it drives me mad. I don't need time alone with my thoughts; I need time alone away from them.
"Hey," he says, cutting me off. Good timing, too. I was starting to annoy myself. "You good?"
I scoff. "If anything, I should be asking you that."
"Like, for real though."
"I mean I have been asking, not my fault you're so damned tight-lipped," I mutter under my breath, to which Michael sighs.
"Fuck, Evie, we ain't talkin' about me right now. We're talkin' about you."
I roll my eyes. "I'm perfectly fine. Better than fine, even. I'm great! We're about to hit the fucking big-time, y'know? I mean, sure, Action Wrestling's dealing with that whole 'pretty much getting told to fuck off by the network that airs them' but they're bound to come up smelling like roses when that's all over so tell me why I wouldn't be at least fine right now?"
Maybe if I keep talking, he'll forget about the fact that I'm on day eight of a seven day bender and feeling every second of it.
"You know exactly why I'm asking."
"I'm celebrating! Jeez man, just because you're a stick in the mud doesn't mean we all gotta be."
It's Michael's turn to roll his eyes. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, clearing his throat.
"Right, celebrating. This week of all possible weeks."
"Oh, fuck off. Where are we going?"
We're heading south on S Indiana Ave. over the Little Calumet, so my guess is Sharks. I think I heard him mention meeting DeSean there in the morning last night, so I guess it was kind of a stupid question. He doesn't answer.
"Celebrating," he repeats, chuckling. "Well, shit."
My sunglasses are doing little to shield me from the ferocious sun hanging overhead like an interrogation lamp. Beads of sweat start to form at my hairline. I'mnot going to throw up.
"What do you want me to say, Mike? It's a coping mechanism. Don't tell me you don't got one, you've been been stonewalling me for the past six months."
"I'm just sayin' it ain't healthy."
I groan, putting my feet up on the dash and slinking down in my seat.
"Neither is silence. Come on, Mike, it's one week out of the year. I'm not some drunk, so don't treat me like one."
He shrugs and clicks his tongue as he pulls into the parking lot of Sharks. In a spot near the door, DeSean stood, leaning against the driver's side door of his sister's sedan. Michael pulls into the spot adjacent and put the car in park, unfastening his seatbelt. He turns to me and smiles, grabbing my hand.
"Shit, I almost forgot he said," squeezing my hand reassuringly. "Happy birthday, Evie."
Fuck, I mouth. I actually had forgotten.
"Thanks," I say, smiling as wide as I can. In unfasten my seatbelt and climb out of the car, glancing at DeSean. I wonder what it'd be like to be the sun. Up there, I'm sure we all look like children. Scared shadows shackled to the past, with one foot tentatively set in the future.
I wish my dad were here.
_._._._._._
Let's get these teen hearts beating
Faster, faster
_._._._._._
The following is not a letter addressed to Order of Chaos, intercepted and published to the Action Wrestling website.
From the perspective of the camera, all that can be seen is a small air mattress on the floor, surrounded by random articles of clothing.
"Order of Chaos… you guys know how fucking cringy that name is, right? That's the joke, isn't it? It has to be, I can't imagine that there'd be a tag team in twenty-fucking-eighteen that'd go 'yeah, Order of Chaos would be a sick name bro'.
"You guys aren't joking, are you? Of course you aren't. Not when one of your members literally calls himself the Chaos Killer."
The sound of retching can be heard off-screen before Evie Zima emerges from behind the camera and takes a seat on the mattress, waving for its watching eye.
"Sorry, think I almost threw up in my mouth a little bit there. Forgive the mess, life's been hectic since Michael and I signed our first contracts, haven't had time to clean. Regardless, hey Spectre. Gotta ask, why 'Chaos Killer'? Would Major Lilywhite be too on the nose?
"Jokes aside, I guess my real question is this: what exactly is a Dark Spectre? No no, I get what you're trying to be, but I gotta ask why? That whole dark and edgy niche is fucking dying, dude. This isn't the early two-thousands anymore, you don't have a sea of teenage Guy Fieri doppelgangers with flame-patterned bowling shirts, spiked hair and frosted tips or goth poseurs to adore you. To call your shtick outdated would be an understatement; the shit that edged out your shtick is outdated by now.
"You're pitching to contact when the rest of the league's embraced strikeouts. You're Billy Beane, stubbornly clinging on to Moneyball strategies when the Yankees and Dodgers have each spent the GDP of a small Caribbean nation and can still boast a more intimidating army of prospects than you. You're Limp Bizkit, maybe you had some oomph back when suburban teens would eat up any white boy rapping to a guitar, but the market for that is just like the market for dark and edgy masked wrestlers: non-existent.
"Maybe that's why you're floundering about, struggling to get a footing and getting decimated by Murder, Inc. Two guys who are even darker and edgier, but can actually be bothered to back up their grandiose, ridiculous claims sometimes.
"So please, talk your pre-requisite game about how Michael and I are gonna fall prey to the darkness or whatever, and how we aren't ready to deal with the sheer might of you and Damian fucking Kaine. Because you just don't get it, and you never will.
"You and Damian aren't half the team Michael and I are. No, scratch that. You aren't even one fourth of the team we are. Your little glory-seeking, coattail riding dog and pony show is about as blatant and tacky as they come. You weasel your way into an already existing stable to leech off the ambitions of Damian Kaine, and he let you. You're only going after the tag titles because you think Power Word: Kill are easy pickings even though every title match they've been in can tell you they aren't. What was that you said when you joined the Guardians and created this Order of Chaos? 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'?
"That isn't a team, you putz. That's the combined arrogance of two individuals so deluded, they think they can work together. How'd that go for you guys? Oh, right. You were made to watch as your 'dear friend' Damian Kaine got fucking killed by Corey Bull and Dylann Roof's even dumber cousin.
"Michael and I? We're a team. We've been inseparable since we were kids. We know what makes the other strong, and what makes the other weak. We know each other inside and out. You need someone you can trust like that if you want to survive in the area we grew up in. Right, maybe that's why I'm numb to your dark and edgy mirage. I've seen real horror. It's all around you growing up in the Altgeld Gardens homes, even without the asbestos.
"You don't have any loyalty to each other, just your own egos. You buddied up with a Damian Kaine who could've picked any of his previously established friends and gone for the gold but didn't. He chose you, the guy he barely knows. The guy who honestly believes the enemy of his enemy is his friend.
"Since the concept is as foreign to you as can be, let me tell you a little something about friendship. About being a fucking teammate:
"When Michael went to jail, who do you think looked in on his family? Put money in his commissary when I could? C'est moi, thank you very much. Michael'd do the same thing for me if I was locked up. Can you honestly tell me your boy would do the same for you, Spectre? That you'd do that for him?
"You can't. Because you wouldn't. You fairweather friends are only valuable to each other when you can be of use. How much use are you going to be to each other when you lose another match as a tag team? The clock's ticking for you two, it seems. The hourglass is flipped. And it's just a matter of time until there isn't any time left.
"I guess then we'll see your true colors. Maybe they aren't as black as you'd expect.
"Maybe they're yellow.
"I can see the headlines now: Riverdale's Most Wanted Upsets Order of Chaos; Stuns No One."
Fade out.
Six hours prior I was spilling shots of Jäger all over myself and slurring along with a Father John Misty song that was stuck in my head at Jimmy's Place on the other side of the Little Calumet River. A half hour after that was last call, and I stumbled into the night and fell into the backseat of Michael's 1992 Buick LeSabre, screaming obscenities at my therapist's answering machine.
Now, I'm praying that my head stops pounding and the room stops spinning before noon. The rogue, invasive rays of sunlight are fire on my eyes, an inferno inside my skull. With the sun in my eyes, I roll off the air mattress and push myself onto my feet. A quick glance down at myself and the faint odor of black liquorice in my sweat confirms that I crashed in my clothes last night. I pat myself down and grab my phone from my back pocket, squinting at the screen as the Always-on Display tells me the time: 7:53 AM.
"Fuck me," I groan.
The A/C's been busted for a month and a half, so the apartment is a sweltering pit. I'll call the landlord later today when this hangover's passed; it'll be the sixth time.
I stagger to the bathroom, almost tripping over the clothes strewn across the floor on the way. In a few more days, I'll pick them up, wash them, and put them back on the hangers in my closet where they ought to be. At least that's the story I tell myself so I can forget about it. I've been living here for two years and I'm still sleeping on an air mattress in the living room. My bedroom is empty except for the closet space and even that's been thinning out in the last couple weeks. July always sneaks up on me.
Eight hours ago I was pre-gaming at Michael's friend DeSean's sister's place in Chatham. DeSean was almost a child standing next to Michael, if you didn't look him in the face. I'd heard stories about the man (he and Michael met in prison), and none of them made me picture someone so ragged and malnourished, who was only an inch or two taller than myself. Then you look in his eyes and everything made sense. Michael told me DeSean was his cellmate. Michael told me DeSean looked out for him. I never asked why DeSean was in jail in the first place; I figured it didn't matter. It still doesn't.
The cold bathroom tiles feel like heaven on my burning feet. I leave the door open behind me and flip on the lightswitch, gripping onto the rim of the sink and pulling myself in front of the mirror. As I expected, the white Vans shirt I wore out last night has a few large, unsightly dark stains on the front, and I still don't recognize my own reflection.
Intellectually, I know that the girl in the mirror is me — there's no one else it could be — and I'm sure if you broke each part of my face down into easily digestible chunks I could come to the conclusion that we're one in the same. Those puffy, dark circles under my leaking eyes are most certainly mine. As is that red nose. Ditto the dried blood under the bottom lip. All the pieces make sense, yet the whole picture is alien. It's like I'm staring into the face of a caricature painting. Nothing has changed; therapy is a waste.
I turn away from the mirror and take a cold shower.
Seven hours earlier, I was seated in the back of Michael's car, musing aloud about whether or not I should firebomb my landlord's place.
You take a mixture that's one part laundry detergent, two parts gasoline. Grab a cloth rag and insert it into a glass bottle to act as a wick. The wick needs to be inserted before the mixture because the wick needs to be properly soaked in order to ensure a good ignition. Pour the mixture into the bottle via funnel, holding the wick to one side of the neck. Now you have a molotov cocktail.
Ask me how to make a car bomb.
I was sweating, but I don't remember why. I finished off the last of our Smirnoff Ice Red, White, and Berry malts and groaned. Arson wouldn't fix my fucking air conditioner.
A couple hours later, I'm in the passenger's seat of Michael's car, carrying on a one-sided conversation about the stupid anti-vaxxer lines on the new Nas album that probably would've killed my enjoyment of the whole thing if it were any good in the first place when I realize that I haven't been to synagogue in three weeks. I'm sorry mom. I'm sorry God.
Michael nods along, keeping his eyes on the road. This is his standard operating procedure. Has been since I've known him, though he's been damn-near silent since he got out of jail. I've taken to filling the gaps in our conversations myself. He may like quiet, but it drives me mad. I don't need time alone with my thoughts; I need time alone away from them.
"Hey," he says, cutting me off. Good timing, too. I was starting to annoy myself. "You good?"
I scoff. "If anything, I should be asking you that."
"Like, for real though."
"I mean I have been asking, not my fault you're so damned tight-lipped," I mutter under my breath, to which Michael sighs.
"Fuck, Evie, we ain't talkin' about me right now. We're talkin' about you."
I roll my eyes. "I'm perfectly fine. Better than fine, even. I'm great! We're about to hit the fucking big-time, y'know? I mean, sure, Action Wrestling's dealing with that whole 'pretty much getting told to fuck off by the network that airs them' but they're bound to come up smelling like roses when that's all over so tell me why I wouldn't be at least fine right now?"
Maybe if I keep talking, he'll forget about the fact that I'm on day eight of a seven day bender and feeling every second of it.
"You know exactly why I'm asking."
"I'm celebrating! Jeez man, just because you're a stick in the mud doesn't mean we all gotta be."
It's Michael's turn to roll his eyes. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, clearing his throat.
"Right, celebrating. This week of all possible weeks."
"Oh, fuck off. Where are we going?"
We're heading south on S Indiana Ave. over the Little Calumet, so my guess is Sharks. I think I heard him mention meeting DeSean there in the morning last night, so I guess it was kind of a stupid question. He doesn't answer.
"Celebrating," he repeats, chuckling. "Well, shit."
My sunglasses are doing little to shield me from the ferocious sun hanging overhead like an interrogation lamp. Beads of sweat start to form at my hairline. I'm
"What do you want me to say, Mike? It's a coping mechanism. Don't tell me you don't got one, you've been been stonewalling me for the past six months."
"I'm just sayin' it ain't healthy."
I groan, putting my feet up on the dash and slinking down in my seat.
"Neither is silence. Come on, Mike, it's one week out of the year. I'm not some drunk, so don't treat me like one."
He shrugs and clicks his tongue as he pulls into the parking lot of Sharks. In a spot near the door, DeSean stood, leaning against the driver's side door of his sister's sedan. Michael pulls into the spot adjacent and put the car in park, unfastening his seatbelt. He turns to me and smiles, grabbing my hand.
"Shit, I almost forgot he said," squeezing my hand reassuringly. "Happy birthday, Evie."
Fuck, I mouth. I actually had forgotten.
"Thanks," I say, smiling as wide as I can. In unfasten my seatbelt and climb out of the car, glancing at DeSean. I wonder what it'd be like to be the sun. Up there, I'm sure we all look like children. Scared shadows shackled to the past, with one foot tentatively set in the future.
I wish my dad were here.
_._._._._._
Let's get these teen hearts beating
Faster, faster
_._._._._._
The following is not a letter addressed to Order of Chaos, intercepted and published to the Action Wrestling website.
From the perspective of the camera, all that can be seen is a small air mattress on the floor, surrounded by random articles of clothing.
"Order of Chaos… you guys know how fucking cringy that name is, right? That's the joke, isn't it? It has to be, I can't imagine that there'd be a tag team in twenty-fucking-eighteen that'd go 'yeah, Order of Chaos would be a sick name bro'.
"You guys aren't joking, are you? Of course you aren't. Not when one of your members literally calls himself the Chaos Killer."
The sound of retching can be heard off-screen before Evie Zima emerges from behind the camera and takes a seat on the mattress, waving for its watching eye.
"Sorry, think I almost threw up in my mouth a little bit there. Forgive the mess, life's been hectic since Michael and I signed our first contracts, haven't had time to clean. Regardless, hey Spectre. Gotta ask, why 'Chaos Killer'? Would Major Lilywhite be too on the nose?
"Jokes aside, I guess my real question is this: what exactly is a Dark Spectre? No no, I get what you're trying to be, but I gotta ask why? That whole dark and edgy niche is fucking dying, dude. This isn't the early two-thousands anymore, you don't have a sea of teenage Guy Fieri doppelgangers with flame-patterned bowling shirts, spiked hair and frosted tips or goth poseurs to adore you. To call your shtick outdated would be an understatement; the shit that edged out your shtick is outdated by now.
"You're pitching to contact when the rest of the league's embraced strikeouts. You're Billy Beane, stubbornly clinging on to Moneyball strategies when the Yankees and Dodgers have each spent the GDP of a small Caribbean nation and can still boast a more intimidating army of prospects than you. You're Limp Bizkit, maybe you had some oomph back when suburban teens would eat up any white boy rapping to a guitar, but the market for that is just like the market for dark and edgy masked wrestlers: non-existent.
"Maybe that's why you're floundering about, struggling to get a footing and getting decimated by Murder, Inc. Two guys who are even darker and edgier, but can actually be bothered to back up their grandiose, ridiculous claims sometimes.
"So please, talk your pre-requisite game about how Michael and I are gonna fall prey to the darkness or whatever, and how we aren't ready to deal with the sheer might of you and Damian fucking Kaine. Because you just don't get it, and you never will.
"You and Damian aren't half the team Michael and I are. No, scratch that. You aren't even one fourth of the team we are. Your little glory-seeking, coattail riding dog and pony show is about as blatant and tacky as they come. You weasel your way into an already existing stable to leech off the ambitions of Damian Kaine, and he let you. You're only going after the tag titles because you think Power Word: Kill are easy pickings even though every title match they've been in can tell you they aren't. What was that you said when you joined the Guardians and created this Order of Chaos? 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'?
"That isn't a team, you putz. That's the combined arrogance of two individuals so deluded, they think they can work together. How'd that go for you guys? Oh, right. You were made to watch as your 'dear friend' Damian Kaine got fucking killed by Corey Bull and Dylann Roof's even dumber cousin.
"Michael and I? We're a team. We've been inseparable since we were kids. We know what makes the other strong, and what makes the other weak. We know each other inside and out. You need someone you can trust like that if you want to survive in the area we grew up in. Right, maybe that's why I'm numb to your dark and edgy mirage. I've seen real horror. It's all around you growing up in the Altgeld Gardens homes, even without the asbestos.
"You don't have any loyalty to each other, just your own egos. You buddied up with a Damian Kaine who could've picked any of his previously established friends and gone for the gold but didn't. He chose you, the guy he barely knows. The guy who honestly believes the enemy of his enemy is his friend.
"Since the concept is as foreign to you as can be, let me tell you a little something about friendship. About being a fucking teammate:
"When Michael went to jail, who do you think looked in on his family? Put money in his commissary when I could? C'est moi, thank you very much. Michael'd do the same thing for me if I was locked up. Can you honestly tell me your boy would do the same for you, Spectre? That you'd do that for him?
"You can't. Because you wouldn't. You fairweather friends are only valuable to each other when you can be of use. How much use are you going to be to each other when you lose another match as a tag team? The clock's ticking for you two, it seems. The hourglass is flipped. And it's just a matter of time until there isn't any time left.
"I guess then we'll see your true colors. Maybe they aren't as black as you'd expect.
"Maybe they're yellow.
"I can see the headlines now: Riverdale's Most Wanted Upsets Order of Chaos; Stuns No One."
Fade out.