A Life On Fire Read online

  Published by Grindhouse Press

  POB 292644

  Dayton, OH 45429

  www.grindhousepress.com

  A Life On Fire

  Grindhouse Press #006

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9826281-9-5

  ISBN-10: 0982628196

  Copyright © 2011 by Chris Bowsman. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Cover design copyright © 2011 by Brandon Duncan

  www.corporatedemon.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  A Life On Fire

  Chris Bowsman

  Part 1

  If you die you’re completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I’m not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I’ve got.

  - Kurt Cobain

  Chapter 1

  Why in the hell did I ever want to be a patent clerk? Gerald McManner thought to himself as he pretended to listen to yet another idiot “inventor.” He asked himself this question at least thirty-five times a day.

  “. . . and they let you zip around like magic!” the idiot proclaimed. “Come on, seriously. Who isn’t going to want a pair of these babies?”

  “You’re right, Mr . . . uh, Holman. This would appeal to a lot of people. Unfortunately, roller skates were invented kind of a long time ago,” Gerald said, trying not to sound too patronizing. He had already sat through too many lectures from his boss about speaking down to the applicants. He didn’t do it intentionally, but when at least twenty people a week tried to get a patent on something like roller skates or dental floss, feigning sincerity became quite difficult.

  Mr. Holman’s jaw dropped. “Whoa . . . seriously?”

  Gerald swallowed, took a deep breath, replied, “Yes. Actually,” he paused, typing on his computer, “it appears a Belgian man first patented them in 1760. Two hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “Well I’ll be damned. Two hundred fifty years ago? How the hell was I supposed to know he did that?”

  Gerald took another deep breath and pretended to be busy concentrating on his computer monitor while counting to ten in his head. “Well, Mr. Holman, I would recommend Wikipedia. Or at least a cursory Google search.”

  Mr. Holman appeared slightly angry. “When am I supposed to do that? Can’t work a computer. I’m too busy inventing things.” He sounded angry, as well. Not as angry as last week, though, when Gerald had denied his waterproof matches, which were in fact ordinary matches dipped in wax. Nor was he as angry as the week before that, when he had brought in two Sharpie markers—one red, one black—taped together end to end, and Gerald had shown Mr. Holman his four-color pen.

  “As I’ve recommended in the past, it may behoove you to spend a few minutes on research the next time you have an idea.” Despite his familiarity with Mr. Holman, Gerald was still astonished every time the guy dismissed the notion of research, no matter how many times his “ideas” got kicked in the teeth.

  “I don’t know, Gerald . . . I get an idea, I gotta jump on it. Remember that kid, traded a paperclip for a house? What if he’d stopped to research? Some other bastard with a paperclip would’ve wound up with his house.” Mr. Holman sniffed and rubbed his nose. “You see where I’m coming from?”

  Gerald forced himself not to roll his eyes. “Think of all the time you spend pitching me your inventions, and all the time I spend denying you patents, and explaining, sometimes several times, why. Couldn’t that time be better spent doing a search for ‘wheel shoes’ or ‘waterproof matches’?”

  The hurt on Mr. Holman’s face was unmistakable. His expression hardened. He retrieved his crudely fashioned skates from Gerald’s desk and put them back in his canvas knapsack. “Okay. I won’t take up any more of your time.” His voice had an air of professionalism previously missing. “Besides, I had an excellent idea on the way here this morning I’d like to work on. I was eating an ice cream bar, and when I was done, I couldn’t find a good place to put the stick. I was thinking about some sort of edible ice cream holder—”

  “Like a cone?”

  Mr. Holman’s eyes reddened and Gerald swore he saw a tear form in one of them. “Good day, Gerald,” he said, turning and walking out the door.

  “Take it easy, Mr. Holman. Better luck next time.” Gerald’s fake smile receded as his head sunk toward his desktop. He punched the intercom button on his phone.

  “Yes, Gerald?” Matilda, his secretary, answered.

  “Can you keep everyone out of here for forty-five minutes? I need a nap.”

  “Will do. Anything else, Gerald?”

  “Not now. Just the nap.” Gerald let his head rest on the desktop and shut his eyes. Matilda was a good secretary. Perhaps a bit more familiar with him than tradition would dictate, but good nonetheless. Gerald drifted off to sleep with images of Mr. Holman’s head popping up from a Whack-A-Mole game and Gerald smacking him with a mallet running rampant through his mind.

  Chapter 2

  “Fuck my ass like I’m your whore!” Matilda screamed. Gerald thrust against her, his cock pounding in and out of her ass. He could feel his balls smack against her wet vulva. She squealed, pressing against his thrusts. He reached around her, slid his fingers from between her legs and up her body, stopping at her double D-sized breasts. He cupped the flesh, but felt it lose consistency.

  The breasts became writhing masses of tentacles, each one seeming to have a mind of its own. Rather than cupping them, Gerald’s fingers were entwined in the tentacles. He felt his orgasm approaching. He thrust harder and harder. Just as he came, a white hot pain seared through his hand. He screamed, ripped his hand from the tentacles, and saw five bloody stumps where his fingers had been. He tried to pull away from her, but felt her ass clamp onto his cock in a death grip. He looked down at where they met and saw blood flowing. He looked back up. Matilda turned her head toward him, her face replaced by that of some hideous alligator beast. Gerald screamed and flung himself from her. He felt a tearing, and blood spurted from the now-empty space above his balls. He looked up in time to see his severed penis slide from the Matilda-creature’s ass. Gerald looked down at his bloody crotch again, and—

  —snapped his head up from the desk, a string of drool connecting him to it.

  “Jesus Christ . . .” he slurred incomprehensibly. His hands shot down to his crotch, feeling his still intact penis. He sighed in relief, but still hit the intercom button for Matilda.

  “You’re up early,” she replied. The clock indicated that only twenty-six minutes had passed.

  “Had a weird dream. Nightmare, I guess.” He shook his head, but couldn’t rid himself of the monstrous imagery. “Everything okay out there?”

  “Yup. Nobody’s even arrived yet.”

  Gerald couldn’t shake the imagery from his dream. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow and put his head back down on the desk. “Buzz me for the 3:00.”

  Chapter 3

  Gerald locked the door to his office at five-fifteen. He dropped the key in his pocket and walked out through the lobby, past Matilda’s vacant desk. He stopped to look at a picture of Matilda and her husband. What the hell was his name? Steve? Jim? She had worked with Gerald for three years, so he really ought to know this. He rolled his eyes at his ignorance and put the picture back on the desk.

  He exited the lobby and got into his car. He turned on the local public radio station and pulled out of the lot. On the radio, reporters were talking about concurrent natural disasters in Indonesia, Turkey, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Ireland, and Nigeria. “That’s some cheery shit,” he said, switching off the radio. He could only take so much news about
fires, earthquakes, landslides, typhoons, and cattle stampedes. He wasn’t really certain a cattle stampede should be included as a natural disaster, but since there had been five deaths, he didn’t see any reason to split hairs.

  He chose to take the long way home, still rattled by his dream. It wasn’t just because of the disturbing nature of the dream. Any type of sex dream shook him up, left him guilt ridden. Rather than spend the rest of the evening feeling creepy, he stopped at a gas station for beer. He picked up a six-pack of Sam Adams and, against his better judgment, two packs of Camels. He’d quit smoking almost three weeks before, but his will power had bottomed out.

  Seventeen dollars poorer, Gerald turned into his driveway and parked his car. He got out, dropping his cigarette and grinding it out. He’d successfully gone nineteen days without a single one and then smoked three on the drive home. Fuck it, he thought. He already felt bad enough and wasn’t going to get himself any more worked up over smoking. He took the beer and sat down in his front yard. He pried the cap from one, flicked it at his garage, and downed half the bottle in one gulp.

  Fuck it, he thought again.

  Chapter 4

  “Orion . . . Big Dipper . . .” Gerald slurred, lying in the yard. He lay in the grass, staring at the stars, surrounded by empty bottles, each containing several cigarette butts. The smell of fresh cut grass hung heavily in the air. In the three hours since arriving home, he had only gotten up to pee behind his garage a few times and to retrieve another lighter from the car when the first quit working. He was content to pass the evening smoking, drinking, and trying to identify the constellations in the Fallmeadows, Ohio, sky.

  He and Tracy had spent countless hours on countless evenings lying in the yard staring at the stars. Sufficiently drunk, he felt safe dwelling on these memories. They were bittersweet but, through the alcoholic haze, more pleasant than painful.

  He finished his last beer, tossed it off with the rest, and stood up. He got up too quickly, stumbled, and almost fell. After regaining his balance, he lit another cigarette. So much for quitting.

  Despite how much he’d had to drink, he started feeling depressed thinking about Tracy. He looked at the house and laughed. It was after nine o’clock and he hadn’t even been inside yet. “Music,” he said to the empty yard and went inside. His first instinct was to turn on the stereo, crank some really obnoxious rock music really loud and piss off the neighbors. He thought about it, remembered his CDs were all packed away out in the garage and that he liked his neighbors and decided on headphones instead. He looked around and, unable to find them, thought watching a movie was a better idea. Before sitting down on the couch, he realized he held Tracy’s urn cradled in his arm like a baby. He must have picked it up without even realizing it. He put it back on the mantle, running his fingertips down its surface. Christ, he needed another beer.

  He went to the fridge and came up empty. “Fuck me,” he said, standing up and hitting his head on the bottom of the freezer door. It made him wish he’d let Tracy spend the extra money and get the fridge with the freezer on the bottom. He laughed, remembering the two of them standing in Home Depot, arguing over which fridge to buy. They had been so happy. She had been so happy. Even in the midst of an argument, they were still more likely to laugh than yell. He’d give anything to have that back.

  Being drunk made the incidental memories easier to take, but dwelling on them could get downright dangerous. On nights like this when Gerald was low on will power, he wondered why he kept going. Day after day of bullshit . . . His job consisted of dealing with idiots who believed they’d invented the wheel. Outside of work, he didn’t have many friends and spent nearly all his time reading and drinking. Times like tonight, it wasn’t easy to see if it was even worth it.

  Gerald dug through his cabinet, found a half-empty fifth of Jack Daniel’s and drank greedily. Like six beers wasn’t enough, he thought, the whiskey burning down his throat. He put the bottle down, knocking it over and spilling what remained across the counter.

  “Well . . . I’ll just have to go get some more, now won’t I,” he said to the empty house, a little too loudly. His voice echoed, reminding him of how empty it really was. He walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  Tracy lies in the bathtub, staring blankly at the wall. She doesn’t know how long she’s been here, but it’s been long enough that the water has grown tepid, her hair beginning to dry. A draft raises goosebumps on her pale skin, and hardens her nipples. She lies in the tub, unmoving, barely breathing, semi-catatonic.

  She blinks, looks at the edge of the tub, at the pink razor. She picks it up, leans over and, from her foot, draws it up the length of her bare leg. Though both legs are entirely hairless, she continues shaving. Pointless. Just like everything else.

  A memory:

  The first time she tried cooking dinner for the two of them. She had grown up without a mother and, as such, missed out on many of life’s more domestic lessons. She’d invited Gerald to her apartment and chose something simple to prepare. Spaghetti. Boil the noodles, warm up the sauce, brown some garlic bread . . . impossible to fuck up, right? Maybe for someone else. Anyone else.

  Gerald had arrived a few minutes early. He sat on the couch, asking if he could help. She told him no, sit, relax, everything will be ready in a minute. Everything had gone fine, until the smoke alarm went off. She had no idea what was wrong and everything faded like anytime something went wrong. One second, she was stirring sauce and heard the alarm’s shriek, the next Gerald was pulling burnt bread from the oven and opening a window. She had collapsed to the floor, sobbing. She couldn’t do anything right. Gerald sank to the floor with her, embracing her and doing what he could to soothe her. She bordered on hysterical and simultaneously wished he’d run out the door and never return, but also that he’d squeeze her tighter and never let go.

  She loves Gerald, and she knows he loves her. In the beginning, that had been enough. But anymore, she’s not so sure. In the beginning, she had been happy sometimes. She tries now, for Gerald’s sake, but it hasn’t been real for . . . she doesn’t know. Can’t remember. It doesn’t matter anyway. She knows she won’t be able to fake it much longer.

  Chapter 5

  Gerald knew he shouldn’t be driving. He judged and criticized coworkers, celebrities, and anyone else for drinking and driving, yet here he was, three sheets to the wind, speeding down a county road. Three run stop signs and a near-miss on a sharp turn later, Gerald was close enough to town to be paranoid about running into a cop. Nothing would improve the night like a DUI. He’d probably spend the night in jail, lose his driver’s license, get fired . . . some really good shit that would definitely improve his wonderful life. He rolled the windows down, and hung his head out the side. The blast of air sobered him up, but the sobriety wore off whenever he put his head back in the car. He wasn’t sure which looked worse: swerving all over or driving with his head out the window, but he knew which was more likely to get him to the store and back home alive.

  When he got into town, he decided to chance driving with his head inside. He stopped at the nearest gas station and went in. Hoping he wasn’t stumbling too much, he walked past the cashier, back toward the beer cooler. The man at the counter regarded him with a raised eyebrow, but didn’t seem overly concerned. The night shift in a gas station certainly revealed much stranger things than a drunk guy buying beer.

  Gerald walked back up to the counter, a case of Budweiser in each hand. He set them down on the counter, and grabbed a handful of beef sticks. “Late night dinner, eh?” the clerk said.

  “Yeah, something like that,” Gerald said. “Gimme three packs of Camels, too.” The clerk put the cigarettes on the counter, and took Gerald’s credit card. He felt stupid paying for beer and smokes with a credit card, but he was too drunk to count cash. He took the card back from the man, returned it to his wallet, and spotted a picture of him and Tracy as he did. He took his things and left, feeling that much worse as he did so.
/>   Gerald woke up the next day on his front lawn. His car was parked sideways in the grass, beer cans spilling out of the open door. He looked at his watch, saw that it was seven forty-five. Technically, it was still possible for him to make it to work on time, but with this headache and cat-took-a-shit-in-his-mouth feeling, the likelihood of that happening was pretty slim.

  Crawling to the car, he found his cell phone sitting on the seat. He called Matlida, but got her voice mail. After leaving a semi-coherent message telling her he wouldn’t be in, he hung up the phone and passed back out.

  Gerald woke again, this time around noon. He stood up, picked some blades of grass from his face, and looked around. He sneezed, figuring spending the night on a freshly mowed lawn wasn’t helping his allergies. He massaged his temples, trying to force away the remainder of his hangover. His stomach lurched and he turned from his car just in time to throw up. Once he was finished, he debated going in the house, thought about Tracy’s urn, and decided to get something to eat instead. Fucked up thing about hangovers, no matter how disgusting it was to think of eating, it would always improve the situation one-hundred and fifty percent.

  Knocking the rest of the Budweiser cans out, he sat down in his car which, not surprisingly, stunk of beer and cigarette smoke. He backed onto the driveway and went to pull out. He paused briefly at the end of the drive and lit a cigarette. As he did, a huge green pickup truck sped by, coming within inches of Gerald’s bumper. The driver hollered “Yee-hooo!” not slowing a bit.