Mixtape for the Apocalypse, Page 3

  “I mean, I can do it; it’s not like it’s hard. I’m excited about the money, though. I’ve been working there for long enough, they might as well throw me a bone now.”

  “Oh, well I guess that’s cool.” I smiled and looked down into my lap, so it wouldn’t seem like I was wildly jealous of her, and hating my own job more than ever.

  “Fuck you, it’s awesome,” she laughed, reaching across the table to poke me in the chest. Right where Rob punched me.

  “Ow,” I said. I glared at her, indignantly arching one eyebrow.

  She arched her eyebrow back at me. In high school we called this “a Spock-Off.” “You deserved that. I know you hate me right now.”

  “I could never hate you,” I said. “You just bought me a sandwich. In the ancient land of my people, that’s basically love.”

  “Oh, wow, your people are from Moochistan, too? I miss the old country.” She smiled at me, and I smiled back, and everything was good.

  Later, we went back down the street to the Cazbar, and Lise and I drank several kamikazes apiece. She actually went down for the count—forehead pressed into her arm on the table, mumbling incoherently—and in the interval I wrote more. My handwriting is appallingly poor here.

  At the Cazbarr w/Lise. I have had five cocktails and Lise has had four. They are hella strong. She is passing out. She didn’t eat first. I am pretty good at holding my liquor, which is another thing that Triste sandwiches are good for. I love to get drunk in bars. That’s what your twenties are all about—getting totally fucked up and learning why it’s dumb, so you don’t spend the rest of your life as a pathetic alkie. Like most of my British relatives. They’ve all got cirrhosis and cancer and whatever. They drink a ton every night. The older ones. I don’t know many of my younger relatives, except for James, the one that’s a little younger than me, who is a complete raver and never sleeps because he’s rolling on Ecstasy all the time. He doesn’t drink though. It’s weird. I have never taken Ecstasy. I kinda want to.

  A toast! To cannibal women!

  Lise perked up eventually, and walked me to “the fork in the road,” the intersection of the street she lived on, and the street I lived on. “Merry meet and merry part, and merry meet again,” Lise slurred, waving at me. I stood still and watched her stagger backward a few steps, waving and throwing me kisses. Just in time she turned around, narrowly avoiding colliding with a utility pole.

  I walked slowly back to my own house. It was a lovely night—warm and clear, all the stars pricked out in the sky like pinholes in a blue velvet backdrop. It seemed a waste to go inside and destroy this happy tipsy feeling, so I sat on the porch and smoked another cigarette before I went in.

  The house was quiet and dark. I tiptoed in, shutting the door and locking it behind me as quietly as I could. Despite my best efforts, though, Rob shuffled down from Melissa’s room as I was in the kitchen getting a glass of water. His eyes were completely closed and he felt his way along the kitchen cabinets. I stood stock still, not even breathing, hoping he’d just go past me to the bathroom and not notice that I was there, but he paused and cocked his head back, as if regarding me through his closed eyelids. His package hung distended and gruesomely large inside his permanently stained white underwear—I couldn’t take my eyes away from it and I couldn’t breathe.

  “Izzat you, you little dipshit?” he muttered.

  I said nothing. His eyeballs darted uneasily behind his closed lids. He was sleepwalking, it seemed, or trying to freak me out, one of the two. It was working, if the latter was his intention.

  “I’m gonna kill you one of these days,” Rob mumbled.

  I drew in my breath before I could stop myself.

  He paused, grunted, and added, “I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

  I slid down the kitchen cabinets until I was sitting on the floor, then I crab-walked to the kitchen doorway. He lumbered forward after me like the living dead.

  My foot tripped on the living room carpet, and I collapsed onto my butt. He stood over me, still mumbling something about killing under his breath. Melissa appeared at the kitchen doorway, dressed only in a tie-dyed T-shirt, her pubes a dark stain visible under the hem. She grabbed Rob by the arm and steered him back toward the kitchen. “He’s sleepwalking again,” she mumbled, yawning.

  “He says he’s going to kill me,” I said faintly.

  “He says that every night. Just go to bed.”

  “How long has he been sleepwalking?”

  “Since he was a kid,” Melissa explained. “It’s stress-related.”

  “Oh,” I said, and got up. “Stress-related, huh? What’s he got to be stressed about?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” she said, glaring over her shoulder. “All you care about is yourself. Rent check by the time I leave for work tomorrow morning at eight. Remember to add fifty bucks for the late fee. Shithead.” She guided Rob up the stairs and slammed the door behind her.

  Once I was able to stand up, I got the rent check off my desk and set it in an obvious place on the kitchen counter. Afterward I lay on top my bed in my clothes and shoes. I wasn’t exactly scared, but I was badly shaken. I spent the night staring at the luminous green numbers of the clock, listening to the infinitesimal click of the digital numbers reforming themselves, as if waiting for a bomb to go off. When the sky outside began to lighten, I took a cold shower, put on clean clothes, and left before the sun rose.

  12 August 9:45 p.m.

  Oh, shit, I forgot to write anything yesterday. I got up super early and went to Link-Up. Juba sent me some more pictures; fairly ordinary ones, nothing naked or kinky. Her at the mall, wearing a letterman’s jacket and really tight black jeans. She’s leaning over the railing as if to spit into a fountain. She wears a lot of mascara. I can probably make a good panel out of it if I figure out an approach; she’s a pretty good photographer and has her composition down flat. Still I think she probably has an unwholesome crush on me. I’ve tried to tell her that I’m not just too old, but I’m repulsively skinny, speccy, and I probably smell like a crooked cop’s ashtray, but I don’t think she’s getting it.

  Let’s see, what else. I ate a baloney sandwich for lunch (with mustard, white bread—oooh yeah). I went to Squirrell and picked up some mail and art board. When I came home Melissa had actually made something edible—veggie lasagna—but she wouldn’t let me have any, begging the leftovers-for-her-and-Rob’s-lunches clause. So I ate another sandwich and was sad until Laika came out of her room stoned and we went to the 7-11 for nachos and juice. Then we went home and I went to bed and masturbated and fell asleep.

  Today I went to work (nothing from J.), then went to the other work (the studio that Lucas and I rent which is directly upstairs from the main Squirrell offices, which makes it feel just like going to work at an office. I can’t ink comics at home, though; I get distracted too easily). Lucas was there too, even though he usually does his pencils at home. I inked one page, thumbnailed another page, and listened to Lucas talk about his beautiful, wonderful, gorgeous, smart, funky girlfriend. Shut up, Lucas.

  I just got home a little while ago and Laika gave me a chocolate-chip brownie.

  I think I might be high. President expresses shock. Film at eleven.

  Good night. Time to jerk off.

  13 August 11:02 a.m.

  I’m at work—hiding the comp book under my tech support manual whenever anyone walks by. It’s taken me ten minutes to write this sentence. Fuck this.

  1:28 p.m.

  Lunchtime. What a semi-civilized notion.

  If I had a car or a scooter I’d go to Triste for lunch. I don’t know why. Besides the crack. At lunchtime it’s an even more bleak place than it is at night—the sunlight coming in through the windows gives off a milky grey luminescence that makes everyone look like they’re recovering from viral pneumonia. Instead, I’m in the bar downstairs from Link-Up having an over priced and understuffed sandwich, watching Cops on the closed-circuit TV. This show makes me so parano
id.

  So what am I thinking about today? Mainly Link-Up. Tech support. The Internet. The Industry. The other poor schmucks like me, whose only crime is that we weren’t geeky enough, early enough, to become hardcore geeks—programmers, system administrators, software developers. I’m bitter, yeah. I was a nerd, but I spent all my high school pimple years in the art room, stuffing Rapidographs down my pants and penciling superhero physique. How was I to know?

  I’m getting kind of tipsy. I had a pink lemonade and gin, perfect on a sticky-hot day like this, with my krab salad sammich. Getting tipsy brings out my sense of injustice.

  2:15 p.m.

  “What kind of person works at Link-Up?” Well, there’s me, M. B. Squire, sarcastic, voluble, my cubicle decorated with pages from R. Crumb comics and every postcard I can find of Isabella Rosellini. (That makes five, mostly European, postmarked. I had a pen pal.)

  To the immediate left of me is Randy. He’s pale-blond and stocky and really into Windows 95—I mean, really into it. He’s engaged to some chick and they show no signs of actually getting married; I think they just get off on the anticipation, the ego trip of dangling the possibility of marriage over the heads of their single friends. No decorations in his cubicle.

  Around the corner from me is Moll Malone. I love to write or speak her name—so eighteenth century! She sounds like an adventurer. She’s actually a normal suburban woman with a long history of customer service positions. She’s got a great phone voice and excels at calming angry, agitated customers (not a skill that I myself share). Decorations are family and boyfriend Polaroids, employee of the month placard, cute puppy calendar.

  Richard and Dave across the room. They spend a lot of time off the phone talking about upgrades, sweet new hardware, whatnot. True geeks. Dave is squat, beefy, vaguely slovenly; computer-generated pinup girls and the drawing of Tank Girl I did for him in his cube. Richard is tall and blunt, probably strong as hell (but from what . . .?). I’ve drawn him a couple of times as a typical thug in my comic. Cubicle decorations kind of like a mixture of Moll’s and Dave’s.

  Beth and Thomas are okay. They’re on the other side of the room. Good support folks. I’ve never noticed what they have up in their cubicles—maybe I should go look.

  3:00 p.m.

  Busted.

  Trace came by when I was standing over there talking to Beth. He helpfully informed me that I hadn’t picked up a support call in forty minutes. He just slipped it in, subtly reminding us that he’s monitoring us, watching our phone stats like a nervous nurse checking in on the vital signs of an ER patient. He’s not even our manager; doesn’t he have big business deals to occupy him? Why can’t he just get on with the owning and let us grunts do our grunting?

  Now I’m all agitated. Maybe I’ll take my cigarette break now.

  “Squire.”

  Trace had followed me, whisking away my cigarette exhale with a wrinkled hand. His eyes were like two beads of jet floating in custard. “Taking a break already?”

  “Actually,” I replied, “this is the time when my breaks are regularly scheduled every day. It was your idea to institute timed and scheduled a.m. and p.m. breaks—and a fine idea it was too.” I smiled, showing him all my teeth.

  His answering smile, like a shark’s, nauseated me. It did not mean good things. “Actually, Squire, I figure since you wasted at least a half hour off the phone, you’ve forfeited your break for the afternoon. And just to be fair, could you stay on the phone for an extra fifteen minutes late this evening?”

  “Uh, actually, I can’t do that today, Trace—I have to go to Squirrell today. I’m scheduled to be there at five-thirty. I can’t make it there in time if—”

  I’m sure he knew I was lying. “You’re a creative guy, Squire. I’m sure you can think of something to tell them.” His wrinkled mitt smacked me on the shoulder, and my knees threatened to buckle. “And move away from the front of the building when you’re smoking—we’ve had complaints. It’s a write-up next time, Mr. Squire.”

  When I got back to my desk, while on a call to a know-nothing in Astoria, I sketched Trace on a another Post-It—the shifty eyes, eight arachnid hands, the claws dripping with gore. And the Jaws 3D smile. He held the head of an unfortunate supportnik between double rows of teeth. The end result was so perfect that I had to put the Astoria call on hold and laugh.

  Moll came around, wondering what had me in stitches. I showed her the Post-it. Her face reddened and swelled, just a hint of a smile warping her mouth into a curly bracket. “Oh my God,” she whispered, “you are such an asshole.”

  I grinned, shrugged, and went back to the call with a light heart.

  5:28 p.m.

  On the bus. Listening to Heaven Up Here. It’s very bleak; makes me feel more lighthearted in comparison.

  Drew great caricature of Trace. Moll liked it. She’s kind of pretty when she looks like she’s going to explode.

  Thought of a new rock opera about relativity—”Einstein on the Bus.” Old Al finds out the hard way that, when you’re on a bus at rush hour and you’re late, time is objectively elongated and subjectively compressed.

  I’m trying not to think about that whole Rob thing. I did pay the rent, right? Dammit, I can’t remember. Laika’s brownie bulldozed my brain, perhaps permanently. “That’s why they call it dope.”

  Off to get cocked. My boss at Squirrell Press is actually named Rooster. His parents named him that. Nobody knows why. We call him Cock. Cock Kaplan. It doesn’t help that, in the right light, he does kind of resemble a penis. A penis in a polo shirt.

  I used to wear my Squirrell Press polo shirt at first. I was proud to be part of the collective. We were vanguards; very young, idealistic doesn’t even begin to describe it, and thrilled to find that our little venture into comics seemed to be going somewhere. Ten years ago Cock Kaplan had got some money from an insurance settlement and started publishing indie comics of his friends that had gotten dropped from their regular houses, or who had never been “really published” before. Three years ago, before I’d even graduated from college, Cock took a shine to my sixteen-page mini-comics, designed, drawn, Xeroxed, and distributed by hand (well, Mom sold a couple at her store). He fixed me up with someone like-minded, i.e. Lucas, and gave us just enough money to feel legit, but not quite enough to live on. We didn’t care; our childhood dreams had come true.

  By summer of ’97, though, Cock Kaplan reassigned me to inking, giving the penciling duties, the real drawing part, to Lucas. It hurts. It isn’t as though I’ve run out of ideas. But the trust-fund-supported Lucas can do art full time, and I can’t, and the issues have been taking longer and longer to produce. Lucas’s drawing style isn’t completely dissimilar to mine, and in fact he’d studied my pencils for a good long time while we were both young and dumb and new. Lucas told me that he loved my pencils, that he loved the way I drew faces, reactions, expressions. I am, however, not so good at drawing interiors—rooms, walls, drapery, what have you. Lucas has most of a degree in architecture, and he can draw an archway like you wouldn’t believe. The more “sensitive work,” the inking, was given to me. Lucas’s pencils are tight as hell. To change anything of his would be to throw the entire panel, the entire page, out of composition. And I’m just not very fast. I just have to bite the bullet and ink precisely over what Lucas draws, fixing his mark in stone. He’s just really good. It looks like my work, only better and tighter. Damn him.

  Squirrell’s not doing bad, twenty titles, five of them profitable (mine being one of these), two of them really profitable, a quarterly, a nice business in T-shirts, and a seemingly endless stream of beautiful seventeen-year-old front receptionists. If we’re lucky, they know how to make coffee and copies; usually they spend a couple of days talking to their boyfriends on the phone and doing their nails and reading glossy magazines, and then there’s a new one in her place, sometimes with a different shade of hair. I used to love this place. Practically idolize it. I loved everything about it and I was a to
tal Squirrell fanboy.

  I now use my Squirrell polo shirt to wipe my face after I shave—it’s softer than any of my shitty thrift-store-acquired towels—and I just smile with gritted teeth when every other artist gets to do the cover of the quarterly except me. I painted the cover of #1 (beautiful exquisite eight-color pointillism, psychedelic as hell, practically an optical illusion) but I haven’t been asked back, supposedly because the first issue of the quarterly didn’t sell half its print run. Was that my fault? Were people scared away by the mad pure vision I’d had one rainy day? All right, so I’m too good for comics. A lot of comic artists are. I have a degree in illustration, not advertising.

  Fuck this noise. I’m here. Time to take my caning like a good little schoolboy.

  “You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago.” Cock was shooting hoops at his miniature basketball setup on the wall. “We do have deadlines, you know.”

  “Sorry. I had to work late at my other job.”

  “Your ‘other job.’” Said with a sneer. “Squire, I really think you should consider getting serious about your comics career. A man cannot obey two masters—well, he can, but he produces shit if he does. The quality of your pages has gone way downhill lately.”

  “Look, man, I can’t live on what I make here. It’s not nothing, and thanks for the page rate, but I’d be living in a cardboard box. I have student loans—!”

  “My name’s not ‘Man’.” Cock’s eyes were nail-blue steel, and it was only the coldness in them that kept me saying out loud, No, your name’s Cock, dickhead. “The fact of the matter is, you’re late. I’d like to think we sometimes pretend to be professionals. Remember, it’s your dime paying the rent on that studio; if you’re not going to use it, you’re throwing money down the shitter. Go see if Lucas is done with his last panel.”

  Lucas Listener was at the light table, tallish, muscular, hair so boring I don’t remember what it looked like, nose almost pressed against the glass. “Laika called,” he told me emotionlessly, tracing the drapery of a medieval gown from a photocopy.