Part One
Jacob stood in the kitchen, light from a muted TV blinking on a wall, and held a butcher knife in his hand.
In another room, he could hear his girlfriend Joanna scream hysterically amid a symphony of smashing.
“You fucker,” she’d yell, and then a crash. “I hate you.”
He shook his head and sipped the air. He gripped the knife tighter.
“You don’t hate me, you hate you,” Jacob yelled.
The crashing stopped, and he heard her heavy footsteps coming down the hall.
“Sounds like an elephant,” he thought.
Moments earlier, they had sat on a couch browsing celebrity photos on TMZ. Jacob mentioned he thought some young actress was “hot.”
“You never say I’m hot,” Joanna said.
Jacob didn’t say the thing that entered his head right then.
“What the fuck, Jacob?” she said. “Tell me I’m hot. Right now.”
He couldn’t do it, and the fight began.
He had followed her into her room as she threw herself onto the unmade bed. There were clothes everywhere and a pizza box in the corner.
“It’s not like I think you’re ugly,” he said.
“That’s not helping.”
“What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal? The big deal is you think I’m fat.”
“I never fucking said that,” he yelled. “Don’t put words in my mouth. You think you’re fat.”
“How dare you,” she yelled back, and threw her thick book about dream interpretation against the wall. “Get out.”
“I swear I am going to end this,” he muttered as he walked down the hall. He rested his hands on the kitchen counter to the soundtrack of her screams. He pulled out the knife again.
After the hate comment he was sure she’d come at him.
The footsteps got closer, then farther away.
“Fuck you. I’m going out,” she yelled, and she slammed the front door.
“Jesus,” he said to himself. “What am I doing?”
He tried to count the times in the past year he’d been sober. A week? A day?
Something on TV caught his attention — a red-headed girl singing to an old man.
He scratched his back with the blade and turned the volume up. She sang about tomorrow.
He took a deep breath and let his lips buzz on the exhale.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow. Oh shit.”
He pulled out his phone to check an email he’d gotten from his dad earlier in the day.
Mr. Philips was a soldier. He’d been in Afghanistan for the past three years, but according to the email, he was back for good.
“Son, I’m coming home,” it read. “Can’t wait to see you.”
Jacob stared at the screen for 17 heartbeats.
“That’s it,” he said. “I’m done.”
That was all it took. Just the thought was liberating, like he’d been underwater all this time.
“Enough with the drugs, and the girlfriend I hate, and the hating myself,” he said. “Enough.”
The darkness almost slid away. His next thought: I want to get high.
He walked to the kitchen. He left the knife on the counter and ran his hands through his moppy black hair.
He dialed Joanna’s number. It barely rang.
“Hello?” Her voice sounded nasally.
“Hey I’m sorry.” He paused. “You’re hot.”
“I am? Oh honey that’s all I wanted to hear.”
Honey. The word made him cringe.
“Let’s have a party tonight,” he said. “Invite Mike and Sarah. And buy some beer.”
“That sounds great, babe,” she said, and he cringed again. “See you so soon.”
Part Two
The idea of some diversionary recreational entertainment had lightened the mood.
Joanna was caught up in it — all the preparations.
Like the fight never happened.
Jacob watched Joanna mill about, humming, and he remembered how once she told him that she wanted to get married and wear a white dress and have everyone tell her she was beautiful. He wondered if he was the tuxedoed asshole in that fantasy. He felt like someone caught him playing with himself in a public place.
Joanna, the broke aspiring-writer who lived in her mom’s apartment. Joanna, the college dropout. Joanna, who dated high-schoolers.
Jacob, a few inches above five feet with beady eyes that got lost in his face. Jacob, with greasy black hair.
They had met over the summer and smoked pot in a parking lot in her shitty green Geo Metro.
Eventually, he started to sleep over. Eventually, he sort of moved in.
She wore big, colorful blouses like old-timey sailors would wear. One was green felt and he hated it.
They waited for people to arrive. At 7:45, the doorbell rang.
It was Tall Mike, Joanna’s drug dealer.
“What’s up, bromatic,” Mike said.
“Hi there,” Jacob said, wishing he had a similar colloquialism.
Mike held out his hand to shake but Jacob tried to hug, and they got crossed up. Mike chuckled.
“All good, little buddy,” Mike said.
Mike hugged Joanna and they stood there for a second. He dusted off the front of his shirt and waited.
“Oh,” Joanna said, realizing it was her job to keep things moving. “Come in, come in. Let’s go sit down. I’ll get you a beer.”
Mike’s shoes squeaked on the tile. He never wore the same pair twice.
Jacob usually wore the same thing for three days.
“How are things,” Mike asked.
“Things are great,” Joanna said. “Jacob and I are really getting along. Aren’t we honey?”
Pause.
“Sure.”
The doorbell rang again.
Jacob popped up and ran a hand through his hair on the way to the door. He looked in the hallway mirror before he opened it to check his teeth. He breathed in his hand.
Skinny Sarah always wore tight skirts and Jacob always thought about her when he was alone.
“Hey, Sarah. Thanks for coming. I’m really glad you came,” Jacob said.
“Hey, shit breath,” she said.
Her big boyfriend just nodded.
She called him shit breath, unfortunately, because one time Mike and Jacob were on the couch talking while Jacob chain-smoked cigarettes.
“It smells like a dog pooped in here,” Mike said.
Jacob realized it was his breath and didn’t say much after that, but he was grateful to Mike for attacking the problem laterally.
“I wasn’t going to come, but Mike said he had a treat for me,” Sarah said.
“You look really pretty tonight,” Jacob said.
She blinked a few times but didn’t answer.
Big boyfriend, easily two feet taller than Sarah, didn’t speak either. He reminded Jacob of her last boyfriend, and the one before.
“I like big guys and big dicks,” he remembered her saying.
Jacob gestured down the hall so he could watch Sarah walk.
“Hey, you bitches,” Joanna said when they entered the living room.
“Oh, hey girl,” Sarah said. “Oh my god, it’s good to see you. I love your hair.”
“Oh, this?” Joanna said. “You know this is, well, I haven’t washed it or anything.”
“No, no it looks great,” Sarah said, waiting for a compliment in return.
“You want a drink?”
“Oh my god, thank you,” Sarah said.
Big boyfriend shotgunned a beer in the kitchen.
“Let’s party,” Joanna said.
Mike rolled a joint and it made its way around.
Jacob flipped through the TV and stopped at the news.
A story about a woman who drowned her kid in a bathtub caught his eye.
“What the fuck?” Jacob said.
“People are evil,” Joanna said. “I hate people.”
Jacob sighed.
“But you’re a person.”
“I know but I hate them.”
“People are people,” Mike said. “Evil is different.” A long gray cloud of smoke escaped from his lips.
“Think about it this way,” Mike said. “We’re alive, right? We learn things and we love and sometimes we high-five.”
“Let’s high-five right now,” Jacob said, and he put out his hand.
Mike kept going. Jacob pretended he was stretching. He looked at Sarah to see if she noticed and she stared at him dead on. He quickly looked down.
“Who wants to die, really?” Mike went on. “No one wakes up and goes, gee, I’d love to die today.”
“Drug dealer McGee is getting a little preachy for my tastes,” Sarah said.
“I don’t know,” Joanna said. “I don’t really want to die. I want to get married and have babies.”
Jacob felt her looking for his eyes.
“All I’m saying is there’s a balance, you know?” Mike said. “Good and evil.”
Sarah pulled at the tips of her hair.
“If there’s a God,” Mike said, pausing to pull on his joint. “If there’s a God then there’s the opposite.”
“And that’s evil, right?” Jacob said. “Like the devil?”
“Yeah. And the devil wants us dead.”
Big boyfriend went for another beer.
“That’s heavy, Mike,” Jacob said. “You think that’s why fucked-up shit happens all the time?”
“Most definitely,” Mike said.
Sarah pulled at the hem of her skirt, over and over.
“This is a good story Mike, but I want to get high,” Sarah said.
“Take that woman on the news,” Mike said, ignoring her. “Maybe it wasn’t her idea to drown her kid.”
“That’s nice Mike, the devil made her do it. That’s very nice,” Sarah said. “Can I have my dope now?”
“Mike, you’re the devil,” Joanna said.
They all laughed, except Jacob.
Mike went in his pocket and handed Sarah a packet.
The three of them, Mike and Sarah and Jacob, sat on the couch facing the table. Big boyfriend kept drinking.
“Oh, I can do some readings after this,” Joanna said.
Jacob groaned and everyone looked at him, so he pretended he was clearing his throat.
“I got something for you too, little buddy,” he said to Jacob. “Just the thing to open your mind up, pull back the shades, you know?”
He handed Jacob what looked like a poppy seed. Jacob swallowed it. “What is it?”
“Mescaline, bro. Good shit. $20.”
He looked at Joanna. She went in her purse and smiled at Jacob.
“I really like you,” she mouthed to him as she handed the money to Mike.
Sarah began her pre-fix ritual. She put Mike’s dope on a spoon with a sprinkle of water and lit it until the mixture went melty and brown.
“Can I borrow your belt?”
She put a cotton ball in the liquid and then a needle.
The brownish mixture circled into the syringe.
The needle went in her skin and she pulled in a swirl of red. Sarah pushed the plunger back, and she went slack.
Jacob and Mike moved to the balcony to smoke cigarettes and wait for the mescaline to kick in. Inside, Joanna read big boyfriend’s palm.
“You have such a big lifeline,” Jacob heard her say before he noticed he couldn’t close his eyes.
“Holy shit,” Jacob said.
He stared at the parking lot.
“Mike, is that water?”
“Everything is water now, bro.”
“Let’s put on some music, bitches,” Joanna said. She got her tarot cards. Jacob didn’t want to join.
“I gotta piss. I’ll be back.”
“Sure you will, buddy,” Mike said.
Jacob felt the blood in his limbs swish around. The hallway walls heaved, like they were breathing. He flicked on the light switch in the bathroom, and he heard the electricity travel to the blades — he heard the zaps. It kicked on and he heard the sounds between the fan’s spins.
In the mirror, his face slid off.
He slipped off his shorts and looked down. He looked yellow and diseased.
The flowered wallpaper bloomed. The green vines got bigger and more lush.
He was in a garden then. When he finally looked down, he was pissing all over his legs.
“Holy shit,” he said. With his pants at his ankles, he waddled to the sink and turned on the water. He splashed it on himself but couldn’t feel it at first.
He kept flinging it.
The droplets swam in the air. They pulled apart like melted tupperware and left a blue trail across his eyes. He wanted to see that trail again and again, to know its secrets. The water could tell him why he couldn’t feel. The water had the answer.
“Fucking tell me,” he whispered. He looked at his face again in the mirror. His eyes had turned to mouths.
“You’re an idiot,” a voice said.
“What?”
When he left the bathroom everyone was gone except for Joanna.
“You’ve been in there for three fucking hours,” she said. “Why are you all wet?”
Part Three
Joanna went to bed. She’d tried for sex but he couldn’t even look at himself, much less her. “Don’t bother me then,” she said, and slammed the door.
He tried to lie down on the couch, but tossed for hours. He gave up, restless.
The heaving walls and waterfall parking lot and fantastic colors were all gone, but a stinging realness remained in his head. The more he thought about Joanna the angrier he got. And the angrier he got, the more he wanted to sleep, and the more he wanted to sleep the more he blamed Joanna.
“I can’t sleep,” he thought.
“That’s OK,” the voice said.
“It’s not OK,” Jacob said. “It sucks. My dad comes home tomorrow and I want to sleep.”
“You’ll sleep soon,” the voice said. “I promise. You know what would be fun?”
“What?”
“If you got that butcher knife.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Why not?” The voice said. “You were going to do it before, remember?”
“Do what before?”
“You know. You were going to stab her.”
“I wasn’t actually going to do it.”
“Look at your life, man. Look what she did to you. How she walks around and never does anything. She smokes pot all day and eats hamburgers. She’s writing a book about ghost pirates. C’mon, man. Ghost pirates. That’s pathetic.”
“Ugh. You’re right. She’s pathetic.”
“Why not get her now while she’s asleep?”
“Whoa,” Jacob said. “What?”
“It’s cool. Everything’s cool. Except Joanna. She’s definitely not cool.”
“Hold on. Wait. Are you in my brain or is this me?”
“This is you. This is you hating Joanna and finally doing something about it.”
“I do hate her.”
“Remember earlier? She could come at you again. Are you going to let that happen?”
“I don’t really want to. I guess it might be prudent to preemptively attack. Holy shit, what am I saying?”
“You’re making sense.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m you.”
“But why am I talking to myself like you’re someone else?”
“Doesn’t matter. You are. And Joanna sucks.”
“Well, you’re right about that.”
“Let’s get the knife.”
“OK. Wait, though. Are you sure you’re me?”
“I am absolutely sure.”
“OK.”
Jacob walked to the kitchen and grabbed the knife.
“I did take some mescaline though.”
“Don’t worry. I’m you.”
Jacob stood in the dark, quiet room, his bare feet on the tile. He walked up to the sliding glass doors and saw his reflection, all shadowy and vague.
His eyes flashed red.
“Holy shit. You’re not me,” Jacob whispered.
He felt prickly on the back of his neck, short of breath.
Jacob sat down and rubbed his face. “You’re not me, I’m me.” Jacob said.
“Nope I’m you.”
“No you’re not. You can’t be me. I took mescaline. You’re the mescaline.”
“Think about it, man. Who else could I be?”
Jacob kept going in circles. He forgot he was scared and went to the mirror.
“Go get the knife.”
The hairs went up again.
“Please go away.”
“How can I go away if I’m you?”
“You’re not.”
Then, Jacob forgot again.
“I do hate her,” he said.
Part Four
Jacob walked into Joanna’s dark room, the knife in his hand.
He pulled the covers off of her and she was naked, and he thought she looked like mashed potatoes. With black hair.
“I bet it goes in so easy,” the voice said. “I bet it’s just like cutting into butter. Let’s butter those potatoes.”
She faced the wall and he faced her and he took the knife and he pressed it softly onto the fat of her back. She didn’t move.
“Do it,” the voice said. “What are you waiting for? Stab her.”
He lifted the knife.
“Yes,” the voice said.
A car drove by outside and the headlight glinted off the blade and Jacob’s shadow projected on the wall, huge — him with the knife above his head, about to strike.
He looked at his reflection and shook his head.
“Jesus,” he said to himself. “What the fuck am I doing?”
Joanna heard that and woke up. She blinked a few times then screamed.
“No no it’s fine this is nothing,” he said, panicking and pointing the knife blade away from her.
She grabbed his wrist with both her hands.
“Let go,” she screamed.
“Joanna, stop,” he yelled. “This is nothing.”
“Let it go,” she screamed again.
The knife moved only inches between them as they fought for control.
Jacob was surprised by how strong she was.
He pulled away, and she pulled back, the knife hanging in the air.
“Joanna just let go it’s OK,” he said.
“You let it go you fuck,” she said.
He pulled as hard as he could.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said frantically. “Let go.”
She did.
The knife slammed into his chest. He looked down and just saw only the black handle.
He stepped back.
“You killed me.”
She stared at him with an alabaster face.
He crumpled.
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” she said.
She ran out.
He thought of the voice.
“Where did you go?”
The blood pooled and spread, making circular patterns of maroon around his body.
He stared at the ceiling fan. Everything went yellow, and then closed in like when old TV turns off.
On the news the next day, Mike saw a story about an unnamed woman who stabbed her boyfriend in the chest with a butcher knife.
“Called it,” he said. “Straight up evil.”
This article appears in Dec 19-25, 2013.