Group Share

Group Share—

         





The room is grim, fading hopes and wasted souls.  Lost children of God, errant knights and abandoned faith.  The theme of the room is dirty five-o'clock shadows, square hardened faces with unruly haircuts, stale three day-old coffees, and chain-smoking cigarettes.  The air is sour and yellow, staining the walls with portraits of nicotine, addiction, and grief.  The ten of us met here every Thursday night at six sharp.  Relapse Prevention Class.  AKA Group Share.  Our Counselor, Chris Median, is the ringmaster for these rejects and pawns.  This was only my third week of class, and in that time I had heard enough heartbreaking stories to never touch the bottle again.  It is funny the power convicts can find among one another.  A strength to go on in a world so cruel and unforgiving, forcing us to the Devil’s Water for answers in the first place. 

But this isn't my reason for sobriety at all.

My story is more horrific.

And as Chris turns and looks at me with those glossy marbles, I clear my throat and share:          

"Hello..." My throat is dry like sandpaper, itchy against the words trying to form.  My palms are sweaty and I curse God for creating his kin with sweat glands.  Somehow I struggle on, facing the pain of my tale. "My…my name is Skylar Williams…Sky for short, and I am an alcoholic..."          "Hello, Skylar." The group replies in unison as they have the weeks before, slightly comforting.  I accept their smiles and sixty-minute friendship, and for an instant I feel everything just may be okay.          

"My story, " I light up a Camel wide and inhale deep allowing the smoke to fill my lungs. "Like most stories, is about a girl.  Two to be exact.  Lola and Charlene: my own personal love triangle. But like most triangles, this one was to end horribly.  Actually, horribly is an understatement.  Gruesome, tragic and sadistic are better words that come to mind.  I feel it is impossible to tell a story that is true, the details of reality too astonishing to believe.  These events can happen upon the same world in which you wake-up and go to your 9-to-5.  Or put your children to bed with a gentle kiss upon their foreheads and whisper in their ears there is no boogeyman living in the closet.  But I'm here to tell you the world is different." I inhale, looking over the bleak souls of the room, allowing the cloud to conceal my poker-face with shadows and white doughnuts of smoke rings.  I was Colonel Mustard in the Billard Room with a candle stick.  I had them hooked, sitting upon the edge of their seats.  For a second I felt Serling or Hitchcock speak for me, a god among insects.  They hung upon my every word, some still doubting, but by the time I finished they all would be believers. "Monsters do exist.  Horrible things do happen.  You may think back to every Television show or movie you ever saw, but the malice of my tale is unique.  Mine is a tale of mystery, murder, and  misery.  I am a murderer; I will confess.  And it all started with my desire for a set of White curtains..."

                   Once I had a beautiful house out in the country, tucked snugly in a plot of land between Stowe and Barre, lovely Vermont country I swear.  For years it was only me and Lola.  Lola was a wire-haired potbelly pig; the little black fuzzy thing stood no more than a foot high and was retarded to boot.  When she was younger, Lola was athletic and healthy.  Now that she's getting on in years, Lola is 50% blind in her right eye, completely blind in her left eye, deaf, and arthritic.  The vet said I should start thinking about putting her down, but I just couldn't bear the thought of turning Lola into green eggs and ham.  So I vowed for her last few years I would treat her like royalty, kind of like the cow in India is a worshiped symbol.  I was a pupil at the temple of Lola.  When I cooked, I cooked for two.  If I had cookies and ice cream before bed, so did Lola.  Snuggled next to me on Saturday night watching a movie in bed, Lola was the girlfriend my anal retentiveness never could secure.  Or commit to, depending on which of my psycho-ex's stories you get.  But none of this matters for loving Lola I was happy. Lola was all I would ever need.  Some nights I would just look at her sleeping like a babe in front of the fireplace, and wonder if perhaps she was a reincarnated Rosario Dawson just made for me.          



My happy homestead was set upon acres of green rolling hills and dense woods, perfect for my former profession.  Deep in the woods sat my harvest of plants, and every August I cut enough “Jerry-Berries” to pay my mortgage and property taxes, any bills that accumulated during the year, while supporting a party-rich lifestyle.  It was a lovely faux-life I led, the bachelor of the year, but I had to protect my lands from poachers and little high school shits who would try to steal my cash crop.  So that's where Charlene comes in.  A beautiful German Shepherd, her owner before me swore she used to be a police dog, and now that she's retired, Charlene was a great guard dog.  After a few days she ruled the fields, chasing any stranger that came too close to my lands.  Blood-shot, zit-faced brats would know if they were caught on my property they were to get a jaw full of teeth sunk deep into their asses.  Suddenly I no longer had a dilemma with looting of my crop.

         But I did have a problem.I had a full-blown domestic rivalry, Lola and Charlene would scrap like two kids in a schoolyard at three-o'clock high.  Toppling tables, breaking furniture, each took their battles, and each held their scars.  But for the most part, Lola would take it right to Charlene, almost like the pig was jealous of the new invader in our relationship.  Not allowing this bitch to come between us, Lola finally bit Charlene so bad on the hind leg I had to take the dog to the Vet for stitches.  I think Charlene never truly forgave Lola for that one, wearing that dumb cone around her neck to prevent her from snipping at the black barbed stitches.  It was as if Lola would mock Charlene, circling her taunting the cone-hindered pup.   

         It was about six-weeks later, I came home with those brand new white curtains, a matching comforter, and throw rug for my bedroom.  For months I lusted over the Ikea catalogued bedroom set, and now I had it finally.  It was a treat for a clearing good harvest, something nice I did for myself.  I was a geek like that.  I had no need for porn or women, instead I had the home shopping network, trips to the Montreal Ikea, and matching furniture sets.  My home was my livelihood, pulled straight from a catalogue, the Peterman night stand, the Castleton Sleep-Master, I even had those environmentally friendly paper lamps.  I was a study of Queer-Eye-for-the-Straight-Guy like a monk mastering Shaolin: the show had become my religion.  A bowl of popcorn, a bottle of Jack, some gay guys on the tube, and Lola sprawled across my lap, my nights were quite peaceful.  So I had bought this new bedroom set, and it perfectly accentuated my metro-sexual decor.  After I got everything all set up, I headed into Burlington to have myself a night on the town. 

That is when everything went wrong.

         I'll spare you the details of my night, I'll just sum it up as two bottles of Jack, five shots of Jag, a Joint, some Nose Sugar to get all charged, beer, one fight: my eye blackened—his jaw broke, a DUI, and a weekend in jail.  That's the one thing that sucks about being detained on the weekend, without bail you are stuck in the pen until Monday morning when the courts open again. Upon my release, I rushed home angered at my pending legal issues, and dreaming of a shower and to lie upon my new white comforter.  The snow gently began falling as I headed up the country road.  The flakes were robust and beautiful, and even though each flake looks the same I knew like people they were all different unique patterns of water.  Frozen droplets of life.  It was at that moment I pulled into my driveway, and I felt something was wrong.  My gut churned and rumbled, bubbling like indigestion and I assumed it was from the lack of nutrition in jailhouse food.  My arm hairs stood erect, and instantly my eyes began to water, the dam welling over my fluttering lids.  I had expected to be home two days ago.  I had even left the fireplace burning to keep my bedroom warm for the slumber I wished to enjoy this Mid-November.  But to say the least, my house hadn't burnt to the ground.          I opened the door; the eeriness was musty and dark like walking into a mildew-infested basement.  My hand reached forward for the light switch, and half of me trembled at the feeling mounting inside.  It was like I half expected the boogeyman to reach out and snag me from the darkness.  Then the smell hit me, strong and putrid, burning the nose hairs.  It was an earthy aroma, rusty or like chewing on a T-bone steak medium-rare with a stuffy nose.  As I reached the stairs a new stench hit me.  A burning, cooking scent.  I couldn't put my senses on it.  Not yet.  It was overpowering, too odd.  As I climbed the stairs, I called out for Charlene and Lola, both I figured would come running happy to see their master returned safely.  But neither came.  Maybe Charlene was outside patrolling the fields, or Lola was slumbering upon the new white comforter awaiting my return.

           But I was totally wrong.

          Like I said, this is a horror story.  The events that conspire next are too ghastly, a fabrication from a twisted alter-universe, for those with a weak constitution; I beg you turn back now.  What fool could tell you to go on in hopes of a peaceful end?  In life there are no fairy tales.  You may bruise from this gallery, but this magnum opus has come to a bitter end.

         Bacon...It was bacon I smelled.  There was nothing else it could be.  As I hit the light in the bedroom, chucks spasm from my gut, the bile and jailhouse grub lodges gritty within my teeth.  With a forceful swallow, I pushed it all back down.  The war torn ambience of my perfectly crafted Feng-Shui bedroom looked more like something left in wake of the London Ripper.  The crimson pooled upon the floor, splattered across the walls, sullying the white curtains with chunks of gore, bits of flesh and tiny ravished remains of vital organs.  Stains that Tide and Snuggle had no hopes of rescuing.  With terror, my eyes took in the grisly crime scene.  I didn't need CSI to tell me of the atrocity that took place here.  Stepping carefully over the worms of intestines, and pieces of brain and spinal cord, I made my way to face the killer.  Upon my Sleep-Master bed, Charlene looked up at me, jowls soiled in wet deep red fluids, the kind of crimson hued blue before oxygen hits it.  Hanging from her snout was a piece of Lola's slightly cooked flesh.  Green eggs and Ham.  Charlene lowered her head, instantly knowing what she’d done was wrong, tucking her tail under her legs.           In my head I played out the scene, like I said before Lola was a little retarded in her older age, and she liked to sleep by the fireplace.  She must have fallen asleep, or had another one of her minor strokes...I don't know something, but she fell asleep right there.  Cooking to a medium rare, Lola probably smelt like a banquet feast to Charlene, who probably ran out of food the day after I left.  And the rest is history.

         "...So that is my story.  I had to shoot Charlene, because inside I knew that dog would never be the same after tasting blood.  I buried Charlene and what remained of Lola on the hill Northwest of my house, moved into Burlington later that month, and never had a drink again." I pulled a new cigarette from my pack and lit it up, the cherry enlightening the tears upon my cheek.  I looked across the blank faces that stared back at me, and wondered what kind of man they thought I was.  Before my story I was a stranger, but now I am a monster—or victim? And with my sleeve I wipe the tear from my cheek.  "I warned you that nothing good ever comes out of a love triangle.  I used to love her..." French inhale; the smoke billows up my nose, and exhale. "...I used to love her, but I had to kill her...." 



End-