In My Defense

In My Defense

By Zack Clopton

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Apologies to Oscar Templeton (2092-3021)

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It’s 1:55 AM Thursday morning. Or Wednesday night, depending on your point of view. I’m awake. I forgot to take my History quiz again. Amazingly, I forget to take it every Wednesday. So there’s another assignment I’ll have to make up. Or, more likely, I’ll just ignore it and stare at that big fat zero on my progress report in hopes that if I stare long enough, the thing will disappear. Here I am, alone, tired, behind at school, 21, jobless, and staring at pictures of Tiffany again.

There are a lot of things I could be doing that would be more productive. I could be working on homework. Gee, there’s something so productive that the mere thought almost gives me an academic boner. I could be working on that old Sonic the Hedgehog fan fiction that’s been sitting incomplete on my desk top for two and a half years. Oh sure, it won’t make me any cooler or anything, but at least people actually read that shit. Not people I would ever want to meet or talk to in person, because I’m sure they’re some horrifying neck-bearded, beady-eyed, triple-chinned internet goon, but people nonetheless. (Yes, I’m a member of an internet fandom despite being utterly terrified of said fandom. I’m only there because no one else will take me.) Unlike my original fiction, which nobody reads, not even animals or one-cell organism. Even when I do publish it on some lousy website. Because it’s not like I could get published in a book or anything. I’m not that classy.

I could even put on some pants, leave my Mom’s house, go to some party, socialize with people I don’t know nor want to know, get drunk, and talk to a girl. Oh, yeah, I’d hate myself in the morning but at least I’d be one step closer to loosing my virginity. Now that would be really productive. Of course, for any of that to work I would have to get a driver’s license first. Besides, it’s not like I’m ever invited to any parties anyway. In addition, pants are overrated.

Instead of doing any of those things, I continue to stare at pictures of Tiffany. I’m staring at pictures of a girl who hasn’t talk to me since I graduated high school, which was around two years ago now. I’m staring at pictures of a girl who barely talked to me even when we did see each other every day in Driver’s Ed class, a class I failed by the way, probably because I was more preoccupied with the pretty girl next to me then the road in front of me. I’m staring at pictures of a girl who probably doesn’t even remember me anymore. Even if she does recall me, I’m sure it’s only the vaguest recollection, and certainly not the kind of fond memories I have of her. She might have more vivid reminiscences of me if she knew I was the guy who wrote that three-page long love letter she received a week after graduation, in which I went on and on about how beautiful she is and how just being around her made my life less severe. Not that she would know I wrote that since I didn’t leave my name anywhere on the letter. Because, hey, who wants to spill their guts to someone shamelessly and then have to be judged for it? The judging part is always such a drag. No, knowing Tiffany’s limited memory, she probably wouldn’t know who I am even if I gave detailed descriptions of the time we spent together. She certainly wouldn’t recognize my face.

Hey, at least her fat extremely homely little sister, who apparently read the letter meant for Tiff and was immediately enraptured by my so-called “poetry,” knows who I am. She knows who I am so much that she even wrote me back and asked me in a tone that wasn’t at all pathetic or creepy to be her “friend” because I seemed like such a “sweet” guy. It was obvious how desperate for attention the poor girl was. We would probably make a pretty good couple if I wasn’t such a shallow son of a bitch. I never wrote her back.

No, Tiffany wouldn’t remember me because she’s too busy screwing some dude who happens to create make-up effects for horror movies which is, coincidently, one of the career goals little ol’ ambitious me set out for myself many years ago. Judging by the guy’s MySpace page, we have pretty similar taste in movies. (We both like obscure slasher films made by people we don’t know in Idaho back in 1983. Go figure.) Me and this dude could probably even be friends if, you know, he hadn’t manage to accomplish everything I’ve ever wanted to do, from bagging my dream girl, to having my dream job, to presumably discovering definitive proof of the existence of Bigfoot, since, hey, I haven’t made any progress on that wish since seven year-old me made it. Might as well hand it over to someone with an obviously more prestigious track record.

Despite all the emo bullshit it drags up within my gut, I keep staring at Tiffany’s pictures, even the ones of her and Asshat McDoucheface. She’s wearing a swimsuit in those and, hey, I’m not passing up the opportunity to see that. I can always crop the picture a little to the left, so What’s-His-Face ceases to exist. Hey, I could even photo-shop a picture of myself next to her. That’s not an example of behavior that would necessitate the creation of a restraining order. Of course, I can’t photo-shop worth shit, so never mind. Restraining orders are overrated anyway.

The phone rings. I consider answering it. What good would that do me? It would get the ringing to stop, at least. That’s a good enough reason to glance at the caller ID. Peeling my ass away from my computer chair and breaking the monocular bond I had formed with it, I start down the hall towards the latest annoying sound in my life.

Who could possibly be calling at this time of night? It has to be my Mom. Despite having worked as a graveyard shift nurse all of her adult life and despite me staying at the house while she’s away by myself for six years without incident, she still insists on calling me every night. Hey, at least somebody cares. It had to be Mom. My friends don’t call me at night. I don’t have any friends.

Glancing at the caller ID, my hopes that the call was from Ellen Page, saying she was on my front porch with a dozen donuts and the need to make hot sweaty monkey love, quickly sank. “Annette Jackson,” the ID read. Aw shit. It was Bradley.

Bradford J. Jackson is my “best friend.” He gained the title after following me around all day back in the fifth grade for no particular reason. Since nobody else talked to me, I decided then and there that he deserved the honor of being my bestest bud in the whole wide universe more then anyone else. The guy hasn’t left me alone since.

What’s worse is now that Bradley has a car and a job, he can lord it over me. It’s not even like it’s a nice car. Brad’s uncle owns a junkyard and any time he needs a new vehicle, old uncle Ted is more then happy to pass one on. I asked once if he ever considered saving his money and buying a nice car, one that wouldn’t fall apart after a month or wouldn’t smell like a sewer. To answer, Brad punch me in the balls, called me an idiot, and told me that it was free. Besides, he was saving all his money to buy the latest pre-fab bullshit video game system nonsense, which would be obsolete in three years anyway. As for the job, he works in an effin’ prison, which is apparently something to boast about. He gets to carry one of those taser gun things, not that he’ll ever have cause to use it. Not like that stops him from mentioning it all the time.

Bradley’s an idiot. He’s spent his entire life under the poverty line. He was never good in school. He has a speech impediment. He takes a varied cornucopia of pills every day to keep from flying into a homicidal rage. It’s often been theorized that his mother and father were first cousins. He’s lived in squalor since he was five years old. He stinks, literally. Up until recently, it was almost impossible to be in a small room with him without having to crack a window. The only reason the smell isn’t an issue anymore is because the people he works with were complaining about it. Now Bradley lathers on half a bottle of cheap calone everyday. I asked him once if he bathed on a regular basis. “Of course, every morning,” he told me. Considering his living conditions, I guess it’s possible the smell wasn’t necessarily from poor hygiene. But I still didn’t believe him, partially because I often saw something gross caught in his hair one day and it would still be there the next, but mainly because, on top of everything else, Bradley is a compulsive liar.

Ever since he became a teenager, it seems he can’t help himself. If you say something that could, in any way, be counter, Bradley will counter it, and usually with a lie so completely outrageous and so obviously fabricated that you’d have to be five minutes old or severely senile to buy any of it. Any opportunity he has to make himself appear macho, he’ll take it, despite being 250 pounds and not possessing a bit of toned muscle. It use to be, back when we were all innocent and naïve (Fifteen), that his tall tales were about making himself sound creepier or more interesting. Later they revolved exclusively around acts of extreme violence, usually perpetrated against the high school staff, other students, or girls. (Did I mentioned Brad’s misogyny? Once he generally hated all females without a specific reason. Now that he is discovering sex, he thinks they have at least one good use.) At first I believed him, then he started to creep me out, almost to the point where I was afraid he might pull a Columbine on us all. But it didn’t take me long to realize how completely full of shit the guy was. Never has Brad ever followed through on anything he’s promised. From outrageous lies (“I’m going to put lightening bolt bombs in the prom!”) to personal promises. (“I won’t tell anyone about that time you peed yourself during gym class.”) How he’s ever been able to hold down a steady job is beyond me.  Now, he only lies about the number of girls he’s slept with or how big his Johnson is. Considering he most closely resembles a warthog, I doubt there’s fact to any of the former claims. As for the latter… Eh. I don’t believe in a God that cruelly ironic.

On top of all that, he’s always stealing my stuff. I would let him borrow something but it would always be return damaged or mysteriously disappear. Once I had to go rooting around in his disgusting backpack to get something I loaned him back.  

After deliberating about answering the phone or not, I press the button and put the receiver to my ear. I immediately regret the decision, as the sound of blaring nu-metal and Brad’s muffled, gruff lisp fill my ears.  

“Hey, Mike! How’s it hanging, man?” He blathers.

“What is it, Brad?”

“You doing anything cool right now?”

“Nah, man, just checking my e-mails.”

I click out of the pictures of Tiffany and quickly pull up my Yahoo account. There is one new message, a single solitary letter, graciously entitled “Thank you.”

Brad babbles back at me, “Anything cool?”

“Here’s something. Let me read it to you.

“Dear Mr. Barton,

I’ve been a big admirer of your works for several years now. The third chapter of Set in Stone was the first thing of yours I read and I was immediately a fan. It’s just now that I’ve gotten up the guts to write to you. I’ll admit, you’ve inspired me in a great way and your work influences my own writing. Wither on DeviantArt or anywhere else, your work is greatly appreciated. I think you could easily be published.

Listen, don’t stop. If you ever stopped writing, I don’t how I’d handle…”

I can almost hear Brad snoring on the other end. I stop reading before my finger presses down on the delete key.

“Goddamn goon. Anyway, that reminds me, I finally saw “The Last Winter.” Man, Larry Fessenden rocks…”

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After yapping on the phone for fifteen minutes about absolute nonsense of no value to anyone whatsoever, Brad presented me with a proposition.

“Hey man, want me to come over? I got my 360. We could get our Halo on!”

That’s pretty much the last thing I want right now. What I really want to do is tell Brad to bugger off forever. What I want to do is scream a string of nonsensical obscenities into the phone until one of us hangs up. What I want to do is tell Bradley how I wouldn’t take a wet shit on him if he was on fire. What I want to do is take a big butcher knife from the kitchen and stab him in the face, over and over again, until the hurting goes away. Then I would call up Tiffany and tell her where she can put it for not loving me. I’d tell her how her current boyfriend is a pedophile and where she can go to see the photos for proof. What I really want to do is go into my bedroom, curl up under the covers, and never leave that place again, even to go to the bathroom. What I really want to do is a take a nice long jump off a short pier. What I really want to do is stab myself in the eye with an ice pick. What I really want is the courage to just put an end to the whole miserable game right now. What I really want to do is hang up and tell Bradley not to call me back.  

What I do instead is bow my head in shame and say, “Yeah, that’s cool. See you then.”

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Bradley never showed up. That cock-a-zoid. Goddamn it. Now I’m all alone in this house for the rest of the night. It’s not fair. Why can’t someone call? Why don’t the people I care about pay any attention to me? And why does it matter so much? Why am I so desperate for people’s admiration? I should just go to bed. I can’t believe he didn’t show up. That ungrateful little bastard. I put pants on and everything.

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I just added peanut butter, cheerios, and marshmallow fluff to a ham sandwich. I'm going to be single for the rest of my life, aren’t I?


END

“Confidence is a gateway drug to severe disappointment.” – Sean Catlett