Pulling Out Knives

by Tess McInnis

  “What's up Lil' Mex?” just a greeting without meaning. I was cawing for his side of conversation. He continues in whisper tone, why I don't know, the door is closed. Perhaps this is his big movie moment.

  “Hey, I got something to show you...but are you going to sit still and not say a thing if I show you?” he is insistent on this deal.

  “yeah, I promise” I say, but I am thinking, JUST FUCKIN show me. He reaches into his scrubs and pulls out a baggie. Two things are in this bag. I recognize both and all of my insides scream almost making it to the surface.

  “Do you recognize these things?” he is looking strict and questionably at me. On the bed lies the two things. In a moment of ungrace I puked over the bed. Lil 'Mex obviously used to cleaning up gross spewings from other patients, jumped for a towel and handed it to me. I couldn't look at him or the god forsaken shaky reminders on the bed. I wiped my mouth and threw the towel over the puke. I needed to deal with first things first, let the ants clean up my puke. So, I looked again. I nervously touched the first article recognizing the print on the panties. They were mine. And they laid right next to the knife which had cut them off. I composed myself with the will of another woman inside me. The sick, weak one would have to take a back seat. Rage was showing her face as the next hitter.

  “Where did you get these?” I sternly looked into Lil' Mex's eyes as he stood at the end of the bed grabbing the bars tight with forceful intention.

  “What will you do if I tell you? I cannot go to police with these, they will think I did it” he said worried about his own consequences in this game.

  “I don't know honestly Lil' Mex....a thousand scenes come to mind, none which make sense...my head wishes for justice and vindication” I found this sincere sentence to give to him. But rage said, “YOU need to tell me NOW...WHO is HE?” I was clamping down on my jaw caught in trance, just looking at the knife and panties. Silence. More silence.

  He walked the room in contemplation in whether or not disclosure should come.

  “Okay,” I said, “I will make a deal with you. You leave these things with me...tell me who he is, and I will never say anything about you ever. I promise. I promise you, you will never come up. In fact, I wash myself of any of this moment. No cops. Nothing.” I was lying. He relaxes somewhat and sits down close to me. Then he whispers. “you know that new patient assistant they hired?” The big ugly guy who always snapping his gum. I remembered. Lil Mex continued.

  “Well, I saw him in another patient's room last week...she was sleeping. Man, this dude was feeling her out. Then before that, I saw him being creepy at things..just weird vibes, doing shit that scared me. I stay away from him, for real sister. But shit, kept going thru my head about all of this....so one day, I was taking out the garbage, I saw his car and I walked around it. You know, just kinda peekin' in..I was tripping on all the weird shit inside, I checked the door..it was unlocked. I look around, no one was watching...so I got down low and opened it. And right at my eye's level, on the floor I saw this shit stuffed in a paper bag. And girl, there was blood...why the cops never checked this guy out is beyond me. Not thinking, I grabbed the bag and got the hell outta there. Now, ever since....I have been shaking in my shoes afraid to be caught with this stuff them thinking it was me...” He had told me. Bad move.

  “hey....it's okay now..no one is ever going to know you did this, or you told me...it's all good baby” I was meaning that. Rage had her own plans.

  “So what now?” he asked so innocently, like he was just a small child waiting to be grounded.

  “Nothing” I stated simply. I needed to let him off the hook mentally. Get him out. Out of the picture, out of my room. “Just leave these things with me.”

  “What are you going to do with them?” another moment of wide doe eyed innocent asking.

  “I will hide them” I said nonchalantly. I was thinking, I will fuckin use the knife though....All night I stayed awake staring at those items, sprawled like bile from a dog, just waiting to be cleaned up. I sat resigned, trances to mimic a coma. And stared. My stomach hurt trying to keep the trauma of reliving that night down in my belly. Once it was to come up, it would leak right on to my mind. Self-loathing would perpetuate into an action I could not help. This time I didn't wish for the hating to touch my skin, my hair, or anything else upon my person. No, this would have to be purged on the one who stole my shitty non life and brought it down further. He would reap what he sowed. I finally had a muse to vomit all my hateful insides out in one final moment of leaving myself. I have not killed. I have thought about it everyday though. Kill or be killed. He didn't kill me. Now it was my turn. I relished the idea of taking all my bad experiences with all humans and bringing it down on the one who thought he could do the same to me. My stomach was pushing, pushing, pushing....the mind was a slow reluctant door, but the ideas were sneaking in anyways. I had began my plan.

  THE NOBODIES by Marilyn Manson

  I was rocking, holding my hands to my head when the ants came in. They stopped to stare. They stood there for what seemed like a long time. I was literally trying to hold my brain in...stop the thoughts from falling out. I rocked to keep from going ape shit on the world around me. Rage is a tricky girl when she wills her way to life. I kept holding my head, begging for not now. Not now while ants watched in disbelief of the crazy woman before them. They left me to my own hell rather quickly. Most likely to score some meds for my sedation. I was not with them on this. I was waiting for the exact time on the clock to appear in my favor. I kept rocking, and holding my head. Talking in repeated whispers help calm the voices telling me what I must do next. Confusion in sentences made matters worse, as I tried to compose a straight thinking plan to get my next task done. I hate myself, I hate this place, I hate my life, and I hate that beast who almost killed me.

  Ironic, to want to die, but reject the pleasure of someone else doing it for me. I resented him for that alone. And into my brain came my whole life flooding words of my whole life lived. My greatest disappointments, my depression, my secret lives, and my daily world as I had hated it. No drugs in this world can save me from myself. I tried. Everyone of them. Occasionally, I could stay numb for a few years....but there I was anyways...still, on autopilot going through another day. Today I am dirty, want to be pretty, tomorrow I know I’m just dirt. A day I resisted as my life. I couldn't understand the joy of anything, found peace in nothing and knew God hated me. I was the great pretender. Breathe in the day, do the motions, and get it over with. And here in my rocking mode, the tears fell now. I was about to take all this life's pain and plunge it repeatedly into another wasted human life. I knew it would feel good. So why was I crying? If there was a God, would he stop me? If there was any saving grace in me, would I stop myself? The ants returned with a paper cup of candy as I suspected. I accepted the pills. I did not swallow them, but buried them deep into my mouth...spit them out as soon as they left. I wanted my insanity. I would need it. He would be here in one hour on shift. He would be dead in two. I can do this, Rage said I could. As I waited, I began to think again about the mysterious man who kept entering my head. Someone I was supposed to meet somewhere for some reason....bits and pieces were flooding my heart in an odd, sorrowful feeling...did I love him? Did I lose him? I had no idea what this puzzle was, but it was getting stronger. Fear hit me that I would remember. Fear hit me as to what exactly would I remember. For now, I only see an image and a river...and I think maybe I am in here because I tried to drown him. So many missing pieces....maybe I would never recall this experience. Maybe it never happened at all.

  SUPERBEAST by Rob Zombie

  I saw him.

  The Gary Busey looking mother fucker.

  He was walking his cock walk up and down the halls. I could see behind his face all the evil dancing like all humans who ended up in hell. Maybe some by his own hand. I felt too premeditated to concern myself with the sickness in my belly. I could puke, but it would be weakness on my part. I watched through the
crack of my door silently. He was a deviant lump of bile human looking for windows of opportunity. I was looking at a rapist, a murderer...a life more twisted than my own. If ever I thought this could be possible, it was here now. Flashbacks of that night in my room...I remember the flashlight, the burning pain of inconsolable rhythm wrecking between my legs. I remember the escape from here right into the grass where the knives met me. The taste of dirt grounded in my mouth while he, this Satan, laughed with each slice to my skin. My mind did not stop with him. I went further into flashbacks of all corroded past in my pitiful life. Of my mothers, one denying me of everything and the other torturing me endlessly. Of the men who took upon themselves to rip pieces of good from my soul, either physically or emotionally. I stood in the doorway of my crazy room and let a thousand pictures pass like a horror movie in my head. I puked behind the door anyways. Catching myself bent over and retching, thinking I am not weak. I am a fuckin' warrior. I can do this. I can do this. I can. I wiped my mouth, and stood up to once again peek out the door at Satan. He was busy watching a nurse's ass bounce down the hall. No one else was around. Quiet. Hell yeah, I'm the one you wanted, hell yeah, I'm the super beast. Except for him leaning on the nurse's counter next to the medicine closet. I counted ten steps to his face. I saw the metal chair behind him across the hall. I watched as he looked around for any authority, then grab the keys to the medicine room. Sneaky bastard wanted drugs as well as lives. The knife, his knife was in my sweat pants waistband. I can do this. I can. I slid out quietly against the wall. He was unlocking the door, not paying attention with exception to look up ahead, not behind. Like a slithering snake, I moved. One step, two....three.....stop. Satan was struggling with which key opened the magic drawers of happiness. I continued my graceful,

  mad, slow dance tight along the wall. I was at eight steps...and smack in front of the gray metal chair. I chose the chair to help me with the last two steps.

  DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE by Dope

  There was no sound when I picked up the chair, not even a shuffle or clank. This monster had his back to me, digging through piles of delicious painkillers like he was in a candy store. I lifted the chair high above my head. In this doing, Rage screamed I can kill. I can. I can kill of you, all of you. Every single one of you. You have taken my life and consumed it. You have robbed me of love, of life, of spirit, of meaning and left me as a skeleton. I hate. I hate all of you. I am no more a human because of you. And the chair came cracking across his back with my screaming. He went down on the tile floor, but not out. His face planted on the corner of a metal cart showing me the saliva leaving his mouth. The bastard was like a David and Goliath giant....slowly trying to regroup in his ascent. I was screaming as a demon when I saw him roll over on his back. Pills scattered likes candy dots on his chest. His eyes were fluttering flashes of red which I loved. And for that gesture, I swiftly kicked him in the balls to keep him down where I could stare at the blood. “I should have made sure you were fucking dead...you precious little cunt” he mumbled through his half cocked smile.“yea...haven't I heard that one before” I sarcastically said through closed teeth, my body shaking with disgust and resolve to finish what I had started. He looked like a fool trying to hold the pain in from his groin adventure....I was a psycho hyena when I brought the chair down again. This time on his head.

  And I pushed, and pushed for the leg of the chair to not only enter his eyeball but to completely grind the leg of the chair through his brain. The only thing I hear is my own screeching of a crazy woman lost in a high. Blood, beautiful red blood was marrying with the pills under his head. I was not finished. I grabbed the knife from my waistband and sat on his chest. He was wheezing for life. Life which I would take for my life taken. I took the knife, his own knife...and drove it deep into his throat until I felt the bones crack, crack, crack on the blade. With one turn, the sound of cracking, I was the highest I have ever been. Fuck you, Fuck you, Fuck you....I kept repeating in a voice not my own. Die, motherfucker, die.... over and over the knife worked. I was no longer there. It was my hand only, chiseling out years on this evil flesh.

  My mind was void. Thoughts none. Until I stood up and saw what I had done. I had carved the word “mommy” into his chest. I just stood there.

  It was all I could do as my head couldn't wrap around this event. I had to do something, I didn't know what. I had to get rid of all of this. Going back to prison forever was a tormented fear always haunting me. Panic, madness, panic, madness.... I didn't do this, someone else did it. But they would most certainly blame me. They would all blame me. For this, and for my own rape and attempted murder. I knew this. I was sure it was someone else who did this, someone else who had 'mommy' issues. They were the culprit. I was in full panic, working the leg of the chair out of his eye and cleaning it up. My adrenaline was on full alert, leaving a bitter metal taste in my mouth and bugging my eyes out. I couldn't think straight, but I felt invincible. I was struggling with getting this dead person's body into the hospital's laundry cart. He was half in, half out and I am wondering who could do such an awful thing....I would make all of this disappear. I cleaned up the blood with polka dot pills....actually eating a few myself. I worked at this like it was my life project. Like I was admitted for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. All the meanwhile allowing the blood soaked pills to hammer my system so I could think. Or not think. Rage had disappeared, but a little girl was left behind, as always...to clean up the mess. I even put the keys back where they belonged. It was over. The hallway was beautifully quiet and pure again. Even the chair was back in it's place, as I tip toed to my room. I sat on my bed, and couldn't remember what I did with him. I couldn't remember the happening at all.

  I went to the door and peeked out again. I was waiting for the Gary Busey looking motherfucker to show up. I was going to kill him.

  I woke up to lil' Mex shaking me. “girl, wake up...wake up mamacita” my head felt heavy with a drug hangover.

  “what the fuck do you want” I said groggily, not recognizing him as a friend.

  “hey....guess who didn't show up for work today?” he whispered more quietly sensing my mood.

  “well, obviously...you did” as I sat up rubbing my eyes and moving my hair out of my mouth with my hand. He was frozen. Staring at me. Not staring at me...at my hand. I just looked at him in disbelief.

  “What is your problem?” I said annoyed at his eyes.

  “Why is your hand all bloody?” he said and moved slowly away to the end of the bed. I looked at my own hand. I couldn't recollect anything. “What is wrong with you lil' Mex? Why are you acting like such a freak right now....I probably bit myself during my sleep or something...not unusual for a psych patient to do weird things in their sleep”

  “Oh yea....well then, what is this”” He was holding the knife.

  “Oh shit..” I sat up fast, “was that fucker in my room again, and I didn't know?” I felt my heart thump out of my chest, and I immediately became sick.

  “uh, you have had this knife....don't you even remember?” his quizzed expression left me frozen, “girl, this knife is covered in dried blood.” he added the last statement like an accusation.

  “So, what does this mean?” I asked. I was darting my eyes back and forth thinking I should know this answer.

  “YOU KILLED HIM DIDN'T YOU?, didn't you?” he was in full panic. I don't know why. “I didn't kill anybody, I have been sleeping all night” I know this was true because the ants gave me weird speckled red painkillers for my stab wounds. I am swallowing confusion.“HE DIDN'T SHOW UP FOR WORK TODAY!

  hello, are you hearing me girl?” lil' Mex was nervous and walking the floor. I don't know why.

  “you think I killed him?” I asked in innocence.

  “I don't know what to think..I know one thing though...this ain't got nuthin' to do with me....” and he threw the knife on the bed and hurried out the door. I sat there staring at the knife. It was bloody, but why? I had to get rid of it I told myself. Even though not
hing was making sense as to why I would have to...I took it to the bathroom to rinse it off. To dispose of it. Somehow. I looked in the mirror and witnessed splotches of dried blood on my face and in my hair. What the hell happened? My mind flushed with no reason. I looked around my room for answers or blood or both. I found neither. The oddest feeling came over me...it was peace. I was floating in the most joyful air that I haven't had in such a long time. Like I was flying in grace. The most welcome feeling entered my soul, and then my head. I wondered if they called this 'happy'.

  The river sang a haunting melody splashing music notes against willing rocks. Trees bent in harmony to allow this song. I sat in my white dress like part of this live painting. Sun warmed my face and breasts, leaving me in a calm peace. I was whole in this moment. MAD WORLD by Gary Jules Days seem to pass like hours, like minutes in my room. Oddly, how I would watch the life of each passerby as an objective observer. The whole world was on auto pilot. I was a head sitting in the chair in the corner only watching. Whispers came and went. Doctors checked themselves out like cool Joes with each other. Ants were marching to daily shift rhythm, leaving me unnoticed with exception to small reused phrases like “time to eat” or “how do you feel today?” I wouldn't even bother with an answer or even eye contact. I couldn't filter their contagious disease of ordinary existence. It was as if my mind was empty. Stoic once again, stuck in darkness of watching life. I was exceptionally weak and sore. My body ached on every limb. I could not stand for very long given the pain in my arms and legs. I was convinced the ants had sabotaged me with bad meds once again. Perhaps they would see to my lobotomy next. It wouldn't be long until I would be a partner to some other crazy here in the game room....both of us staring at a chess board, but not actually playing. Or maybe I would take to the corner and just fuse myself into the edges as if I were a brick too. Sitting there, in complete nothingness of emotion, or physical jest felt just fine with me. I am all about decay. I couldn't have mustered up one thought for any of these people, especially Dr. gentle-brother-whoever he was. I decided to move from the chair to the window when I heard a slipping noise come from under my door. With my sore body, I turned around to see a note on yellow paper had been pushed fast into my room, and the shadow which did it was long gone. I achingly bent over to pick it up, holding my neck in the process. Still wondering why my whole being was on fire in pain. I didn't really give one shit about the note, but I read it anyways. And with three words, my mind resurfaced “he was here”. Who was here? Who is he? What the fuck was this? I swallowed but no saliva went with it. I took to chugging as glass of water, forgetting the pain my body was experiencing. Who would write this? Now my mind was a box finally with a key to let out the crazies who lived in there. Dammit anyways, I was so much better in a gray odd day of nothingness. “He was here”. He who? My brother? My rapist-murderer? I paced the floor avoiding stepping on the lines of the tile there. I kept looking at the yellow paper. Why would anybody do this and who's handwriting is this? Detective crazy determined to solve the puzzle of stupid human being writing...I sat down on the bed and stared at the note. My half mind was to look out the door for a culprit running away. However, this person would be long gone or perhaps still standing at my door with a knife in hand. Either way, I couldn't take a chance. So my other half mind left me to just continue to stare at the writing. The one thought controlling my head was to be prepared for anything. I needed a weapon. If 'he' was to come back ...'he' may be doing so to finish me off. Part of me wished the surrender to this final episode. I was tired of all of this, just as I had grown tired of what was out there in the world as well. My nothingness embraced the silence in dying once again. Yet is was my own ambivalence which had me searching the room for anything that could be used to protect my worthless being. I crawled on hands and knees as if the floor had something to offer me. I felt around with my arms as if they were angel wings spreading wide open to receive the whole room in one sweeping. I dug through the garbage can emptying it of wadded brown paper towels, then holding the garbage can up to see if I could swing it across someone's face easily. I could use it. I carried to the bed and sat it nonchalantly next to the night stand. Still, I was bugged by a weapon I for some reason knew I had, but didn't know why. I let my mind bring me back to the floor and on my knees facing the mattress on my bed. Both hands dove in between the mattresses feeling around for what I had forgotten but knew was there. Slowly, I ran my left hand over it, touching it and then grabbing it to pull my best weapon out of the darkness. I looked at the syringe and wonder where I had taken it from. It was full with magic but I didn't know what this beautiful ally contained. I only knew the syringe was meant for me to have when the shit came down. My stiff fingers hurried to hide the syringe somewhere accessible and somewhere hidden. I chose my pillowcase for now. After all...'he was here.' I waited. And waited. No one came. Another night had passed and I was half into the next day. I managed some scrambled eggs down my throat at breakfast. This seemed to make the ants very happy. When the familiar ant came in to get the tray...the one with the beauty and beautiful ring..she stopped and looked at me. “Did you get the note?” she whispered, darting her eyes to the door and back at me, like she was about to be fired for even talking to me.“You wrote it?” I said half caring, half pissed.“Yes...I did, because your man was here to see you, and the doctors wouldn't allow him because he wasn't on your visitor's list. I thought it was a shame, because I knew you would want him” she said pitifully but with youthful excitement of love in air bullshit.“I have a man?” I made a face which quizzed hers.“Oh my, I am sure you remember him...he is quite the handsome gentleman” she was prodding at my memory and I didn't appreciate it. It was all I could do was to remember what was happening in this moment. I cared not for anything else outside this room, in that world.“Am I married to this man?” I asked like if she knew my whole life story. “hmm, it seems to me when they brought you in, you were about to be” her sing song voice irritated me. I don't remember any such thing, but wouldn't say so to her.“I suppose you read all this in my file?” I asked with curiosity, maybe even with a plot in mind to steal my own file.“yes...” she was hesitant now, probably worried about her own ass in this situation. I only needed to know one more thing from her...... “is he coming back?”. She took the tray to the door and without turning she said “yes...he will be the one picking you up to take you home.”Trouble cutting my brain. My wires in my head are whipping around like cut electrical cords jumping off water on the ground. My breathing has me one stop from hyperventilating. I am angry. I am sad. I am concerned, yet I also don't care. Ambivalent once again. I cannot stop the constant shaking of my leg as I sit probing a mind which isn't there. I will to remember him, and I am afraid. What knife is this I will pull out, bleed my soul again across this room. Surely, he has done something wrong to leave my mind in torn reds.