Duncan's Diary

by Christopher C. Payne

  The difficulty of staying married over an extended period of time is mostly challenged by the changes faced by couples as each one grows and adapts to new circumstances. As Sudhir got older, he realized that the metamorphosis needed to occur as a couple, so you alter as a team and a union. He now realized, and hopefully not too late, that they had started leading separate lives long ago. As they started changing individually that is where the rift threatened the foundation that began when they first said the words “I do.”

  Sudhir was surrounded by divorce, and it seemed several couples he knew were splitting up. With the spoiling of children in today’s society, it was most likely only going to get worse. Our humanity seems to be built on the “me” and the “now,” and marriage cannot work if both parties are focused on themselves and not their partners.

  He had no idea how to convey this to his wife, whom he still loved deeply despite their current state. If Jill’s case did nothing else, it was reminding him how important his family and marriage were. He still held a passionate desire for the person she used to be. They both needed to refocus their energy, and he only wished that he could help guide them back to that directional path. He was going to look into counseling again, see if they could go back to weekly sessions, and maybe the dialogue would help foster a catalyst to better times. As soon as this case was concluded, he would refocus on his marriage; and, with the reprioritization of energy, maybe they could find a way.

  Back to Twain Harte

  I packed my car after work on Friday. I again did not need a lot of items, but I did bring my laundry basket of dirty clothes as my new mini-mansion in Burlingame did not contain a washer and dryer. I seem to have a roadblock against buying them. The biggest obstacle was financial, but that had not stopped me from spending freely in the past. Since my separation from my wife, the financial burden of keeping two houses running was having its toll on my credit card debt, and each month the mountain continued to grow.

  After loading up, I ushered my dog from the basement, and she excitedly made a beeline for the back of the SUV. She had her spot on a very well-worn moving blanket nicely folded for a bed behind the third row of seating. Not much room for her to move around, but she loved the prospect of going anywhere and was always exuberant to make a trip. She leaped into the back of the truck, and I closed the hatch right after throwing her a rawhide bone.

  As with most labs, I imagine, Delilah could chew through a single large rawhide bone a day. She ate them like candy; but the more she chewed on them, the less she chewed on furniture or shoes or anything else within her reach.

  I jumped into the front seat, started the SUV, and headed out. I turned on the music and listened to the songs my oldest daughter had recorded on my XM radio. I sang along with most of them as the trip to my cabin home progressed. I am one of those individuals that must be moving and/or active at all times. I am constantly flicking a pen, tapping my foot, or padding my hand. The music and singing helped me divert my overly active energy in a positive direction.

  I hit traffic at the 880 Interchange, which happens more times than not, and instantly knew that this would be a nighttime drive. I was already leaving toward the end of the day, but had hoped to make the bulk of my journey in the waning light. It was not to be the case. As I sat in traffic, I contemplated what I would find and tried to block it out of my mind. It only made me anxious, and I was starting to lose the ability to control my anxiety. My neurotic preoccupation with fantasy STD’s was just starting to lapse, and I did not want to replace this with anything else right now. My nerves really needed time to heal.

  As I finally made it through the Los Angeles-like congestion of Pleasanton/Dublin/Tracey, the evening was now well into night. It was approaching 8:30, and the sun was a good hour into its round trip on the other side of the world. That was when I received my first e-mail from my ex-wife-to-be. Our current mode of communication was e-mail. We had attempted face-to-face discussion. That never ended well. We then had moved into phone conversations that always erupted into a brawl that could be turned into video game, and had finally ended contently with e-mail as our only conduit for discussion.

  You can say whatever you like through e-mail and vent your frustration in a one-sided conversation. If you chose, you don’t even have to read the response. Her monologue started off blaming me for taking files, two pictures she had thrown in a closet, my grill, and two lawn chairs from our house. When I had picked up the rug the other day, I had also grabbed a few other items.

  I was a little taken aback at first on how to respond logically, which my wife does not understand the definition of anyway. I took our files as I had told her I was going to since in the few months after I had moved out she had not looked at them once. Ironically, she continued to ask me questions about their contents even while they were in her possession. I had finally stated in e-mail that I would just pick them up as it didn’t seem to make sense for her to have them if she were never going to even look at them.

  I took a grill, which she had never used. I took two of the nine lawn chairs, which seemed reasonable, and two paintings that she hated and kept in the back of a closet. This was the kind of person that I was trying to deal with in a reasonable manner. I stated the above to her as nicely as I could and kept my response brief and to the point. I think that is how you are supposed to try and reason with crazy people.

  She replied, calling me a thief and a liar. Telling me how underhanded and sneaky I was and how she couldn’t believe I had sunk so low as to steal things from her house. Keep in mind that the divorce was still not final. I had taken relatively nothing from the house at this point, and she was calling me a thief. The conversation took a negative spin from there, and we continued to banter back and forth calling each other names and genuinely being childish.

  God, she really is the definition of insanity. I only wished that I were low enough to forward these e-mails to her group of alcoholic friends, so they could see the instability that I had to deal with for 15 years.

  My wife had become a deranged sperm bank for anything with balls on Match.com, and now she was accusing me of pilfering leftover junk that she didn’t even want. Apparently too much semen intake through the mouth starts to rot your brain. It must be something like eating too much candy rots your teeth. Her head had liquefied into a slushy, salty repository that was devouring her ability to think clearly.

  Unfortunately, this interaction reached its crescendo just as I was exiting the freeway at Manteca. I was now on the little two-lane highway that twists its way up the mountains toward Yosemite. During the 20-mile stretch between Manteca and Oakdale I happened to see a car pulled over on the side of the road. A lady waved her arms frantically. Since my blood was at a boiling point, I pulled over in front of her car and backed up to within inches of her front bumper.

  As I exited the car it was very dark. The streetlights were nonexistent, but the road was, instead, lined with pecan trees neatly stacked up in never-ending rows. She informed me that her car had broken down, and her boyfriend had left 15 minutes ago to jog ahead to the nearest gas station and ask for help. She anticipated his being back in another 30 minutes or so, but was growing apprehensive being on the side of the road alone.

  She was in her mid-20’s was my guess, very slim, with what appeared to be sandy blonde hair. At one point it had obviously been bleached blonde, as you could see her root structure in the dark of night lit by the glow of her headlights. She was around 5’3” and about 110 pounds. There is no way that the large protruding breasts that shot out of her skin-tight tank top could be real. Not sure why she didn’t have a coat on, but the chill of the night had added a perky benefit pointed in my direction. Her nipples protruded straight ahead like the tip of a ballpoint pen that has just been ejected from its resting place.

  I walked up to her, balled up my right fist, and cold-cocked her right in the head. It was like slow motion. I watched my hand slowly moving forward, my fingers clenching in a tight, round ba
ll shooting through the air. My knuckles became redder with each inch of motion as I compressed my fist into a small sledge-like sphere. My middle finger knuckle connected first, as my fist flattened out against the left side of her nose and cheek. The cartilage and bone seemed to cave inward with a snapping sound that for some reason brought back the memory of the Rice Krispie commercial where “Snap, Crackle, and Pop” were featured.

  She went straight down like a tree that has just lost its roots and has no ability to stand on its own. I still had the chloroform in the car from my previous encounter and dumped some on my hand and quickly pounced on top of her, covering her mouth and now bloody, squirting nose with my hand. She was groggy from the shock of the moment and did not even put up a fight before she lost consciousness. My hand smothered her face with blood shooting between my fingers. Her nose was like a little volcano that was having a small eruption.

  I moved her to my car and threw her in the back seat, not even bothering to tie her down. I ran to the driver’s seat and jumped in, throwing it into gear and slamming on the gas. I squealed off of the curb, throwing gravel into her headlights as the car twisted onto the road and sped off. What in the hell was I thinking? It was one thing for my wife to push me over the edge, but another thing to act stupidly without thought of the future. My goal from the beginning was to always be smart, and I was being anything but.

  Delilah was standing up in the back, staring over the row of seats at our new addition. She had a quizzical look on her face, as if she were wondering what had happened—and if I knew how ludicrous I had become. I looked back and did not see anyone behind me. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of the blonde’s belly button ring protruding out from where her tank top had bunched up underneath her large, supple breasts. Her tight designer jeans were about two inches too long and frayed on the bottom, covering her sandals of which she only had one remaining on her left foot.

  God, she was beautiful, even with the swelling and redness that now covered her face and seemingly dying her hair an unnatural reddish color from the blood. The eruption had already slowed to a steady trickle. The color of her skin was turning a dark purple and grew each minute as the swelling moved over her features. She was going to be very sore in the morning, or at whatever time she gained consciousness.

  The additional hour drive through Oakdale along the twisting, curving highway toward my house in Twain Harte was uneventful. I again pulled through the main street underneath the arch that proudly displayed the town name, welcoming you to this sleepy, quaint village where kids could play on the street and nothing of any significance ever seemed to occur. If they only knew the acts that were now being committed, I wondered how many of them would remain or if the town would be forever tainted by the memories that would be instilled.

  I hit the garage door opener as I pulled into my driveway and watched the door slowly being sucked back into the garage by the chain installed on the roof overhead. Delilah as normal was antsy to relieve herself and bolted from the back immediately upon my raising the rear hatch. As usual she reacquainted herself to the area, sniffing and zig-zagging back and forth. She finally found that perfect spot that had been reserved this day for her and her alone to saturate with her bodily fluids.

  Everyone needs that one true connection to reality that keeps you grounded and focused on what is real and what is just sheer fabrication. Delilah was my link. She was the source of my connection to understanding the lines that I was crossing as I stood on the brink of moving into another world. My kids were my only hope at being a whole person, and the love that they projected was a gift that cannot ever be taken for granted, but Delilah was always there for me. Dogs are the perfect companions because of the non-judgmental, unconditional love that they will always have every single time you open the door—no matter into what kind of monster you have evolved.

  God What a Mess

  I closed the overhead door to the garage so I could do the rest of my activities in privacy. I opened the door to the house and trudged up the stairs with Delilah dancing around my feet, half jumping and half bounding, taking the stairs quickly only to stop and pause at the landing above. I thought it was odd, but with every step I began understanding why she was acting unusual.

  Once when I was younger I remember eating a potpie with my cousin and my father for dinner. The three of us sat around the brown, laminated kitchen table on the brown vinyl covered seat cushions. With our utensils we dug into the circular aluminum foil turkey/beef filled crust-encased $1 meal. I can’t believe these things were ever invented and that people actually ate them. For a man with no idea how to cook, my father thought they were a staple in my dietary growth and that of anyone else he needed to feed.

  As I brought my fork to my mouth about three-quarters of the way into devouring my tasteless generic bite, I remember seeing a one-inch cylindrical shape. It was a slightly darker color than anything else in the cream-filled wasteland of my plate. I held it out in the middle of the table, and my cousin instantly labeled my current find, screaming, “Oh gross, a worm!” In reality it was only a portion of meat product that had not completely been ground up and was compressed into something that was labeled beef. It must have escaped the processing cycle enough to remain in some semblance of its original shape.

  I stared at the lifeless, two-inch worm-shaped object and felt a rumbling in my stomach. I thought about what else I had just begun to digest. The rumbling very quickly rose to a frightening level, and I knew that I was going to be in trouble. I dropped my fork instantly, covered my mouth with both hands, and bolted through the living room. I aimed for the bedroom and the bathroom that was beyond. Unfortunately my 10-year-old body was not quick enough. Midway through the living room the creamy, non-digested substance sprayed through the fingers that covered my mouth in a multi-tiered fountain. I left a trail through both rooms all the way to the bathroom.

  By the time I reached the toilet and raised the lid, everything had already evacuated my body. I simply heaved a couple of last gasps. My father, who was disgusted with my inability to contain myself, screamed that my stupidity was beyond childish. He stated that I would be required to clean up every drop of undigested pea, corn, and creamy substance off the walls, floors, and furniture.

  There are some memories that remain with you for your entire life. They are formed like hardened concrete into your psyche, and once there, are forever embedded into your foundation as immovable as the concrete forms of a football stadium. The smell from this episode in my childhood was one of those memories. It took me two hours to clean the sprayed chunky mess that was seemingly everywhere. With every wipe and dab, my nostrils filled with the putrid smell of the partially digested remains.

  This is what I smelled as I moved upward. With each step, the smell intensified until it was overwhelmingly the only odor that I could consciously recognize: the putrid, decaying smell of rotting death. I opened the closet door and walked through the hidden entrance in the wall in the back, and the gust of rot knocked me to my knees. All of this did nothing to prepare me for the sight that lay on the metal bed.

  I have been to funerals and have seen the death of older people. The wrinkled soulless shell of what had once been a person. Nothing I had ever been through could have prepared me for what I saw. I did not even attempt to hold my mouth, as everything I had eaten for the last two days violently spewed into the room and surrounded what at one point I had called Jill. I didn’t stop to be thankful in the moment, but in retrospect I continue to think how lucky I was, yet, again that nobody had rented the house in the last few weeks. How could I have ever explained this smell emanating from inside the walls?

  This entire episode took a few short minutes, and I remembered the blonde. As disgusted as I was, I knew I still had to act quickly. I surprisingly felt little remorse. Possibly because the thing I saw held such little resemblance to a person. I filled a bucket with water, kicked Jill’s blackish purple body off the table, and watched it bounce down to the floor l
ike a helium-filled balloon that had lost its ability to maintain flight. I threw the bucket of water on the bed, washing the remaining residue of Jill’s body from the rubber mattress. I then went to retrieve the blonde from the back seat of my SUV.

  I threw her over my shoulder and easily carried her up the stairs. I gently placed her on the bed, and fastened her hands and feet in the same fashion as Jill’s. What an improvement the new model was compared to the last. Even in the moment, I felt aroused by the beauty of this girl.

  Now I had to address the overinflated monstrosity that was once Jill and how to purge the smell and memory of her current state from this room forever. I luckily remembered that over the summer I had moved eight gallons of muriatic acid that had been at my now ex-wife’s house in El Granada. We had a pool at that house; and when we made our original purchase, the previous owners had left much of their cleaning equipment and supplies behind as part of our house closing gifts. Since I had not needed it for cleaning the pool, I had decided to bring it to Twain Harte. I had thought I might be able to use it to remove the stains off the garage floor from some bad car experience that must have leaked out over the years.

  I went down to the garage and retrieved a large plastic bucket. After a couple of trips I also lugged up four gallons of the acid. I carefully poured all four gallons into the orange Home Depot all-purpose bucket and then turned to Jill. Since my house was surrounded by trees—like a mini-forest in the middle of my small town—I had a nice serrated hand-saw for cutting limbs. This seemed logically like a good tool to start dismantling Jill to a size that would fit in the bucket. I did not want to try and move her in this condition, and I was definitely scared to touch her. She seemed like she might burst with any prodding.