“You dosed the guy with acid?” I laughed.
“Yeh, mano! But I never e’say nothing to him.” She smirked.
“What th’ fuck did you do that for?”
“Donno, bro, I just wan’ make de researching onto his retard brain, for see how he gonna reacted, got it? An’ then he e’start sing an’ dance an’ bark like de dog. Hah! But then he go on de real ba-ad trip, an’ my e’sperimentation she blow up, bum! Crowwn crowwwn crowwwwn, hah!”
“So what happened?”
“Fock, Cigano! He e’start get all paranoided, an’ he attack me an’ try hit me, so I smash him bum! in his face an’ I run away, go! Hah! Crowwn crowwwn crowwwwn, ha ha! Next? E’stupid old e’sheet!”
As she babbled on, I learned that, like everybody who gravitated into Narcisa’s weird orbit, Doc was an odd bird in his own right; an odd bird who harbored dark secrets in his crooked little nest—despite the fact that, for all the world, he appeared a harmless little desk monkey with too much time on his hands.
According to Narcisa, he’d often bragged to her about murdering his alcoholic mother for her money. He’d supposedly held a homemade electric-chair-style headpiece fashioned from a frying pan and a toaster-oven to the old lady’s head, zapping her with a fatal high-voltage jolt as she’d sat boozing it up in the bathtub.
I stared at her in disbelief.
“Yah, brother!” Her big eyes grew wider. “Is truth, these e’sheet! De Doc he tell me an’ my friend Pluto at de Casa Verde all about how he done it! An’ after he’ kill de mother, he e’suppose to take de money an’ send me to europa for de e’spensive gringo e’school!!”
“So what happened? Where’d all th’ money go?”
She sneered. “Good focking question, bro. He was gonna e’spend it with me, but then he wanna celebrate, an’ he go e’spend it for de e’stupid parties with his rich playboy friends! Porra! Every day he buy de e’spensive import whisky an’ cigar an’ fireworks. He even rent de circus clown an’ dancing chimpanzee! He gone crazy an’ use up all de money fast! Fock!”
She flashed an evil grin. “But then de big fancy playboy party all gone to e’sheet, cuz he e’start feel de guilt for kill de mother, an’ he go even more crazy. He e’say she come back in de night for molest him, an’ he can’ go e’sleep no more! Crowwn crowwwn crowwwwn, ha ha! He e’start cry all de day, an’ he e’say I am de e’spirit channel to de dead mother! Porra, cara! He e’say to ever’body at de Casa Verde she come back from de hell inside de Narcisa for make de big revengence on him!”
“Fala serio!” I gawked at her. “Are you fuckin’ kidding?”
“Pois é, cara!” Narcisa looked at me, wide-eyed. “Now I know is better I don’ give him no more these focking acido, or maybe he gonna flip up an’ kill me too! Puta que o pariu! Porra! Que merda!”
As I sat looking into her bulging, glue-addled, tripped-out eyes, I half suspected this Doc had made up the whole sordid story. Maybe, wanting to impress Narcisa and the other burnouts at the Casa Verde, he was just trying to fit in there by offering up his own special nastiness . . . “Bet ya can’t top this one, kids!”
The more I thought of it, I could see someone like that weaving such morbid tall tales, just to create some dark mystique to his life of quiet desperation.
But who really knew?
Anything was possible, I figured, when Narcisa was involved.
12. NUMBING DOWN
“DON’T TALK, DON’T TRUST, DON’T FEEL.”
—Claudia Black
One morning, after one of her regular mysterious weeklong disappearances, Narcisa showed up at my door, grinning like a hungry dog.
She proceeded to move right in on me, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I suppose, for us, it sort of was. I never asked her where she’d been as she strode in and started unpacking her knapsack. I didn’t care.
By then, I sensed I might have been falling in love with her, but I was cautious to never slip up and show it—even to myself.
It was weird. Between us, there always seemed to exist some deeper identification, born of a deep, unspoken bond; an underlying sense of kinship. It was as if loving Narcisa were like loving some wayward, feral strand of myself; a distorted funhouse mirror image of my own brutalized, mangled, forgotten inner child, restructured into rude juvenile delinquent female form, with a crooked, charismatic smile of mischief at the end of her fuzzy pink tongue.
Even though I never told her, I always felt she was like some kind of a psychic Siamese twin; a wayward soul mate, floating free and aimless as a cryptic, psychedelic message in a bottle, forever bobbing out there, somewhere over the deep, turbulent seas of my world.
Now that she was back, I guess I’d assumed we’d just pick up where we’d left off the last time she’d been around—cruising the night for girls, on the prowl for new adventures.
But this time, things were different.
For one thing, there wasn’t going to be any sex anymore—with or without the other girls. Once again, Narcisa had sworn off drugs . . . “forever.”
Whenever Narcisa abstained, she became especially cranky, taciturn and maladjusted. Now, true to form, she’d gone as frigid as the ungodly ration of milk shakes she consumed daily to chase down a mountain of chocolate bars, potato chips, pizza and other edible garbage she stuffed into her foul-mouthed little mug, bitching and complaining all the while. It was murder.
Over the years, I’d tried taking her to some of the AA meetings I went to—mostly when she was depressed and suicidal, consumed with self-pity and fed up with her miserable lot in life; moaning and groaning that she was done getting high. But she’d always fallen right off the wagon again, after only a few days.
It became a familiar pattern. As soon as she’d begin to feel a little better about things, she’d go get loaded again, and flush it all down the toilet—every single time. Eventually, she stopped asking me to take her to those meetings, preferring to rely on her own dubious “willpower” to stay clean; going it alone, white-knuckle style—until her next inevitable relapse.
She’d been on this latest “clean and sober” kick for days already by the time she showed up. She’d given up drugs “forever,” she insisted. And of course, she’d become the usual grumpy, disgruntled little pain in the ass.
But this time was worse than ever before. She’d even gone full-blown Born Again Hare Krishna Vegetarian now, strutting around my apartment, parroting random phrases from the Bhagavad Gita, like some crazed evangelical television preacher, rummaging through my icebox and throwing out all the meat and cold cuts, even the expensive salami she used to love.
I had to beg her not to toss all my pots and pans out the window, which she claimed were infested with the tortured karma of “assassinated animals.”
Narcisa was really on a mission. She wouldn’t even let me smoke a cigarette around her anymore. All she wanted to do, it seemed, was bitch and moan and groan as she sat around on her lazy, disgruntled ass, whining and criticizing everything in sight, while she stuffed her angry little pie-hole with food.
The only time she calmed down for a moment was when she was staring bug-eyed into the little television I’d bought her after being nagged and ragged half to death about how “boring” everything was in Rio.
As I watched her sitting there, glued to the TV, I scratched my head, baffled, wondering how anyone could be “bored” when, for me, there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to do half the things I wanted.
Still, I sympathized. I knew Narcisa was sick.
Jittery and irritable without her drugs, she was suffering an edginess I knew well. It was a familiar symptom of the same mental Curse I’d struggled with all my life. And I knew she really needed help. Serious help. The kind of help an alcoholic or addict requires in order to live without their deadly medicine—at least if that’s what she really wanted, as she kept insisting.
But I also knew there’s no forcing anyone into recovery. People afflicted with addic
tions need to find some humility for themselves in order to recover, usually through pain, humiliation and utter desperation. So I just hung out, watching her struggle through the torments of the damned, battling on the volatile, solitary minefield of her own pissed-off, unsatisfied mind.
I knew it was just a matter of time before she’d blow her pretty little top again, then dive back into another stoned-out, anything-goes orgy of mindless debauchery. And I knew at least I’d get laid when that happened.
Maybe, at the end of her next run, just maybe then, I mused, she’d finally be beat-up enough to come back to the meetings and get some help . . . Maybe next time . . . After all, I knew from experience that all the drugs Narcisa took were just her way of self-medicating for a much deeper malady. The Curse.
Meanwhile, I sat around like a patient old alligator, watching, waiting through the long, stifling, frustrating, sexless vigil.
Somewhere around the fourth day, after the umpteenth cold-shoulder brush-off as she paraded around in only her panties, finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Lissen, princesa.” I sat down beside her on the sofa. “If ya can’t stand the idea of sex anymore unless yer high, y’know, I guess I gotta get used to it . . .”
She crossed her arms over her perfect little milky white tits and glowered at me, as if I’d just said something incredibly offensive.
“Look, I’m just sayin’, Narcisa . . .” I shifted in my seat. “ . . . I don’t wanna be th’ one to push ya into an early grave or anything, and I’m glad yer tryin’ to stay clean and all, but . . . Lissen, princesa, I know ya didn’t like the people at those AA meetings I took ya to before, but maybe if ya tried some different ones . . . I dunno, maybe you’d like the Narcotics Anonymous groups better. They got a good one over in Ipanema we could go t—”
“Menos, porra! I don’ need it all you e’stupid self-helping e’sheet, Cigano! Shut de fock up an’ stop all you e’stupid talk about de droga all de time! Just lemme look de television an’ I gonna be fine, got it? Go get de Coca Cola, go!”
“Okay, whatever . . . Look, I’m really happy yer tryin’ again, princesa, y’know, believe me . . .” I sighed, handing her a glass of Coke with ice.
She looked up at me like I was a bug she was thinking about killing.
“Look, I’m glad you’re clean and all, even if it’s not . . . arrgghhh, whatever. It’s great yer stayin’ straight, Narcisa. I’m proud of ya. The way you did drugs, it was totally killin’ ya . . . But, shit, man, I got feelings too, y’know . . .”
Silence.
I stood there, shifting from foot to foot as Narcisa guzzled her soda and chewed up the ice cubes, glaring at me with that cold, empty look of contempt.
Shit! Numb as a fucking potato.
13. POISON IVY
“FAIR PLAY IS PRIMARILY NOT BLAMING OTHERS FOR ANYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH US.”
—Eric Hoffer
After a long, awkward pause, I cleared my throat. “Uh, so . . . um . . .”
Narcisa stared into the television, ignoring me.
“ . . . I guess I’m sorta . . . I dunno, I guess I’m kinda getting hung up on you,” I mumbled, feeling like a guilty little schoolboy caught jerking off in the bathroom.
She just sat staring at the TV in frozen silence . . . Cold as a stone . . . Shit!
I took another deep breath before stumbling ahead. “ . . . And, I whatever, that just makes all this kinda . . . weird for me, y’know . . . ?”
Silence. I shifted back and forth on my feet, watching her, waiting.
Nothing. She kept staring into the television.
“Look, princesa . . .” I went over and turned the volume down. “ . . . If ya don’t feel like havin’ sex with me anymore, y’know, without all the drugs, I get it, it’s cool, okay? I mean, look, I know yer pro’lly all confused right now, and I get that, y’know . . . I know how hard it is to stay clean, believe me . . .”
Silence. I waited. Finally, she looked up at me, tapping her foot and scowling.
Whatever I was trying to say wasn’t coming easy, and her cold, belligerent glare wasn’t helping. I swallowed hard and stumbled forward.
“ . . . But look, I gotta think about my own feelings too, baby . . . And this platonic shit isn’t gonna work fer me, y’know? Not with ya staying here . . . Y’know . . . ?”
More empty staring. More uncomfortable silence.
Fuck this shit! Now or never . . . Just say it, man . . . Whadaya got to lose?
I took a deep breath, then I dropped the bomb.
“ . . . Uh, so maybe it’s time to just go our separate ways for a while . . .”
Nothing. She reached over and turned up the volume on her television.
“ . . . As friends . . .” I added. “ . . . Y’know . . . ?”
After another awkward silence, I turned the TV down again.
That did it.
After long days and restless nights of angry, sexless, affectionless tedium, all the coiled-up, angry springs she’d been sitting on, stuffing them down with food and TV, came flying up in my face like a plague of snapping rattlesnakes.
She leapt up from the sofa, spitting, hissing like a cornered wildcat. “Porra! Que merda!” She began storming around the room, snatching her clothes, stuffing them into her knapsack, yelling, cursing. “Is always e’same focking thing, porra, ever’where I go! Que saco! You just like ever’body else, Cigano! I no gonna sit here an’ listen all these retard e’sheet about de love! You e’same like all de focking mans! Mesma merda de sempre! Arrrggghhh!!”
I stood frozen in horror as she ranted on.
“You all e’say to me you e’stupid booll-e’sheets about de love an’ you e’stupid feeling, an’ then you go an’ kick me out! An’ now you e’say we gonna be friend! Que amigo, hein?! You nobody friend, Cigano! You don’ care about de peoples, got it? Just cuz I don’ wan’ do whatever you wan’, then you e’say get out you focking house, an’ you wan’ be my focking friend? Arrrggghhh!”
“I am yer friend, Narcisa! And I always have been. But that don’t make me yer fuckin’ doormat! Porra, cara! I’m only human! Just cuz I don’t kiss yer ass and tell ya whatever ya wanna hear like that old zombie Doc, it don’t make me yer fuckin’ enemy! I’ll always be yer friend, princesa, no matter what, but . . .”
“What focking friend, Cigano? What is doormat, hein? Porra! You wan’ throw me out on de e’street like de garbage, just cuz I don’ wan’ make de puteria with you all de time! Fock you! I never gonna do what you wan’! I prefer go e’stay with de focking Doc. At least he don’ wan’ only using me for de sexo! I prefer go e’sleep in de focking bushes or on de park bench or de beach then e’stay with you any-more! So fock you! You can fock you own self now, cuz these is de only fock you ever gonna get, e’stupid e’sheet!”
She was stomping around the apartment, screeching, knocking things over, breaking my stuff as she searched for some random misplaced item.
Her hairbrush! Jesus God!
Accusing me of stealing it, and using her hair to make some kind of black magic “gypsy love spell,” Narcisa kept going, her voice trembling on the edge of violence.
“Why you teef my escova, hein!? Is no fair! Give it back my brush, Cigano! I wan’ it right now, or I gonna break ever’thing in you precious home where I can’ e’stay no more cuz you so egoista! Cadé? Give it to me, porra!”
She was possessed, screaming, insulting, calling me an evil gypsy spell-caster, throwing things onto the floor, raging, insane.
“Whoa! Take it easy, Narcisa.” I stepped up to her.
“Vai tomar no cu com sua macumba de cigano de merda, viado velho!”
“Just calm down. I’ll help ya look for yer goddamn brush . . .”
“Arrrggghhh!! Va se fo-der!! Porr-rrraaa!!” She howled, raking a stack of books off the shelf onto the floor.
That did it. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard, trying to contain her rage. “Chega, porra! Stop! Just calm th’ fuck down, Na
rcisa!”
“Nao me toque, porra! Get you dirty hand from me, seu viado!” She jerked away, bearing her teeth, spitting like a poisonous viper. “Don’ you never focking touch me, e’stupid old pervert e’shee-eet!”
I let her go like a burning log.
She stomped across the room and snatched my wallet off the table. In a flash, she was standing by the window, glaring at me, holding my billfold out over the street below.
“Hah! How much it gonna cost to you if I throw these e’sheet down now, hein?! All you e’stupid documentos, hein?”
My heart jumped into my mouth.
“Whaddya doing, Narcisa? Gimme my fuggin’ wallet, man!”
She stood her ground, looking at me with a taunting little grin. “Ahhh, so now you wan’ it back, hein? Well, you teef my thing, bro, so now I got you thing too, got it? Eye for eye! Hah! Okey! Now you got it! So now we gonna make de little negotiations, got it?”
I got it. Narcisa had the upper hand. I watched her and waited.
She let out a cruel little snicker. “I wan’ fifty bucks . . .”
I just stared back, dumbfounded.
Her eyes blazed. “You better give it to me de money, you e’stupid e’sheet!”
“I can’t believe this shit, Narcisa! I have no fuckin’ idea what th’ fuck ya did with yer fuckin’ hairbrush, man! I swear to God!”
“Fock de God! An’ fock you too, Cigano! Now you gonna give it to me one hundred buck, got it? Or is bye bye to you focking carteira!”
Glaring at me, she held the wallet farther out the window, dangling it between two fingers as my brain cringed.
Fuck! It won’t last two seconds down on the street! My motorcycle papers, my identity card, driver’s license, phone numbers, documents, everything!
Jesus! Checkmate! She wins! Fuck it . . . I reached in my pocket, pulled out a hundred note and held it out, the way you feed a scrap of meat to a strange pit bull.
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