10. The Rabbit Hole
I sat in the dim living room, lit only by the glow of 2001: A Space Odyssey playing on the VCR. I had taken so much LSD in the past months that it now only had the barest of effects on me. I watched the red glowing eye of the sentient computer HAL-9000. It hypnotized me. I could see consciousness in that eye—consciousness without conscience—like Ted, like my first stepfather, like Shafto. I caressed Sung, who was lying on the couch next to me, then looked deep into her pure blue eyes, which were slightly crossed in typical Siamese fashion.
“What’s in there? What makes her alive? A random collection of synaptic connections? Is the whole greater than the sum of the parts? Or is there really such a thing as a soul?”
My mother watched me, listening, no doubt wondering if I had slipped into madness. She knew I was on LSD, but she didn’t have any more of a clue what that meant than I knew what it was like to give birth. The expression on her face was one of confusion mixed with concern.
I put Sung down on the hardwood floor and she walked off toward my mother, chattering in her Siamese way. I called to her, mocking the way Shafto spoke to her, “SOAN!” I snapped my fingers a few times, “SOAN! COME HERE!” More finger snapping. She ignored me just as she ignored Shafto.
“I hate it when he does that,” my mother sighed. “He doesn’t even know how to talk to a cat.”
“Yeah. He talks to her like she’s a dog. I’d love to see her shred into him just once.”
I could sense there was much more about Shafto that my mother hated. I had gotten my mother high on pot for the first time in her life. That probably wouldn’t have happened had she been happily married. She also probably wouldn’t have started drinking so heavily if it hadn’t been for him. It had gotten to the point where the only happiness to be had in that house was when Shafto was gone—for my mother as well as me.
I saw the headlights of the maroon van careening swiftly down the old gravel road. A pang of nervousness shot through my stomach, causing it to knot. My muscles tensed. I got up from the couch and headed for my room.
“Darren, you don’t have to leave. This is your home too! You’re my son!”
Sung slipped under the couch, escaping Shafto in her own way. I smiled smugly to myself. Even a freakin’ cat understands what a piece of shit he is.
“The more I’m around him, the more I hate him… the more I hate myself. I can’t stay here.” With that, I quietly shuffled into my room and resumed reading Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. As I read, I wondered how much energy would be released if I could force Shafto to undergo a nuclear reaction. With that blissful thought dancing through my mind like a fine ballet, I drifted to sleep, only to awake a few hours later in a cold sweat. It was late, but I knew Willie would still be up—no doubt watching a pornographic movie. The house was quiet, my mom having gone to work and Shafto dreaming fitfully of his tortures in an Army kitchen deep in the jungles of Vietnam.
I called Willie in need of more pot. It was selling at the station faster than I could buy it. My plan to become self-sufficient was working even better than I had dreamed. But dreams came in many forms and my desire for independence was starting to drift into the backdrop of my mind and morph into something else. Despite having all five—arguably six—of my senses obliterated by a half gallon of whiskey, I was still bewitched by that warm glow that flowed quietly throughout my bloodstream. For the past several weeks, all I could think about was going back to that place. Back to that rabbit hole where the truth was buried in a warm swirl of liquid bliss. I sat on the edge of my bed, having agreed to meet Willie in an hour. A mixture of joy and sadness came over me, ripping me in two. I had to get out. I had to find that blackness I had been searching for in every dark filthy unturned piece of rubble littering my soul.
Yet there was one thing I knew I would never be able to kill. Despite all the pot, all the acid, the angel dust, the opium, the valium and the methaqualone, it survived. Nothing would kill that goddamned conscience. It ate away at my heart. It stirred some small thread of emotion buried deep in my gut and I shed a tear—a tear for my mother. I knew the path I was taking. I knew it would change me. I knew she would lose her son. She loved me probably more than anyone ever had and I was going to kill her only child. I only hoped she could forgive me for breaking her heart. But then, it hadn’t been my decision to marry Shafto. Oh dear, sweet Shafto. Maybe he was better than me. If only I could live a life without the burden of conscience—the demon sitting on my shoulder criticizing my every decision.
I sped along the twisting highway at seventy miles per hour, passing cars on turns where I couldn’t see the oncoming traffic. Part of me hoped one would come around the turn and slam into me head-first, killing me instantly. Splattering the red goop in my head all over the road with nothing left to show for it but a few black hairs stuck in thick, crusty blood congealed on the pavement. Part of me wanted nothing more than to survive, survive forever—forever wasn’t even long enough to experience the ecstasy of morphine. If heaven was twice as good as any man of the cloth would tell you, it was still only half as good as the rapture of morphine. Getting that warm cloud of joy flowing through my blood meant more to me than my own life.
It took me ten minutes to make the twenty minute trip. I ignored the floodlights, which blasted on in response to my motion, and tuned out the snarling dogs trained to kill. I was shaking as I followed Willie inside and sat down next to him on the green vinyl sofa. A geyser of foam spewed out of the tears in the fabric.
“Dude, where’s your sister-in-law?”
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