Dirty Darth
Jesse Blake
I don’t care if you read this or not. I’m writing this down for me, not whoever ends up with this shitty scribble. So go fuck yourself reader. And congratulations, you’ve just learned the harsh truth of writers: we’re selfish fuckers. Writing is just the process of getting out this stupid shit; it’s like removing a tumor and placing it into a jar full of liquid, so we can admire it later and think, Wow, was that really inside my head?
And, hate to break it to you, but there’s nothing unique about this narrator to make this story worth reading. Well, my cock is crooked. Woo-hoo. But I’m not a retard with some special disability that makes everything taste like carrots, or a gimp who scaled a giant mountain to prove that the world doesn’t care just as much as when someone with all their limbs scales a mountain. No, I’m just a near 30-year-old who has been sitting on top of a B.A. in Creative Writing and playing with myself for the past eight years.
Oh, there was a point where the world was my fucking oyster. It all started out like the beginning of a success story in the making: fresh out of college from a small East Coast school, decided I wanted to write screenplays for Mr. Spielberg, moved to Los Angeles to be discovered… except the E! True Hollywood story ends there. I leapt toward the heavens, arms stretched out, but I wasn’t caught. Instead I fell and became a metaphorical paraplegic.
You know the giant white letters that spell out “Hollywood” on the far away hillside? That’s not for the tourists – it’s a constant reminder of how distant and unreachable Hollywood actually is.
I came to Los Angeles with the goal to tell stories full of humanity and world-changing attitudes and other cliché bullshit. Well, guess what? The majority of people who think they have good ideas are actually delusional fucktards who’ve hung around their moms too much. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the very few gifted ones still have to pass through the filter of shit between themselves and success. This is because the people in charge of distributing creative works consists of a giant pile of nimrods giving each other blowjobs; and unless you’re game, you go without food in your stomach, though less jizz in your mouth.
Go ahead and try to pitch screenplay ideas to the major movie companies. It’s as pointless as bouncing a ball against a wall. And the very few studios who graciously bestowed upon me a letter reply are more generic than aspirin. “We regret to inform you…”, “Appreciate your consideration…,” “At this point in time…” They sure have nice ways to say “Fuck off” these days. And so, ideas I spent my entire life developing didn’t mean a grand fuck in the river of shit that flows through the LA basin.
And guess what? When I’m not busy with all this self-pity, I spend my day with a ball and chain around my neck that reads: “Hello, my name is DERRICK. Ask me about the Lateral Books Rewards Program.” And just to reinforce that I’m a tool, my platinum blond boss makes it a point to proclaim my fuckups. That’s right. I’m the personal pissing post of a former high school cheerleader named Tiffany, who went from giving handjobs to jocks to humping her way to supervisor. She sits in her office and only emerges to bark obvious orders so she doesn’t feel like the worthless sack of silicon she actually is. And in a fucking ironic twist, she’s constantly trying to convince me I’m the clueless one.
If I could go back in time and meet my starry-eyed self, I’d strangle him so I could end my existence now.
After all that, are you still reading this story? Too bad, because I’m about to ruin the ending: I hate myself. Apply as much literary analysis as you want, but it’ll still point to some psychological bullshit about self-loathing. This is because even though my big dreams have been shot to shit, I still manage to fuck up any small happiness I gain. Are you still curious? Hell, you’ve read this far; it is more than any movie studio has granted me. The least I could do is let you circle the drain with me.
Let me throw out any chance of originality by telling you this is a boy meets girl story. And it’s not one of those bullshit movie relationships that start with the couple laughing and frolicking about the city like they’re constantly getting fingered off camera. No, this is the type that begins when you’re doing something like stocking books and a cute chick approaches you looking for the Metaphysical section. Then you start talking and realize you both listen to OK Go. Then you notice her coming in more often and gravitating toward you. Then you’re wondering like a fucking moron if she likes you, up until the point where you grow the balls to ask her out. And even then you’re still not completely sure until you’re kissing at the end of your first date. Well, that’s how it happened with Alyssa and me at any rate.
Alyssa is beautiful. Not because she has an amazing rack or an ass you would eat sushi off of; she’s beautiful because she still plays video games. She’s beautiful because she believes in ghosts and has me check the closet after we’ve watched a scary movie. She’s beautiful because she’s more wonderful than any woman I could’ve constructed in my worthless fiction and she doesn’t yet realize the dope she is dating.
Don’t think I felt this way about her because of that “cloud nine” shit that old bitter fucks say new couples go through. I’ve had girlfriends before, but my past relationships were brief and coincidentally ended around the same time I pulled some awkward sexual act in bed. This was an actual girl I was into, and miraculously she was into me, too. In other words, it was a relationship that wasn’t doomed from the start.
So yeah, I loved her. Most romantic nimrods will regale his audience with a story about “the moment they realize they love her”, but I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. I just driving home from work on some random-ass day, craving cheap Chinese food, and I found the love was already there. A heart-tipped arrow didn’t strike me; it’s more like my heart was drained of its murky contents and a dead cupid was found at the bottom.
But if the sentimentals absolutely need a cute antidotes to breakdown the complexities of a relationship into something their sugar-coated minds can understand, I’ll tell you the day she brought soup to my apartment.
I was sicker than shit and the day was gray, wet, and miserable. I graciously slurped my chicken noodle she brought me as she crossed the living room and opened the window to listen to the rain. She told me she never gets sick and hopes that I’ll pass on what I have to her. I didn’t see why she would want to be sick, but what the hell? It was cute to see her excited about it. When she sat down next to me, I kissed her.
We listened to the infinite melody of drops outside as we were smoldering in my bed after sex. She asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. I told her at first I wanted to be a zookeeper, but I had moved onto screenwriter. She lifted herself off my chest and looked at me with a newfound excitement. She asked me what I would write about. I told her I’d write about the many anal adventures of Enrico de Amor, and she punched me in the shoulder.
I told her all right, I had this idea about a cop named Dirty Darth. And the entire underworld fears him because he’s hardcore motherfucker. And he’s got this huge-ass scar going down his left eye.
She asked me where he got the scar from and I said it was part of the mystery. She licked my ear. I told her the scar was from Darth’s biggest failure as a cop. He was searching for this lunatic who was abducting children and managed to track the asshole to his house. But he goes in before backup arrives and is taken by surprise. In the scuffle, Darth gets cut across one of his eyes with a knife and the bad guy escapes. Darth then discovers that the guy killed all the kids. So now all he can see out of his mutilated eye is their dead bodies.
She must’ve noticed the intent tone in my voice, because she asked me why I haven’t already written the story. Leaving out the fact I pitched the idea to a million movie studios, I told her no one would read it. She kissed my neck and said that she would.
You might say this type of woman in invaluable. Someone who loves me enough to be willing to read my shit seems priceless, right? Not to this asshole. I traded it all in for a few quick thrusts and a white stain on my jeans.
It was a night when I was alone in the warehouse in the back of the store. I was unloading a new book from boxes, wondering if that British bitch knew what she was doing to my back each time she increased the page count of the magical adventures of that bastard child.
Then boss Tiffany came in; only she wasn’t in her usual war mode. In fact, she was being pretty nice. She even started to help me unload some of the books. I thought maybe the three ghosts visited her or some shit, but soon her body language made it clear what she was looking for. Maybe she was feeling lonely, and bending over was the only way she knew how to connect with someone.
I could go on to describe the moral dilemma and internal conflict I faced, but you already know what I chose. I had her over the book pile as I invaded her chamber of secrets. Yeah, I’m a scumbag. But stick with me a little longer and you won’t be disappointed.
I called out of work for nearly a week. I tried to forget what happened; the situation seemed so bizarre and unreal anyway that I had myself convinced it never occurred. So I returned to my job completely unprepared to what happened next.
I was up at register. My wonderful girlfriend Alyssa decided to surprise me at work. At the same time, Tiffany emerged from her lair. And for the first time I’m terrified she didn’t have the usual sneer on her face, and in its place was a “knowing smile.” And here I was pinned behind the counter. I felt like I was about to witness two cars collide and I was the clueless pedestrian caught in the middle.
I talked with Alyssa and tried not to notice Tiffany. Tiffany came up from behind and started to play with my hair and massage my shoulders. I shrugged her off. She poked me and I swatted her like she’s a fly. Her collagen face turned red and she told me I wasn’t this cold when I was fucking her on the book stack. Only then did she fuck off.
Well, you can fill in the fucking blank of what happened after that. The worst part is Alyssa said nothing as I rang up her stack of books. The last thing I ever said to her was “Are you a Lateral Books Rewards member?”
This is the point where you academic tools might draw a parallel in the story: “The main character fucked Tiffany because she represented the movie companies who didn’t give a flying shit about him and blah blah blah.” Just fuck you. Analyzing doesn’t change the shittiness of the situation; much like masturbation doesn’t get you any closer to having sex.
I went to Alyssa’s apartment that night, and banged at her door and called her name until the neighbors told me to shut the fuck up. I knew she was in there, listening to the bullshit that marched from my mouth: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, please hear me out, “We regret to inform you…”
I leaned the top of my head against the door and wished that it would seep through. Fuck it. You can’t fight for something when you know you’re wrong. You can’t seriously ask for happiness when you don’t deserve it. The best that self-destructive assholes can hope for is finding a decent human who can momentarily convince them they’re not as miserable a fuck as they thought. Until they prove them wrong.
The door gave way to the weight of my head and opened slightly, surprising me. I held my breath, pushed it opened and stepped in.
Darkness was before me. All was very quiet and still, except for the dull roar of the rain behind me. The windows inside illuminated distant street lamps; they looked like bizarre paintings floating in deep space.
With the shifting sheet of rain blowing the ends of my trench coat, I proceeded forward. Each of my steps made a lonely knock on the hardwood floor. I held my gun with both hands and held in out in front of me. Every so often I would catch of whiff of its metal and oil smell.
And then one of the shadows leapt at me, and the next few moments moved very fast. Someone squeezed my face until it hurt. The assailant might’ve been trying to gouge my eyes, but it was too dark to aim. Then the shadow made a strange hysterical noise and raised a slender object that glinted with the light of a dying star. I brought my gun up, but he stabbed my palm and caused me to drop it.
Suddenly, I was on my back and he was on top of me, violently trying to plunge the knife into my face. I tried to hold him back, but he lurched with unnatural strength and made a deep cut in my left cheek. I let out a strange scream and his hand jerked across my eye. Pain erupted from my face and, like a reflex, I threw him off of me. I heard him crash somewhere in the darkness as I positioned myself on my hands and knees. I searched the floor for my gun, but even my good eye was watery and blurry from pain. That’s when my hand splashed in a warm puddle.
The light in the room flickered as someone moved through the doorway behind me. Then there was the sound of distant splashes as the perpetrator made his escape.
The puddle was a blurry red. Blood. My blood? No, too much. I slowly pushed myself back onto my knees, eyes tightly shut with tears trailing from one of them and gore from the other. I knew what I was about to see even before I opened my eyes. It would be my punishment. It would be my failure. And it would remain embedded into my vision long after my wound had turned into a scar.
(2007)