Justin has lived in emotional freefall since he was about fifteen, when his grandmother and uncle died in a car wreck. He has his earphones in, listening to old metal music even though the TV is halfway through a two-hour debate VOD. The stain on the fugly watermelon carpet has crusted over now. His memories are liquid. He comes in and out of them as he checks Reddit, scours Amazon for moodlights, again, and considers downloading Bumble because he dreams of rash young women to declaring him their boyfriend. Justin is tortured by constant stagnant agitation stimulation can’t ease. Time slips away in disjointed rumination. He’s applied to fifteen real jobs, gotten a single phone call from a robot, and is close to burning the rest of the faith his mother has in him.
He rolls onto his side so that the leaden feeling in his stomach will settle somewhere else, hardly able to breathe out of his good nostril as his face squishes against the pillow. His crumpled Penn Station bag lays curved, almost fetal.
He dropped out of college a year in. Maddie transitioning was the first culture shock, then Taylor’s extreme politicization; he couldn’t balance his classes with the arguments. Gut-rot punctuates his recollection. He felt anxious all the time, paced and stared at walls more than anything else, broke things in his dorm. The closest thing he’d attended to a campus debate was a disaster. He couldn’t quit talking to himself when he was alone. Pressure built in his tightening intestines. It’s still building. The Game, the watching, posturing, and eventually filming are his only release.
Justin tells himself college is a scam anyway. Only Maddie and Taylor knew why he’d really dropped out. It was hard to care about engineering when Uncle Kenneth had been buried for six years. Even the YouTube channel seems pointless now. His fist tightens. He’s always sacrficing parts of himself no one sees.
Justin blinks as rough twang interrupts the music. “I’m a down-home boy lost in a world that’s lost it’s mind.” A beat. He remembers. “I don’t support abortions cause my momma wishes I was one—” Skip.
Justin wants to say he also wishes DJ Lonestar Ranger was an abortion, but he knows that’s exactly what was wrong with this country. The political division touches everything in his personal life, his mother calling his grief privilege, and Maddie and Taylor fighting over which one of them was oppressed. Justin takes his earbuds out because his ears are aching, and sighs. His whole life he’s just wanted people to get along.
“I’m a working-class southern son of a gun. I ain’t got no money because I believe in the American way and I hate to see the teachers turning kids gay—”
It’s on the TV now. He hits skip. Justin can only acknowledge his nascent misanthropy in the sick, drooling, hypnogogic torture of binging and procrastinating on the couch. The division he hates lives inside him. He wants the bluesy metal music back because laying under the wave of sound makes being crushed by the wave of his life more understandable even if he doesn’t get the hippie stuff.
The TV shakes in the cabinet as Maddie flings the front door open.
“You didn’t get ad revenue or anything did you?”
“Never.”
“Well, we’re short on rent by a hundred dollars.”
“Even though we pray, autism doesn’t go away. God and beer and guns, but how can we have fun when we’re always on the run?” Justin wonders if the TV is mocking him and hits skip instead of pause this time.
“Somebody should kill that bastard,” he grumbles.
“You’d be my hero,” Maddie rolls her eyes. “Did you know he’ll be at the YUM Center?”
Justin shrugs. “Should’ve scalped tickets.” She moves for her room. “Maddie?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about whatever happe—”
“Not now.”
*
Late that night, on his knees, Justin rears up, slams his head directly into the floor, feels the rage ooze out, and finally sleeps. It’s easier than hearing people laugh because he’s upset life is unfair.
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.