I have a particularly ignominious habit of binge drinking. On an empty stomach too. It seems to fuel my socializing endeavors. I blame this behavior on the fact I didn't start to drink until long after I retired from tripping on acid.
I guess I was still in love with the concept of tripping, but, ever since I had grown immune to its chemistry, I suppose my brain now tried to derive the same mileage from the sauce as it had from the 'cid. Fucking square peg in a round hole if'n you ask me, but, with a modicum of elbow grease and a sledgehammer, well...; there ya go.
So, after a righteous bender, if I didn't come to somewhere strange, and next to someone even stranger, I considered it a waste of the obligatory double dozen white russians. And, as any sober Ukranian will tell you; you should never waste a good white russian let alone twenty-four. Uh, maybe that didn't come out quite right but I think you know what I mean...
Now, the other thing about my drinking is that when it was time to come in for a landing I would invariably eat and eat and eat like a fucking baked pig.
I mean just stuff myself silly with whatever was handy, even if I found it lying next to a garbage dumpster; all in the fervent hope that I would hibernate for twenty-four hours or so, thereby escaping the worst of the hangover and the omnipresent odd tastes that chose to lay about my tongue like squatters in a crack den.
My shrink, wholly dissatisfied with my progress in therapy, finally spelled it out for me.
"You hate reality."
"That's what I'm paying you tree-fitty a forty-five minute hour for?"
"Don't you want to get better?"
"You mean be well-adjusted and shit?"
"Look. It's your life, but when a fifty-five year old man is still chasing after women morethan young enough to be his daughter and generally acting like a pickled Peter Pan I'd say, yes Mr. Kicklez, it is high time we seriously considered adjusting as a cogent therapeutic strategy."
"Don't they prescribe large quantities of cocaine for that?"
"Mr. Kicklez. They most certainly do not."
"Jeez. What happened to, 'there are no stupid questions,'?"
"Mr. Kicklez, you need to take this seriously."
"Look, Doc. I'm serious as a box of Peek Freans. But just cause the Judge made me get shrinked don't mean I'm crackers or we're gonna be Mr. Bubble buddies anytime soon...
I mean..., look at all the sideways fucked shit going on in the world. You think we're gonna have fucking jet packs in my lifetime? Nope the fucking-fuckity-fuck-all. So, you'll excuse me if I wanna get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in smoke."
Doctor Fugue sighed one of those obnoxiously shitty shrinky sighs that invariably left me torn between wanting to blast him one in the beezer or freestyle boogie-flick a verdant winner onto his shitty cardigan when he wasn't looking the right way.
"Okay. Let me put it to you another way, Mr. Kicklez. If you continue down this road of self-destruction and self-defeating behavior you have chosen for yourself, odds are youwill be the one going up in smoke.
And by the way, it would probably be a good idea if you didn't come to our sessions drunk."
Going up in smoke? Me? Pffff....
I pulled out a silver cigarette case and my Hellboy zippo. Stylish.
"There's no smoking in my office, Mr. Kicklez."
"I ain't smoking," I said, getting it lit with the usual flourish. "I'm keeping the fire from spreading."
"I'm afraid this is going in my report to the court."
I looked at Doctor Fugue. He was a little man with a balding pate he combed creatively. Everything about him was nondescript, right down to his sensible shoes. And yet, yet...; I couldn't exactly describe him as unappetizing.
I scooched the leather divan I had been reclining upon for the past half hour or so forward, until it was within a foot of his comfy looking shrinking chair.
Doctor Fugue crossed and uncrossed his legs nervously, flashing a fair bit of calf above his sensible brown socks. They weren't quite fleshy nor were they quite muscular. Blue veins were in attendance and I wondered vaguely just how old the Doctor was.
"Mr. Kicklez. There are protocols to be observed. Now please would you move my couch back to where it belongs?"
"Got any ketchup, Doctor?"
"Ketchup?"
"Yeah. You know? That red condiment that we Americans are so fond of..."
I pulled a plastic spork from the inner breast pocket of my herringbone sports jacket.
"No. There is no ketchup here and-"
I poked at Doctor Fugue's nondescript paunch.
"Okay! That's quite enough, Mr. Kicklez! This session is over!"
"Fuck it. My stepmom BettyJo always said, 'Putting ketchup on food just masks the true taste.'"
I poked Doctor Fugue a couple of more times with the tines of the spork. He backed out of his overstuffed black leather chair nervously and pushed a button on the intercom.
"Ms. Fondue. Can you call building security?"
I took a final drag on my Marlboro and then let it fall to the lush pile carpet. I crushed it out with one of my old stinky Pumas.
"Ms. Fondue! Are you there?"
I belched and said, "I can answer that doc. She ain't and that's a long story in and of itself. One that involves certain powders being slipped in certain caffeinated beverages. But the point is we needed some quality time...."
I got my flask out and took a long pull of Ketel One and V-8. I had run out of white russian fixings and well, necessity is the mother of invention.
"Want a pull, Doc?"
Doctor Fugue ignored my question. How rude. I supposed not everyone is a big fan of late morning boozing but how else to keep the chatty moths at bay?
"I didn't think so. Well, Doc. It's been a long time coming but the truth is I'm afraid you haven't been nourishing my addled brain so I figure perhaps you can satisfy my other, uh, how shall we say; cravings?"
The Doctor finally gave up on the intercom and attempted to push past me.
Imagine. Tree-fitty and he gives me the brush off? I caught him with a left hook that landed just under his beady eye with a satisfying crack. I looked down at his nondescript sprawl desperately trying to makes sense of the incomprehensible from deep within the rich shag of his office rug.
"It's no good Doc. I just need a few minutes to fill the void. I assure you that nobody's gonna be able to stop me, certainly not you with your sensible, well; everything..."
"Please! Mr. Kicklez. You need help!"
I straddled my court prescribed mental health professional and began salivating like a Pavlov dog. I watched a small bead of spittle that had escaped my mouth land on the bridge of Doctor Fugue's nondescript nose. Succumbing to gravity with little time wasted, it slid down his fleshy cheek where it met up with a frightened tear.
I felt something stir from deep within that could best be described as a perverted case of the munchies. This was usually coincidental with visual and auditory hallucinations. In this particular case the good doctor resembling a Ball Park hot dog I had left out on my window sill for a couple of months the summer I turned twelve.
It had grown all manner of life form yet the same voice I heard now admonishing me to quit fucking around had back then instructed me to devour the hot dog; unpronounceable strains of drug resistant bacteria and all.
Mangia... Mangia... Mangia... Hey! Whatsamatta for you?
My stomach growled encouragement.
"Nnnuh-unhhh," I said, biting into the warm flesh of his throat. "Just need ketchup."
When I was done with my therapy session I adjusted my toupee, reclaimed my tree-fitty, belched and then wondered if I should let the real Mr. Kicklez out of my basement dungeon. How could someone simultaneously be such a noisy bastard and yet a totally shitty conversationalist?
I guess I also wondered if all court ordered shrinks tasted so good. Now that I had access to the county court's database I guessed I'd be finding out. Ain't no twelve stepping up in this motherfucker.
Looking down at my late shrink's little corpse I remarked, "Even if my socks don't match and I'm addicted to Korean soap operas; I like who I am.
Now, you on the other hand, not so much... Okay, I mean, well, sure you were a tasty snack and all but so's a fucking Hostess Snowball. What, with that marshmallow wrapping dusted with just the right amount of shredded coconut and that devil's food cake with the creamy lard filling; shit...
Anyway, what I guess I'm trying to say is, in your next life you might wanna try acting more like a fucking human bean once in a while instead of some fucking colicky man-baby. Yeah, I know, I know, it's your life, everybody's a critic, less is more; so sue me, I'm an idealist."
Finally, satisified I had gotten my non-tree-fitty's worth of psychiatric help, I checked my look in the mirror and made a mental post-it that I would soon change my hair, my clothes, my face.
I removed the plastic gasoline canister from my Adidas' bag, applying its high carbon footprint content to the lush pile carpet, red with Fugue. Finally, I tapped the bottom to coax the last stragglers out. I then fished a book of matches out of my back pocket with an ad on the front for some shyster named Saul. I managed to get the whole book lit and tossed on the pile of shag and half eaten, court mandated, mental health professional.
"Hey, Doc. I thought you said there was no smoking? Nobody likes a hypochondriac ya know."
My therapy complete for the late morning I headed for home whistling an extraordinarilyserious tune, still on the fence about the real Mr. Kicklez fate, yet entirely certain I'd pick up some ketchup on the way. And maybe some more white russian fixings.
From Crucifiction by Krafto Matix.
