Medicated

Jane was different. She wasn't the kind of girl you'd ever really know or understand - she was reserved, for what? Nothing really. She stood a catalyst in time, walking up and down the same old city streets. It was autumn and the leaves had just began to fall, she walked briskly over them onto Pennsylvania avenue noticing them and taking mental photographs in her head as she walked to a meaningless destination. She looked in a shop window with eccentric and foreign jewelry in the display, her breath fogging the glass reflection of herself and her eyes shamelessly scanning the jewelry for the price tags, when she couldn't find the price she walked away frowning. This was similar to how she looked for lovers, spying on a man, observing for key features... how well does this fit the budget of my personality - would he suit me this season?

It wasn’t Jane’s fault she so shallowly searched for her new rescuer - she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder two years ago when she was seventeen, and she used that as her excuse to engage in the fucked up routines and cycles she acted out - the same scene with a different face on repeat every two months. Every boy was different this time. This one was the one who would save her. Jesus Christ of the month. Congratulations, you’ve been appointed to save a psychopath and turn her into a princess overnight. All had given up on her illogical tactics, all except Lev.

Jane walked to her parents' home and the air felt harsh against her skin. She fumbled for her keys that were always buried at the bottom of her purse - she referred to as her ‘bag o’ junk’. She pushed the door open, she didn’t feel like talking so she ran immediately upstairs to her bedroom. She opened the door to find her mom shifting through her papers.

“Oh” said her mother, taken off guard. “I was wondering where you were...Anyways, I was just leaving you a note - some boy called for you.”

Jane took the paper from her mother, mumbled a quick thanks and closed the door behind her mom as she left. It had a name written on it she didn’t recognize. Above the phone number was a name: Lev.

Dialing....ringing...ringing...ringing...

“Hello?” said the voice on the other line.

“Um...yeah, is Lev home?”

“Speaking.”

“Yeah...well, my name is Jane, I don’t know who you are, but my mother said you called.”

“OH. Yeah. Will you meet me at Van Dyke park in an hour and a half?”

“Well...um, I guess...”

The speaker clicked, and the line went dead. Jane knew instantly there was something odd about this boy. No sane person would go and meet a weird stranger at a park this close to nighttime. Jane thought about it, brushed it off as she wasn’t what others would consider sane, anyway, changed her clothes, and left for the metro station.

She arrived an hour and forty minutes later, ten minutes late. A boy scribbling manically in a paper journal sat anxiously on the bench. He looked up at her and said, “Hi Jane, you’re beautiful.”

Jane laughed, then asked, “Who are you - and what do you want?”

“You see I made a promise to myself that with someone I found beautiful, not just like hey your generically beautiful, but like a truly amazingly beautiful person, that I would tell at least one of them I how I felt - and today is your lucky day.”

Jane stood stunned and silent until after a few minutes, she finally cracked a smile.

“You’re weird.” She said to Lev.

“You’re beautiful.”

õ

A month passed and Jane had seen Lev four times. On the third day, she brought Lev to her house to hang out. Ten minutes passed before Jane’s mother walked into her bedroom to interrogate him - interviewing to see whether he was good enough to her standards to even be friends with her precious only daughter.

“Jane, I’d like to speak to you for a minute; would you meet me in my room?” Jane’s mother asked before leaving the room.

Jane looked at Lev, “Sorry, hold on a sec. Okay?” and walked into her mother’s room.

“Jane....What are you thinking?”

“What do you mean, mom?”

“This boy...there is something off about him, he’s going to lead you astray, take you off the wonderful path you are on!”

Jane thought, What might be for dinner tonight? Is there anything good on television? What color socks should I wear tomorrow...anything to block those typical words that criticized her decision-making. Time moved too slowly - and finally she found herself back in her bedroom sitting beside Lev, unnoticeably awkward, wondering if he had just heard everything her mother had said. Finally the silence broke with David Bowie and Russian cherry cognac that winded up spilling and staining Jane's carpet in the shape of an arrow.

"Man, I wish I had some drugs right now," blurted Lev.

"Yeah? I've been trying to stay off them for the most part."

"Why's that?"

"Well, I was stuck in a crystal binge for two years of my life; I've only recently come off it."

"Ew. What a dirty drug."

Jane looked at him as if he were crazy, which he very well could have been. What’s crystal meth to heroin, she wondered.

Lev asked her, “How would you feel about traveling to Korea with me one day?”

“I think that would be lovely.”

Today was the sixth day Jane had gone without taking her anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication and she pondered the chaos in her head.

The rest of the night they spent at the playground across the street. It was one of those beautiful nights you only see in movies - Jane and Lev molded together to fit inside the lemon-painted tube, sitting in blissful silence, feeling nothing but serene. She had brought him a poofy weed and some old vanilla coffee she’d gotten earlier at the gas station.

Jane cursed wild and frantic at the thunderstorms in her head.

After crowning themselves King and Queen of the lemon tube, Lev helped take away the clouds and bring out the sun. As it warmed the world, she could finally smoke the cigarette she’d been anticipating.

He whispered beautiful things in her ear while the wind struck them and at that moment, she really did feel like a Queen. He took a shirt from his bag and lay it over the hole in her denim to keep her knee from getting cold.

They swung on swings, solitary in their free-spirited insomnia, two lonely lovers wild and hectic, running in deserted playgrounds dim and dead.

Until that night, Jane couldn’t remember the last time she felt needed. She sneaked back inside the house around 4:30. Around six she awoke to see a dark figure standing above her. She was terrified, quickly trying to register her thoughts - his face came into view and it was her ex-boyfriend Brandon.

“Holy shit! What the fuck are you doing here?” Jane yelled at him.

“Sorry, you left the door unlocked, I thought I would surprise you.”

“It’s six in the morning...”

“There hasn’t been one day that’s passed that I haven’t cried over you. I miss you...I love you...Can I kidnap you?”

Jane couldn’t believe the words she was hearing.

“No. Get the fuck out of my house!”

Brandon struck cheek hard.

“You bitch,” he snarled, “You hurt everyone, you fuck everyone over, and you're just going to do it again to the fucker you're with now.”

“Get out...”

“Fuck you. What makes you think you’re better than anyone else? You’re not. You’re nothing, - no wonder your dad left you with your mom after he kicked you out laughing in your face...hell, I would have done the same thin-”

“Shut up!” Jane screamed. Her scream fell silent quickly as she saw his smile writhe into a gasp. He fell onto his knees. “Oh, fuck,” Brandon gasped just before collapsing onto Jane’s carpet face first.

The handle of a long butcher knife jutted from his back. Lev stood behind him. Lev stepped onto Brandon’s back and walked over to Jane, smiling. Jane stared at the knife.

“Lev! Why did you do that?”

“He was hurting you.” his eyes grew wide. Paranoid.

“Yeah - but come on! I just got these carpets cleaned! Fuck!”

The room fell silent while they stared at Brandon, still twitching. They almost mourned him.

Lev looked at Jane and smiled.

“So, how about Korea?”

*****

The Clown (part 1)

I remember being small and wandering the carnival looking for the hand my miniture fingers belonged to, and a strange alien approached me. He had trapped all of the rainbow in his hair that was a frizzy mess of curls, and he had a rubber ball sized nose the color of freshly ripe cherries. His shoes were the size of my torso and he was the palest of white. I thought this strange alien was my new father and I took his hand and he smiled at me a distorted smile of crooked mirrors. He led me to a large tent that was as large as my bedroom was. The tent was a deep red like his squeaky ball nose and he lay me down upon the water-sprinkled grass. He leaned over me - as to let me pinch his nose and the loud honk made me giggle and his human-esque tongue snaked through the crevices of my belly button and dragged my shirt to my shoulders as his tongue traced up along the middle of my belly; tasting it like peach fuzz on a tree fruit. My tummy twitched as he traced my little girl nipples with his alien fingertips, leaving a painted circle trail and I lay, pretending I was being initiated into a Native American tribe somewhere exotic, I also remember my new daddy using my nipple as an infant would drink formula from the rubber nozzle of a baby bottle, and I let out a soft sigh. It reminded me so much of my first daddy and the way he would use his mouth on me. I felt his skin sliding back and forth between my legs, against my privates and it slipped between his saliva that he left behind when he had licked me where I pee. The moments after were a blurred fog. but leaving the tent, I felt as if i'd regressed to back before pottytraining. As I walked back towards the ferris wheel with a grin spread over and across my cheeks and I listened to the crackling of my on-the-house pink blushed cotton candy as my tongue touched the sugar-coated cotton ball. For the first time in my life I felt human and I could still feel the squishiness between my legs with each tingly waddled step.

*****

Copyright Megan Ireland 2005

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