Chapter 33 Chapter Thirty-Three

I get out of there as fast as I can.Dear reader, how do you maintain etiquette when you run into someone like this?Not even poor slut whisper dude.Like when I was forced to go to a stand-up comedy club or watch my cousin's circumcision in the front row, I forced myself to watch Marie's show, laughing like a log while she fumbled under her skirt, but in the end I Remove the burning eyes.There's nothing evil or depraved about her.Absolutely not.No matter how hard she tries, she's just an ordinary person.It's actually this that bothers me the most.She's stuck with life and family, mostly has no friends, has a boring job, and hates how she looks.An ugly, clumsy and shy girl.If she had been smarter or richer, she could have probably escaped to art school.But she sees no way out in reality - except for Darien.

I also have to admit that while she didn't turn me on lustfully, she brought out my sadistic side.I wanted to use rough methods to help her wake up.I've hated all the shit that pretends to embrace evil for years.I wanted to show her what real suffering is: child abuse, political persecution, cancer, genocide, real horrors in the real world.I wanted to laugh at her to her face, spit on this bumbling little satan, tell her that her lover was a vermin, a semi-literate scum, and that even in his eyes you were no better than shit, a complete joke.I want to press her nose into a pile of shit.

Of course I didn't.Who knows?It might be good for her.As for feigning sympathy and understanding—acting like I pity her, that's the real cruelty.Alone in her room, what else does she have but evil dreams?So I left and let her think I was intimidated.I said good-bye casually and fled. Her wild laughter saw me off behind the door. I would rather wait for the bus in the cold wind than sit for an extra minute. On the bus, I felt desolate and hopeless.I sat behind the driver, with my forehead pressed against the window, the brakes sighing and wheezing.It's wet outside and everything is shiny.The leaves jumped into the wind and stuck to the window of the car next to me, as if to hitch a ride out of this town.Beads of water oozed out of the polished car like goosebumps.I see toys and bicycles and Christmas elves, and Rudolph is abandoned on the grass.The swing set was rusty.Black and green bins line the sidewalk.A broken umbrella reveals a silver skeleton.Are everyone everywhere as unhappy as poor Mary and I?The bus pulled into the tunnel and I lay back and closed my eyes.

Back in Queens, I was in such a bad mood, passing the flower shop, I saw Morris, the model for the photo of J. Duke Johnson, and I went in to refresh myself, only to find that he had just had an argument with his boyfriend. She's in a worse mood than me. "Let's go get really drunk," Morris suggested. "I need numbing." "Okay! Where? Jacques?" It was the bar at the intersection. "God, no. Not around, I don't want to discuss anything with anyone I know. And it can't be a gay hangout. Not with people I care what they think." "Well, thank you."

"you understand me." "Understood, I probably know a place." "Surely there won't be anyone we know?" "Almost 100 percent." "And no gays?" "Almost guaranteed."