Eat my Arms, Eat My Legs

Napkin Manifesto


So I’ve been sitting on this sidewalk for a while, just trying to write something down. You know, really figure something out. I was worried, at first, that I would run out of napkins to write it all down on. But as it turns out, this gluttonous society can’t keep enough of this paper stock around. This shit is clogging up the freeways and the byways man! You should never be afraid to sully your fat face. Because you can always reach for a fucking napkin and wipe it right off.

Goddammit! There is nothing in this world left that can really save any of us. We’ve exhausted all of our possibilities I think. We’re just sitting on a rock that, if it survives to be studied, will be remembered only for how we destroyed it. What selfish natural animals we are. I can feel the weight of generations on me in an ooze. Don’t you feel that primordial weight man? It’s heavy.

The air smells like smog and I don’t think I can break it down into small enough particles anymore. I imagine that soon, maybe even in the middle of this letter, I might just start asphyxiating and flopping around on this sidewalk. I hope smog comes out of my eyes. We’ve all got something in our eyes and I honestly don’t care who picks it out. I want someone to take everyone’s eyes out and see what we evolve then. Maybe we’ll all just grow giant peckers out of our eyes. We can all just fucking fuck each other down.

I’m sorry. Wait, no I’m not sorry. I can’t tell what’s the truth anymore at all which just adds to the growing list of things that I can’t tell. I’m so angry that I threw my cat out the door and I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again. That makes me even angrier. I don’t know if I’m gonna make rent next month. I don’t know how my utilities are still on in my apartment. I don’t know if I can even write anymore. I think I have juvenile arthritis. I think it’s all the smog in my hands. I can feel it in my joints when I pick up the pen now. I threw the computer out a few days before the cat. That’s why my e-mails stopped coming.

The only sensible thing I could do now is to take the last few bucks I have and buy a Nixon mask. Then rob a bank. The only fucking sensible thing to do is to rob a goddamn bank. I’m gonna hold it up with my finger in my jacket pocket and then when I have all the money I’m gonna stick my finger through my zipper hole and hoot and holler and run like hell. That’s gotta be better than any fancy shit therapy ever got me. Got me nowhere I tell ya.

I remember the first time I ever vomited on purpose. I was ten years old and I was at Shelly Edwards birthday party. It was a big shit deal just like her father was. There was a pony and it was really just a regular black tie affair. I was stuffy in my suit and the cake had that too sweet taste. It was just heavy with icing. Blue icing that said “Happy eleventh Birthday Shelley. Love Daddy and Mommy and Momo.” Momo was Shelly’s dog. He was a dumb little shit. He would jump up and down for absolutely nothing and he would always bark. Especially when he got old and I was trying to sneak in and out of Shelly’s house for a quick fuck. I wanted to strangle that little Phyreeneese motherfucker.

Anyways, back to the birthday party. There we were eating the cake after Shelley blew out the candles. The whole thing had devolved into something that was as low key as events got around then. Kids done eating were playing by the trees or swinging on the swings. There was a line by Shelly’s brand new pony, which still had a red bow on its head. I wasn’t too interested in the pony I have to tell you. But I wasn’t interested in the cake either. Too much icing, like I said, so I wandered away from the tables and the napkins and the buzzed parents. I wandered towards the only thing that I was interested in which, as fate or nature or allah or shitfuck martin would have it, was right next to the pony.

Shelley was lording over the pony and her red hair was sort of catching the light shining over the pony. The sun was low. I can remember how graceful her freckles looked then in the afternoon/evening light. I loved her then and though no feelings are pure I didn’t mess it up with anything sexual at the time. I remember wanting to smell her and press my lips on her lips. I remember the pony smelling kind of rank. So I went up to Shelley, right next to her and I said, “Hey Shelley happy birthday.” She was pretty delighted with the pony still but she turned and acknowledged me. “Thanks” she said. “Your hair looks nice today.” I said, trying to remember a list of compliments my mother had furnished for me to use in any social situation. “Thanks” Shelley said again. Jesus, what was she some kind of fucking robot? I didn’t care. I had to have her scent.

I moved closer and raised my voice. I tried something I knew she had to have more than one word on. “Jeez that’s a pretty cool horse! HUH?!” “It’s a pony actually. It’s a pony and my daddy got it for me. Her name is Wynona.” “I think it’s a man.” “What? No my pony is a lady.” “I can see its weiner.” I knew immediately that I had said something wrong by the look on her face. It was a sour look and it produced this feeling in my gut that wouldn’t go away for days. In fact, I think I can still feel it now. But I wasn’t one to ignore facts especially in a quick and awkward situation. I was a smart kid and I wanted everyone to know after a certain point. That pony had a weiner and I had noticed. Shelley saw it then too and immediately broke out bawling and shoving me away.

“Timmy ruined my pony! Timmy ruined my pony!” She shrieked over and over again. She wouldn’t stop shoving me either. I was getting pretty freaked out. Though the only thing I can remember saying was “My name is Johnny.” Which is a point I thought she should have known, as my schoolmate, and for some reason I still needed the facts kept straight. So she kept pushing me back and shrieking and I kept whispering my name until finally I got the sense to turn around and get away. Well my coordination failed at this point and one extra hard shove later I landed face first in horse shit. I was still repeating my name straight down into the shit.

I vomited quite a bit then there in the yard next to the pony, on the ride home, and in the bathroom at home while my mother rubbed my back and offered me more mouthwash. But the king of all vomits I saved up. I remembered what bitch pushed me down and I let her know how I felt about it in the way I felt was most proper. One day I waited until everyone went out to recess, holding back and complaining of a stomach ache. When everyone had left the classroom I opened Shelley’s lunch box, stuck my finger down my throat, and vomited straight onto her fancy pre-wrapped tuna sub. Then I closed the lunch box back up and wiped a little streak of puke off of one of the Powerpuff Girls. I got caught but that’s not the part I remember. I remember the look on Shelley Edwards face as she opened her abnormally heavy lunchbox and puke crescendoed onto her plaid skirt and black, shiny shoes with buckles. The pink socks may have gotten the worst of it. It felt like triumph to me and I couldn’t help but laugh.

So, you can see how we were set up to love each other right from the start. When I started dating her in high school it went physical pretty quick. It was our senior year and I think we both just wanted someone to bounce off of. Someone to cling to in the face of the flood we knew was coming. I never told her I loved her above a certain decibel level and she always knew when to take off her shirt. It was a teenage oasis of a relationship. We built a castle that adolescents tend to build with secrets whispered and touched into each other. We let no one in. I had friends on and off but we mostly just bounced off of each other in an aggressive and prematurely alcoholic way. They were nothing I would stop for if run over in the road.

It might sound harsh but then you might not remember what it felt like, the tempest in parts of your body. Is there ever another time in your life where you are so unashamed to feel the most glorious of feelings? When things weren’t so heavy I tried to hit the ultimate highs. I’m not paying for it now. That isn’t the point. This isn’t a Chick tract or a morality poem. I don’t have herpes and I drink maybe once a week now, cash permitting. There is no point actually. You might want to put these soggy napkins down right now you sick fuck. You might want to sit back and wonder who reads napkins in the mail. Go find your daughter. Really find her and see what it gives you. See what it might be like to emotionally resound with someone before this sucks all the life out of you. I am a drama queen without a proper prom dress and I will suck anything out of you that I can for the last dance. Just get out.

(smudges) (ketchup) (ink) (snot)

By the end of the school year Shelley and I had a regular schedule. On Mondays and Wednesdays I would sneak over to her house. Her parents were always out or asleep, a mansion away. The dog would bark and the security lights would trip but I would slime closer to their daughter than any two-bit predator. I was fucking sophisticated. I didn’t climb a trellis and I didn’t throw rocks at windows. There were no rocks outside of Shelley’s window, just a statue of a horse that shot water out of its mouth and nose. I had a key to the house. I would sneak up to her room, filled with pink and black lace, HIM playing in the background, and fit into her like the key fit into her front door. She would have to shut the dog out sometimes. Other times we didn’t even notice he was there. Those were the best times. You sit back, coming down from a real nice teenage climax and you notice this furry fucker staring back at you. It didn’t matter anymore. Just another animal like us, that’s almost what it felt like. In fact, the way that dog lived, I often felt like I had out-animaled him. I would look into his little black eyes and try to see some natural instinct inside. There was nothing but a dumb tongue, lolling back and fourth in 4/4 time. I beat my chest and slammed the door. He always got the door in his snout eventually.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays we would go to a field on the side of my house, get drunk, and continue the same animal tradition. I don’t remember much. If I could afford it, and I could much more often then, I would get blackout drunk. That was when I really went for broke sexually I’m told. But I hardly remember. I don’t remember romantic stars or the sound of the crickets. I just remember peeing in one spot over and over until the grass turned brown and curled up. I had defeated nature again. I felt like telling Wordsworth to suck my wang but instead I just wandered back over to the bright blue blanket with the bears on it, where the beers waited, and well, committed to a Nutting that would make Whitman proud.

Over the weekend we went to parties. You could say we trolled the local scene. We looked for anything sexual, anything risqué. Any new person we got with or any new substance we put into ourselves we would lay out in total detail to the other on Monday night. This was living at first. We were really putting ourselves out on precipices, we felt, and we were electrically excited to breathe for the weekend. But, slowly she grew cautious after a few sour nights. I grew melancholy of the scene and started staying in most weekends.

Once the summer hit we dried up, stifled with the grass. I told her that I “didn’t care” because I wanted to see how big of a bastard I could really be. I was testing at the outer limits then, if only to see how it bounced off of my ever expanding inner limits. My mind seemed to whir with possibilities for the future daily. I felt like I needed to go to Canada and Wales and Sweden. The furthest out of the country I’ve made it to date is Monterrey, Mexico where a small man invited me to stuff a ball of coke up my ass for an amount of pesos that meant nothing to me. It might have been a tourist scare thing. I was short on sleep when it happened. I rode a donkey out of town and did a dance on top of the burro while the sunset hit me. What really happened afterwards I don’t know. It’s all fell apart. It’s all felling(falling) apart.

I don’t know anything. You don’t know nothing. The world is a violent tornado and after that relationship ended I threw myself into it. I don’t know who I am and I haven’t known for a long while. Only the memories of the past anchor me and even to what I don’t know because most everything has fallen apart. I am set adrift in a sea unaware of other nations and notions of thought.

My last clear memory is sitting in the drive-thru at this chicken restaurant, squawking at the employees through a giant chicken head with a speaker inside of it. I had already been through three times and chicken spilled out of my mouth as I squawked. I needed more. My voice would never fade and my hunger would never cease. The parking lot lights on the blacktop rolled like the ocean, hitting me in higher and higher waves. I live here now, in the wavy parking lot. Every day I worship at this chicken hut. The employees are my family, my priests and my god. They are conduits to one another, in and through me. It is everything I need. There are five TVs. I go home, a few blocks away, every couple of days. But even that is wearing thin. Soon I will only exist as far as the blacktop goes. The sidewalk will be my electric fence. I will never scale it. I will never attempt escape (escempt attape). Thank the chicken hut there is a mailbox here. Don’t open your envelopes. Don’t read this message. Just use the napkins.