a.n/ character study on Britta. Inspired by the poem You Are Jeff by Richard Siken. Cross-posted from AO3
1
You wonder if this, rather than the old you, is who you're supposed to be. Old you went to rallies and to Africa and is a completely different person. They look at you now, domesticated and stable, and it forces you to look down at yourself too. You're not as much of a person as Old You but you're not yet disappeared. No, you're the space between two people- let's call them Jeff- and you've been reading far too much poetry, all alone except for a half-lit cigarette in the dark of your apartment. You hear light footsteps always near the door but never through it. Consider a one eyed cat.
2
One cat. One eye. Lost since after you brought him home from the shelter. The wound is new and festers slightly and your one-eyed cat comes with a bright white eye-patch that seems too close in the half light. You hear quiet footsteps and see the white where an eye should be and it scares you. You spend the next week knitting an eye-patch; anything to darken that stark whiteness that keeps getting closer than it should. One cat. One eye. This one lost since birth with a neat hairless scar and no eye-patch. You think that this one eyed cat, from having only one eye since forever, can teach your one eyed cat how to stop walking into furniture and missing everything he tries to land on. This is your problem too but the walking might have something to do with a glass bottle filled with a clear liquid that isn't water and you've never been able to stick a landing. The cat helps the cat and their names are both Jeff and you learn that you can buy vases but Jeff can't help you so you go buy another bottle.
3
Let's say God is two men inventing the world's greatest con. They have a figure, a book and ten dollars between them and they think that they can change the world. These men are good at speeches and have great hair and together they can create a perfect con that takes responsibility out of everyone's hands, but most importantly, out of their own. They debate between themselves because one wants everyone under this trick, this sleight of hand, and the other wants it to be selective. This man says that all the best things are selective and he wants to send out black invitations with neat silver script and then watch as everyone clamours to be a part of it. They argue and then walk away in a strop and luckily neither walk past a fire axe.
Let's say the Devil is a man in a dinosaur costume.
4
On your left is a glass of water and on your right is a glass of vodka. You're in The Ballroom again and every time Jeff smiles at Annie, his teeth glowing too white in the dingy light, you take a swig of vodka and every time Annie smiles back, you sip your water. Jeff's teeth start to glow and move closer and they're too bright and he's not stopping smiling and you are drunk because Annie is keeping her head forward. You try to yell at her to smile but your mouth is sewn shut and you take another drink and the thick bottom of the glass is making your head swim. You're going to need another one.
5
Bobby pins, left socks and coffee mugs. All these things fall into a chasm between your lounge cushions and behind your bed and this is the space where you exist. You're used to it, not quite existing on the same plane as everyone else and blue eyes and big smiles never quite creep inside your reality. You're one of seven around a round table but you're in the corner of it all and you can't quite reach in to the centre. There are cards spread there and everyone is playing a game except for you and you don't know how you know but you know that every card Jeff holds is the King of Spades. There's something that you know you're supposed to do, some card that you know you're supposed to play but you're still unable to move, strapped to your chair, and can only watch as Annie shows her hand; a pair of Queens, a heart and a spade.
6
Two men are wrestling and one man stands to the side, watching through the lens of a camera. One man is light and the other dark except if you look closer, if you take a scalpel and bone saw and get really deep, it's actually the opposite of what most people see. One man's heart is an ink well and the other a light bulb and the other is a lens through which everyone does exactly what he wants. Each man has his own strengths and each a weakness and they layer themselves until they create a puzzle, a whole picture that shows a table with a fire axe sticking out of the top. Okay, maybe one man's weaknesses are a bigger piece and it is the bright red of the handle but the picture is peeling off the cardboard backing and a piece is missing. Why is a piece missing?
7
You're playing cards with four Jeffs and every time you lay a card down, you take another shot of tequila. It makes the identical Jeffs easier to differentiate and you realise that one of those Jeffs is your best friend, one is your worst enemy, one is your current lover and one is someone you have never met before. You realise all this in the time it takes for one Jeff to lay down a king and the next to scowl at him but you can't tell which of the Jeffs are each of those things, so you take your turn. You lay down an Ace of Hearts and know that while one of these Jeffs is a door, two are walls and only one is a window- you just still don't know which is which. Pick up your heart again because if you can't tell these Jeffs apart then you surely shouldn't hand them it except one already has it between two fingers, shiny red and white, and so you tell him that you love him but it's the wrong one, and so they all get up and leave. The card hits the ground slowly but it's folded in half so you don't want it anymore.
8
You're in Annie's car one day after school and it takes you until you're halfway back to your house, but you realise that the CD playing is one of yours. It's a mix CD with not quite enough Radiohead but every fourth song is a love song. You're listening to track three when you realise this and suddenly your heart is pounding in your throat, waiting for the number to flick over and you don't know why. It might be because Annie's hand is so close to yours as is rests on the gear stick, or the way her lips glow red and warm and you've pulled over, waiting for something that may never happen. You lick your suddenly dry lips, look over to where she's sitting and, with not enough forethought, jump out before the glowing four from the dashboard can inspire something you know shouldn't happen. You walk into your apartment and Jeff and Jeff are waiting for you, looking up with dual stares of need and hunger and disappointment so you ignore them, go and open a tin of tuna, drown out something that never happened with a too loud record in the quiet night.
9
No one tells you this part of the story; the maddening stillness your life is in, the way that even following some weird twisted dream results in a static-ness that you can't stand like the strange white noise between the third and fourth track of a CD. Everyone tells you that life has its ups and downs but they always neglect to you about the time they ran away from home and looked tauntingly into every white van—desperate for something to happen, even if it happens to be a disaster.
You know that intentional and uncontrollable pain isn't fun; that hot tears from a gas at a world trade rally aren't healthy, that crushed glass grinding into your palm isn't good but at least that wildness and pain feels like an ocean, relentless and unforgiving, but better than the goddamn kiddie pool you find yourself in at Greendale. You know that this plateau is a sign of Good Decisions but you drink a little more each night, growing dizzier and dizzier until you feel ready enough to leap back into that ocean.
10
You don't stick your landing but the rocks shred your skin deliciously and you revel in every sound you pull from Jeff as you fuck him in a bathroom, dinosaur costume strewn around your ankles.