The studio apartment was small, and though it housed ample furnishings, and
was refuge to a veritable flea market of.well, stuff. The clutter was some-
what organized and the room looked stylish and comfortable in a
pretentious, urbane fashion. One poorly lit corner was occupied by an
institutionally-styled work desk. Among the indecipherably scribbled
documents that littered its Formica surface sat a mammoth computer
presently emitting an obtuse, ambient whine. Jess sat staring obliquely at
its monitor, considering the last month's cache of Internet messages.
Tits or comic books: Which of these defines your worth? What should we stare at?
She thought a while, and then began to type her reply haiku:
Poem's good, not great, 'cause To nature, haiku's relate- You're dumber than sod.
"Fuck you, Jeb. You lose," she said to herself and with baroque flourish she punched the "enter" key. She then continued deleting the other messages from porn-sites, her parents, and the twenty-five reminders from Blockbuster soliciting her yet to be returned movie rental. All and all, a productive web-session. She inhaled deeply, reveling in her iniquity. Her Zen-full moment was interrupted by the melodious ringer (the "beep" equivalent of the opening bars to "Big-Pimpin'"-programmed for ironic purposes only) of her cellular phone. Decidedly displeased, she picked up.
"City Health and Human Services-no I'm not satisfied with my long distance service. I don't call people. Ever." Click. She resumed mashing down the "delete" key, taking immense pleasure in watching Times New Roman font disappear from her message box.
The phone rang again.
"Cecil's Insanity Farm and Rehab Center-please hold while we hose down the Baldwin brothers. Listen, cocksucker, while I commend your-tenacity-I still stand by my principles of brutalizing all solicitors with a plastic lawn flamingo. But go ahead, speak-you're being recorded and anything you say can and will be used as evidence should you be subpoenaed."
"Shut the fuck up, Jess! It's ME! CHRISTINE! Quit hanging up and stop stealing my lines, you self-important third-rate hack!"
"Oh. Hi Christine. I would say I'm sorry, but that was kind of funny. Have you heard the new Sleater Kinney album? It's good."
"Right. Where-the-fuck have you been, jerk? I've called, I've left Internet messages." Jess looked at the computer monitor and felt only slightly guilty. Her friend continued haranguing her.
".Don't tell me you've been 'out', we both know you have no social life."
"Well that's my business. So when you decide to stop bitching, let me know- I mean, if I wanted abuse I'd call Jeb. Or my dad, for that matter."
"You're a bloviating hole, Jess. Speaking of unnecessary word usage, have you finished the story for issue three?"
"Yeah, but I'm in the process of tweaking it."
"Fuck you-you've spent a week and a half 'tweaking it'. Take another adderall and finish, goddammit, so I can watch cartoons."
"Sorry Christine, I actually have plans for the rest of the day."
"Uh-oh! So you're finally going to return that video before the store issues a warrant for your arrest. Congratulations, Jess. You're one step closer to becoming a responsible adult. Call your dad. He'll be beside himself with joy."
"No, and.no. I'm going to meet Mr. V today-V-day, get it? No? Eh. Besides, Blockbuster already has issued a warrant for my arrest."
"So the wanted felon heads west in her pursuit of a worthy lay. Bear in mind that Mr. Vasquez might not be impressed by your criminal activities, but-eh. So when's your flight?"
"If you would shut up and listen for a goddamned minute."
"But I have been listening, Jem-babe. You never shut up," Christine interrupted. Jess continued as if this had never happened.
".You'd know I wasn't making any plans to fly to California. The first of many reasons why not is that I don't possess the necessary capital to fund such a trip-nor do I feel like abusing my father's platinum card any more than I already have-what with the economy in its current state and all."
"In other words, King Daddy's read the latest credit bill and you haven't yet concocted a viable explanation. That's uncharacteristic bad form, Jess. So-how do you plan to pull this one off, my friend? Please tell me you're not going to do the creepy Internet thing. As your dangerously under-qualified surrogate attorney, my advice is that you abandon this ill- advised course of action for reasons that should be obvious-even to you."
"Your observations are astute but misspent, my paragon of social decorum," Countered Jess. Christine belched on the other end of the line appreciatively. Jess continued, "My plan is to make the leap between comic universes. Since I'm the provocateur of this little tête-à-tête, I'll give him the home turf advantage, as I'm pretty sure that bringing him here would be."
"Rather disconcerting, if not creepier than the Internet thing," Christine finished for her, "Right. One problem-running the risk of sounding.stupid.I must ask just how, exactly, you're going to do that."
"Very stupid, Christine, but I'll forgive you this time. As you have regrettably forgotten, this is fan-fiction. Authorial license provides me the means and freedom to create my own reality and dictate its governing laws (in our case, the anarchy, or lack of laws governing this plane, should be most advantageous-entropy rocks my fucking socks off!) As Kant would say."
"Oh just shut up Jess. Goddamn," said Christine, cutting Jess off to preserve her own sanity, "Whore; you never took philosophy! Ever. I don't want to know how and why you've started speaking like a 19th century foppish fucking period novel, just tell me when you plan on doing this.Stephen Hawkins-thing before you talk (read: bore) me to death, okay?"
"Now."
"Whatever. In the doubtful event that you should succeed, promise me that when you get back, you'll tell me what an ass you've made of yourself. I also wouldn't get my hopes up-odds are your delusional hell and his are egregiously incompatible. I want to laugh manically at your inevitable failure-I'll spring for the Thai food (on your tab, of course)."
"Your vote of confidence is inspiring."
"And watch out for the Blockbuster police, okay? I don't think MasterCard is viable tender for posting bond."
"I love you too, Christine. And get double order spring rolls, fucker! Last time you ate them all."
Click.
Unsupportive, but Jess suspected as much. It was an adequate conversation with her best friend and business partner. She put the cell phone in her handy invisible, multi-dimensional cartoon sweater pocket along with a lighter and emergency cigarette rations (She knew Mr. Vasquez would be less than enthusiastic about her nicotine habits, but what he didn't know wouldn't give HIM cancer-besides, she had a nagging premonition that she might actually NEED them in the course of all of this; taking them along was enough to quell her fears of impending disaster).
She reconsidered and also secured a miniature, annotated dictionary with comprehensive thesaurus and slang index included. She didn't want to experience any sort of nasty vocabulary mayhem or interpretation barriers while dealing with the locals and possibly Vasquez himself. Her face screwed itself into a scowl as she reflected that her best-friend's pointed comments concerning her unfortunate tendency towards filating her own linguistic cock were scathing and, in all fairness, true. What pissed her off even more was that she herself couldn't even use those verbal skills to rationalize this character-flaw without sounding like a complete jack-ass. Oh well.
When the reference was safely situated and issued an oddly loving pat, Jess finished her assessment of her other personal effects: checking her nose for boogers (unsightly), forgoing the morning's un-imbibed tequila (inappropriate), and tying her unruly mass of hair into a rude knot on top of her head (unsatisfactory, but serviceable). Self in order, she left the anti-social security of her womb-like abode for the equally anti-social and womb-like interior of her yuppie-girl-car double parked in front of the fire-hydrant just outside her apartment. She then began to drive down Dis- Reality Street, the momentum created by her Hunter S. Thomson-esque highway drift taking her past the amalgam of her own creative progeny. Gonzo the comic! This was Fear and Loathing in Jess-land.
"Good God! What are these fucking animals?" As soon as she had passed Electrilolliland, she had come to an amorphous miasma of severed, floating, half-formed story outlines, napkin doodles, angry unsent letters to magazines, fake suicide notes, embarrassing fan-fiction, bloody horrible poetry, editorial rants, and substance-induced incoherent ramblings. It was horrific and terrifying-Jess felt herself slipping into the Fear-but she braced herself against the vengeful specters of her own failed literary pursuits.
"Must. Meet. Jhonen. Vasquez. Must. Ask. Out. On. Date." Without stopping to study their habits she accelerated on through-soon enough she knew she would come upon the proverbial Fork-In-The-Road. And she did- almost meeting a fiery end at the hands of her own feloniously reckless driving as she skidded to a stop before the Crossroads of Cliché. In one direction lay the Architecture of her Literary Impetus (at least that's what it said on the road sign), and in the other lay the path to Elsewhere, impossible to continue on via automobile. She wasted no time debating between going forward or turning back-instead she pondered over whether she should run the rest of the way through the foreboding ambiguity. She thought better of this (on principle she never did the "running"-thing, she always strolled) lest she over-navigate and accidentally find herself in Nowhere (a destination she was all too aware her life might be heading) and compromised by sashaying her way between fictional planes.
After a period of un-quantifiable brain synapses (she couldn't tell if it had been two hours or two minutes) she felt her body become subject to an unsettling, but relatively painless physical metamorphosis. She was determined to be pissed off if she ended up looking like a cockroach. However she found herself surrounded by alien, but recognizable, environs. She was making good time past a "Taco Hole", a Starsucks Crappee (she noted that the pretentious coffee chain was omnipresent, even in her own plane of reality) and was within proximity of a small child being viciously maimed by some sort of small, rodent-like mammalian. She had succeeded. She caught her reflection in a stylized corporate plate-glass window.
"Holy-eating-disorder, Jem-girl-I'm skinny! Dolce Gabanna skinny! Fucking- ay!" Off-model, but still recognizably herself, Jess realized that she had been drawn in a completely different style than she was used to-Jhonen's style. That was another thing she wasn't sure would work. Just as during the rest of her journey, she didn't question the means of this transformation nor the various improbable forces that brought her into this current set of circumstances. When fucking with imaginary quantum mechanics, the laws of subjective reality, metaphysical paradigms, and the other stupid secrets of the universe, it's probably best not to question the capricious mechanisms and deities benevolent enough to make it all possible.
The gawking denizens of Jhonen-Land made Jess realize just how ridiculous she looked sashaying down the sidewalk. She abruptly stopped-the violence of this motion conflicting with her exponentially accumulated inertia, and nearly toppled ass over ankles onto the concrete.
"It's just a dance move-I swear," she announce to the now disinterested crowd. Feeling slightly pathetic she muttered, "Ignore them, Jess. They have no idea that you've just conquered the natural laws of existence. They have no idea, because you're super-cool. Manifest will determines all- Nietzsche this, fuckers!" She felt immediately better.
Now that she had succeeded in her initial endeavor of, well, relocation, it was on to Plan Two. Unfortunately, there was no Plan Two; Plan Two had been back-burnered as her over-stimulated brain was otherwise consumed with whether or not the mad scheme that was Plan One would actually work. Now it wasn't a matter of GETTING TO Mr. Vasquez but FINDING him. Jess was in a quandary. She had two applicable courses of action (turning back was not one of them)-and either scenario completely, in Jess's opinion, sucked ass. Her inherent aversion to computers (they spent more time getting loaded than even SHE did) made any method of Internet search unacceptable, and her equal disinclination towards telephone conversation or any interaction with superfluous people made 411 another odious option. Jess fucking hated quandaries. However, the latter of the two evils pointed her to a solution that was nothing less than inspired. When the situation proves bleak and all alternatives seem to direct you towards despondent feelings of inadequacy, there are always-the Yellow Pages.
Yet again, good 'ole verbal competency saves the day.
Filled with conviction and reassuring feelings of intellectual capacity, Jess began to take decisive steps towards her intended destination-a dilapidated, age-yellowed tomb hanging by chain from a derelict phone booth. Unfortunately, this phone booth was also surrounded by a quay of highly-suspect black-clad Mabellene-sporting characters who ogled her serviceable décolletage as she ravaged through the much-abused directory. They sniggered, Beavis and Butthead-style, the entire time. Goddamnit.
"(Sigh) Look, Inane Ass-clown Posse, take a picture. It will last longer," she could've been nicer, but her comment went over their heads anyway. A greasy victim of a bad Manic Panic dye confrontation slammed the phone directory closed and leered at her.
"Can I help you?" She said, perfectly deadpan, but then she heard a voice that tried too hard to sound creepy/seductive, but falling piteously short of this goal, it lisped in her ear instead.
"Eey poossie keht-I vont do zuck zyour blahd."
"What did you just call-you want to suck my what?" she sputtered incredulously as her face twisted with a mixture of mild disgust and utter stupification. She whirled around, index finger swishing out the spittle he had lodged in her ear canal, and came face to face with an even greasier pale-face posteriorily violating her personal space. There was a pregnant pause as she examined his pock-marked face. Then she laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
Her guffaws resonated off the surrounding architecture. Then it digressed into uncontrollable hysterics until finally, a good while later, it trailed off into a contented sigh. She wiped away a tear that had formed in the corner of her eye; "Christ-alive I haven't had this much fun since I threw uncooked bacon at those patchouli-funk vegan tweaker-bastards that one time. Oh, please stop. Any more of this might compromise my self-imposed Internet-generation ennui." She hoped that none of them were familiar enough with the word "ennui" to make the mistake of taking her seriously. But the ungainly party had already skulked off dejectedly.
She looked around, trying to reorient herself, shrugged and turned her attention back to the phone directory, intent of finding her desired information when she was yet again distracted-this time by a pair of bugged- eyes peering at her from behind the business end of a park-bench. They belonged to some other sallow-faced personality she had failed to notice until just then (she briefly considered flashing her breasts at him to quell any interest this person might have in staring at her).
"You were laughing at him-do you think he's some kind of joke?" said the disembodied voice of said personality. Its owner had obviously mastered a degree of hollow creepiness.
"Well no-I mean kind of.more like a bad joke from some cancelled network- revival of the Adams Family-have we met?" She couldn't shake the feeling that she recognized this new entity-but before any cognitive memory or even another witty remark could form in her head, the set of eyes produced a face, then a body, then limbs, and these things suddenly jumped at her. Jess was rendered incapable of any action or memory beyond the dumb, quarter-sized "O" her mouth had puckered into.
[This is Jess blacked out for several hours.]
Jess awoke irate and ready to sodomize someone with a splintering wooden cooking spoon. She was now in some sort of basement with a rather jaundiced, intense young man glaring at her. She looked at her left ankle- it was shacked to the floor. Other than that, she was unharmed but her things had been confiscated, presumably by the man now inching closer to her. She really needed a cigarette. She gave her foot an experimental jiggle. The chain was bolted fast to the floor. She then turned her attention to her assailant.
"Who are you and what's this all about?"
"Oh right. Manners. My name is Johnny C. But you can call me Nny for short."
"Right. I already know who you are."
"Oh. Well who the fuck are you?"
"Jessica Elizabeth Marquette-Jess to the lazy, Jem to the lucky. I would shake your hand-but both of yours seem to be occupied with.well, knives.so I guess you can call me the Snuggle Bear if you felt so inclined."
"Hmmm. Ooh, ooh! Can I call you Mr. Jinggles?"
"No."
"You lied, you said."
"It's MS. Jinggles."
"That's right you're a girl."
"And you're a boy-now who's observant?"
"And just like any other pretty girls, you're soooo beautiful on the outside, but soooo ugly inside. I KILL YOU NOW!!"
"Time out! Listen, bungus; judging from all of your.accouterments.I'm sure you know how not pretty organs are. As for the rest, while I appreciate the compliment, I must protest to being only reasonably attractive. That aside, please spare me your indulgent monologue on social injustice-better yet, let's discuss this concept of justice." He hesitated, she knew she had him.
"Your words mean nothing to me," he said back off a bit, "but still, I will humor you. Don't try anything, though-I am still going to kill you." He menaced her with his knife for dramatic effect.
"First of all, I'm not even supposed to be here. I mean, I'm not even a Goth-more of an emo kid, but not really (Dashboard Confessional sucks). By killing me, you might irreversibly damage the fabric of space and time. See, I was trying to meet this guy, Jhon."
"Your futile appeals for your life change nothing. You were making fun of that guy, so now you deserve what's coming to you."
"Who, Jhonen? No, see, I'm trying to ask him out on a date."
"That guy at the phone booth-you were.rude."
"Rude? Rude! Listen, that guy was accosting me with plastic fangs! Of course I laughed at him-it was ridiculous. I certainly don't expect to be taken seriously-anyone who habitually pretends to be Count Fuckula shouldn't either."
"But your judgment has no basis. You assume a level of equality when it's obvious that your social status puts you in a position of deliberate contempt."
"Right. Now who's judging people? Look, I'm the first to admit what a horrible person I am. I've lied about my SAT scores, laughed at people who've suffered great indignities, and I voted for Ralph Nadar. But for every socially-challenged boy I dated for two days in junior high and then dumped because I didn't want my cool friends to stop hanging out with me, there's ten dreamy punk rock boys that grew up from being dumped by stupid 14-year-olds like me and because of that they won't date me now. After every failed relationship, I think about how cool those boys really were, and how maybe I might have been happier with them, than hanging out with the asshole friends I ended up with. So yeah, I'm already dealing with the consequences of being a shitty person due to lack of self esteem. I'm not going to go into some detailed account of my misanthropic adolescence, and why, until recently, I had no self esteem. Suffice to say that to make up for it, I've finally, in my twenties, become a well-adjusted person capable of treating other people decently. And to various degrees it's the same for the other people as well. The behavior is compensating for their own miserable inadequacies. That doesn't make them any less shallow or stupid, but it doesn't make them any more so than your petty suburbanite-Gothic affectations or my indie rock pretensions of urbanity. True, they are horrible, shitty people. Fuck people, people suck. More power to you for your initiative-I envy your motivation. Patrick Bateman would find you inspired. Then again, your traumatic childhood hardly justifies any right you have to play judge, jury, executioner et al. Your actions put you on equal terms as those who you are punishing. This makes the converse also true. All those meat-heads you are so intent to represent your childhood demons are as justified in their treatment toward you, me, and any other hairless- monkey with an equal vendetta against them. Your hypocrisy is laughable, social message is without worth, and ethical argument groundless."
"Who's Patrick Bateman?"
"He's in this book 'American Psycho'; I think you'd like it."
"Are you done?"
"I guess so, yeah."
"I kill you now?"
"If you really want to."
"You're not afraid?"
"No-not when any multiple felon on my block could do so just as easily. No. Not really."
"You aren't afraid of pain? Of being tortured? None of that bothers you?"
"Well I imagine it would be unpleasant, but no. I know the pain will end and that when it does that means I'm probably dead. I've lived a life filled with good intensions. A lot of that life sucked, but it never made me into anything less than a decent person. I used to think that I would never be satisfied to die before completing a masterpiece that I would be remembered by. But I've recently come to the conclusion that I am my masterpiece-and I am as complex and vital as anything gracing the walls of a museum. I've seen all the places I need to see, and for those that didn't well I created them on paper all the same. I'm a little pissed off that I never did meet Jhonen Vasquez-but then again, we probably wouldn't have that much to talk about. But I have a family, and a friend on the other end of that cell-phone you took from me, they will all miss me should I suddenly disappear from their lives-and therefore, I have a history, and eventually-after you've killed me, I will also become a part of yours."
"That's depressing."
"Well life sucks all around. Give me my cigarettes."
"Smoking is bad for you."
"Yeah, I hear it kills people. And see, that's the whole point. What sort of artwork are you going to be when you die."
"To be honest, I haven't given much thought to my own death."
"That's unfortunate. If you had, you'd realize that killing people isn't even that special. It's not even interesting. Anyone or anything can kill a person. Destruction only creates more destruction, and that's predictable. It would be much more validating to create something, and I'm truly sorry you've lost the ability to do that. You can't even remember why you do what you do. You're not a piece of art-you're a piece of work. Now give me a cigarette. If I'm going to die, I'm going to do it on my terms."
Tits or comic books: Which of these defines your worth? What should we stare at?
She thought a while, and then began to type her reply haiku:
Poem's good, not great, 'cause To nature, haiku's relate- You're dumber than sod.
"Fuck you, Jeb. You lose," she said to herself and with baroque flourish she punched the "enter" key. She then continued deleting the other messages from porn-sites, her parents, and the twenty-five reminders from Blockbuster soliciting her yet to be returned movie rental. All and all, a productive web-session. She inhaled deeply, reveling in her iniquity. Her Zen-full moment was interrupted by the melodious ringer (the "beep" equivalent of the opening bars to "Big-Pimpin'"-programmed for ironic purposes only) of her cellular phone. Decidedly displeased, she picked up.
"City Health and Human Services-no I'm not satisfied with my long distance service. I don't call people. Ever." Click. She resumed mashing down the "delete" key, taking immense pleasure in watching Times New Roman font disappear from her message box.
The phone rang again.
"Cecil's Insanity Farm and Rehab Center-please hold while we hose down the Baldwin brothers. Listen, cocksucker, while I commend your-tenacity-I still stand by my principles of brutalizing all solicitors with a plastic lawn flamingo. But go ahead, speak-you're being recorded and anything you say can and will be used as evidence should you be subpoenaed."
"Shut the fuck up, Jess! It's ME! CHRISTINE! Quit hanging up and stop stealing my lines, you self-important third-rate hack!"
"Oh. Hi Christine. I would say I'm sorry, but that was kind of funny. Have you heard the new Sleater Kinney album? It's good."
"Right. Where-the-fuck have you been, jerk? I've called, I've left Internet messages." Jess looked at the computer monitor and felt only slightly guilty. Her friend continued haranguing her.
".Don't tell me you've been 'out', we both know you have no social life."
"Well that's my business. So when you decide to stop bitching, let me know- I mean, if I wanted abuse I'd call Jeb. Or my dad, for that matter."
"You're a bloviating hole, Jess. Speaking of unnecessary word usage, have you finished the story for issue three?"
"Yeah, but I'm in the process of tweaking it."
"Fuck you-you've spent a week and a half 'tweaking it'. Take another adderall and finish, goddammit, so I can watch cartoons."
"Sorry Christine, I actually have plans for the rest of the day."
"Uh-oh! So you're finally going to return that video before the store issues a warrant for your arrest. Congratulations, Jess. You're one step closer to becoming a responsible adult. Call your dad. He'll be beside himself with joy."
"No, and.no. I'm going to meet Mr. V today-V-day, get it? No? Eh. Besides, Blockbuster already has issued a warrant for my arrest."
"So the wanted felon heads west in her pursuit of a worthy lay. Bear in mind that Mr. Vasquez might not be impressed by your criminal activities, but-eh. So when's your flight?"
"If you would shut up and listen for a goddamned minute."
"But I have been listening, Jem-babe. You never shut up," Christine interrupted. Jess continued as if this had never happened.
".You'd know I wasn't making any plans to fly to California. The first of many reasons why not is that I don't possess the necessary capital to fund such a trip-nor do I feel like abusing my father's platinum card any more than I already have-what with the economy in its current state and all."
"In other words, King Daddy's read the latest credit bill and you haven't yet concocted a viable explanation. That's uncharacteristic bad form, Jess. So-how do you plan to pull this one off, my friend? Please tell me you're not going to do the creepy Internet thing. As your dangerously under-qualified surrogate attorney, my advice is that you abandon this ill- advised course of action for reasons that should be obvious-even to you."
"Your observations are astute but misspent, my paragon of social decorum," Countered Jess. Christine belched on the other end of the line appreciatively. Jess continued, "My plan is to make the leap between comic universes. Since I'm the provocateur of this little tête-à-tête, I'll give him the home turf advantage, as I'm pretty sure that bringing him here would be."
"Rather disconcerting, if not creepier than the Internet thing," Christine finished for her, "Right. One problem-running the risk of sounding.stupid.I must ask just how, exactly, you're going to do that."
"Very stupid, Christine, but I'll forgive you this time. As you have regrettably forgotten, this is fan-fiction. Authorial license provides me the means and freedom to create my own reality and dictate its governing laws (in our case, the anarchy, or lack of laws governing this plane, should be most advantageous-entropy rocks my fucking socks off!) As Kant would say."
"Oh just shut up Jess. Goddamn," said Christine, cutting Jess off to preserve her own sanity, "Whore; you never took philosophy! Ever. I don't want to know how and why you've started speaking like a 19th century foppish fucking period novel, just tell me when you plan on doing this.Stephen Hawkins-thing before you talk (read: bore) me to death, okay?"
"Now."
"Whatever. In the doubtful event that you should succeed, promise me that when you get back, you'll tell me what an ass you've made of yourself. I also wouldn't get my hopes up-odds are your delusional hell and his are egregiously incompatible. I want to laugh manically at your inevitable failure-I'll spring for the Thai food (on your tab, of course)."
"Your vote of confidence is inspiring."
"And watch out for the Blockbuster police, okay? I don't think MasterCard is viable tender for posting bond."
"I love you too, Christine. And get double order spring rolls, fucker! Last time you ate them all."
Click.
Unsupportive, but Jess suspected as much. It was an adequate conversation with her best friend and business partner. She put the cell phone in her handy invisible, multi-dimensional cartoon sweater pocket along with a lighter and emergency cigarette rations (She knew Mr. Vasquez would be less than enthusiastic about her nicotine habits, but what he didn't know wouldn't give HIM cancer-besides, she had a nagging premonition that she might actually NEED them in the course of all of this; taking them along was enough to quell her fears of impending disaster).
She reconsidered and also secured a miniature, annotated dictionary with comprehensive thesaurus and slang index included. She didn't want to experience any sort of nasty vocabulary mayhem or interpretation barriers while dealing with the locals and possibly Vasquez himself. Her face screwed itself into a scowl as she reflected that her best-friend's pointed comments concerning her unfortunate tendency towards filating her own linguistic cock were scathing and, in all fairness, true. What pissed her off even more was that she herself couldn't even use those verbal skills to rationalize this character-flaw without sounding like a complete jack-ass. Oh well.
When the reference was safely situated and issued an oddly loving pat, Jess finished her assessment of her other personal effects: checking her nose for boogers (unsightly), forgoing the morning's un-imbibed tequila (inappropriate), and tying her unruly mass of hair into a rude knot on top of her head (unsatisfactory, but serviceable). Self in order, she left the anti-social security of her womb-like abode for the equally anti-social and womb-like interior of her yuppie-girl-car double parked in front of the fire-hydrant just outside her apartment. She then began to drive down Dis- Reality Street, the momentum created by her Hunter S. Thomson-esque highway drift taking her past the amalgam of her own creative progeny. Gonzo the comic! This was Fear and Loathing in Jess-land.
"Good God! What are these fucking animals?" As soon as she had passed Electrilolliland, she had come to an amorphous miasma of severed, floating, half-formed story outlines, napkin doodles, angry unsent letters to magazines, fake suicide notes, embarrassing fan-fiction, bloody horrible poetry, editorial rants, and substance-induced incoherent ramblings. It was horrific and terrifying-Jess felt herself slipping into the Fear-but she braced herself against the vengeful specters of her own failed literary pursuits.
"Must. Meet. Jhonen. Vasquez. Must. Ask. Out. On. Date." Without stopping to study their habits she accelerated on through-soon enough she knew she would come upon the proverbial Fork-In-The-Road. And she did- almost meeting a fiery end at the hands of her own feloniously reckless driving as she skidded to a stop before the Crossroads of Cliché. In one direction lay the Architecture of her Literary Impetus (at least that's what it said on the road sign), and in the other lay the path to Elsewhere, impossible to continue on via automobile. She wasted no time debating between going forward or turning back-instead she pondered over whether she should run the rest of the way through the foreboding ambiguity. She thought better of this (on principle she never did the "running"-thing, she always strolled) lest she over-navigate and accidentally find herself in Nowhere (a destination she was all too aware her life might be heading) and compromised by sashaying her way between fictional planes.
After a period of un-quantifiable brain synapses (she couldn't tell if it had been two hours or two minutes) she felt her body become subject to an unsettling, but relatively painless physical metamorphosis. She was determined to be pissed off if she ended up looking like a cockroach. However she found herself surrounded by alien, but recognizable, environs. She was making good time past a "Taco Hole", a Starsucks Crappee (she noted that the pretentious coffee chain was omnipresent, even in her own plane of reality) and was within proximity of a small child being viciously maimed by some sort of small, rodent-like mammalian. She had succeeded. She caught her reflection in a stylized corporate plate-glass window.
"Holy-eating-disorder, Jem-girl-I'm skinny! Dolce Gabanna skinny! Fucking- ay!" Off-model, but still recognizably herself, Jess realized that she had been drawn in a completely different style than she was used to-Jhonen's style. That was another thing she wasn't sure would work. Just as during the rest of her journey, she didn't question the means of this transformation nor the various improbable forces that brought her into this current set of circumstances. When fucking with imaginary quantum mechanics, the laws of subjective reality, metaphysical paradigms, and the other stupid secrets of the universe, it's probably best not to question the capricious mechanisms and deities benevolent enough to make it all possible.
The gawking denizens of Jhonen-Land made Jess realize just how ridiculous she looked sashaying down the sidewalk. She abruptly stopped-the violence of this motion conflicting with her exponentially accumulated inertia, and nearly toppled ass over ankles onto the concrete.
"It's just a dance move-I swear," she announce to the now disinterested crowd. Feeling slightly pathetic she muttered, "Ignore them, Jess. They have no idea that you've just conquered the natural laws of existence. They have no idea, because you're super-cool. Manifest will determines all- Nietzsche this, fuckers!" She felt immediately better.
Now that she had succeeded in her initial endeavor of, well, relocation, it was on to Plan Two. Unfortunately, there was no Plan Two; Plan Two had been back-burnered as her over-stimulated brain was otherwise consumed with whether or not the mad scheme that was Plan One would actually work. Now it wasn't a matter of GETTING TO Mr. Vasquez but FINDING him. Jess was in a quandary. She had two applicable courses of action (turning back was not one of them)-and either scenario completely, in Jess's opinion, sucked ass. Her inherent aversion to computers (they spent more time getting loaded than even SHE did) made any method of Internet search unacceptable, and her equal disinclination towards telephone conversation or any interaction with superfluous people made 411 another odious option. Jess fucking hated quandaries. However, the latter of the two evils pointed her to a solution that was nothing less than inspired. When the situation proves bleak and all alternatives seem to direct you towards despondent feelings of inadequacy, there are always-the Yellow Pages.
Yet again, good 'ole verbal competency saves the day.
Filled with conviction and reassuring feelings of intellectual capacity, Jess began to take decisive steps towards her intended destination-a dilapidated, age-yellowed tomb hanging by chain from a derelict phone booth. Unfortunately, this phone booth was also surrounded by a quay of highly-suspect black-clad Mabellene-sporting characters who ogled her serviceable décolletage as she ravaged through the much-abused directory. They sniggered, Beavis and Butthead-style, the entire time. Goddamnit.
"(Sigh) Look, Inane Ass-clown Posse, take a picture. It will last longer," she could've been nicer, but her comment went over their heads anyway. A greasy victim of a bad Manic Panic dye confrontation slammed the phone directory closed and leered at her.
"Can I help you?" She said, perfectly deadpan, but then she heard a voice that tried too hard to sound creepy/seductive, but falling piteously short of this goal, it lisped in her ear instead.
"Eey poossie keht-I vont do zuck zyour blahd."
"What did you just call-you want to suck my what?" she sputtered incredulously as her face twisted with a mixture of mild disgust and utter stupification. She whirled around, index finger swishing out the spittle he had lodged in her ear canal, and came face to face with an even greasier pale-face posteriorily violating her personal space. There was a pregnant pause as she examined his pock-marked face. Then she laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
Her guffaws resonated off the surrounding architecture. Then it digressed into uncontrollable hysterics until finally, a good while later, it trailed off into a contented sigh. She wiped away a tear that had formed in the corner of her eye; "Christ-alive I haven't had this much fun since I threw uncooked bacon at those patchouli-funk vegan tweaker-bastards that one time. Oh, please stop. Any more of this might compromise my self-imposed Internet-generation ennui." She hoped that none of them were familiar enough with the word "ennui" to make the mistake of taking her seriously. But the ungainly party had already skulked off dejectedly.
She looked around, trying to reorient herself, shrugged and turned her attention back to the phone directory, intent of finding her desired information when she was yet again distracted-this time by a pair of bugged- eyes peering at her from behind the business end of a park-bench. They belonged to some other sallow-faced personality she had failed to notice until just then (she briefly considered flashing her breasts at him to quell any interest this person might have in staring at her).
"You were laughing at him-do you think he's some kind of joke?" said the disembodied voice of said personality. Its owner had obviously mastered a degree of hollow creepiness.
"Well no-I mean kind of.more like a bad joke from some cancelled network- revival of the Adams Family-have we met?" She couldn't shake the feeling that she recognized this new entity-but before any cognitive memory or even another witty remark could form in her head, the set of eyes produced a face, then a body, then limbs, and these things suddenly jumped at her. Jess was rendered incapable of any action or memory beyond the dumb, quarter-sized "O" her mouth had puckered into.
[This is Jess blacked out for several hours.]
Jess awoke irate and ready to sodomize someone with a splintering wooden cooking spoon. She was now in some sort of basement with a rather jaundiced, intense young man glaring at her. She looked at her left ankle- it was shacked to the floor. Other than that, she was unharmed but her things had been confiscated, presumably by the man now inching closer to her. She really needed a cigarette. She gave her foot an experimental jiggle. The chain was bolted fast to the floor. She then turned her attention to her assailant.
"Who are you and what's this all about?"
"Oh right. Manners. My name is Johnny C. But you can call me Nny for short."
"Right. I already know who you are."
"Oh. Well who the fuck are you?"
"Jessica Elizabeth Marquette-Jess to the lazy, Jem to the lucky. I would shake your hand-but both of yours seem to be occupied with.well, knives.so I guess you can call me the Snuggle Bear if you felt so inclined."
"Hmmm. Ooh, ooh! Can I call you Mr. Jinggles?"
"No."
"You lied, you said."
"It's MS. Jinggles."
"That's right you're a girl."
"And you're a boy-now who's observant?"
"And just like any other pretty girls, you're soooo beautiful on the outside, but soooo ugly inside. I KILL YOU NOW!!"
"Time out! Listen, bungus; judging from all of your.accouterments.I'm sure you know how not pretty organs are. As for the rest, while I appreciate the compliment, I must protest to being only reasonably attractive. That aside, please spare me your indulgent monologue on social injustice-better yet, let's discuss this concept of justice." He hesitated, she knew she had him.
"Your words mean nothing to me," he said back off a bit, "but still, I will humor you. Don't try anything, though-I am still going to kill you." He menaced her with his knife for dramatic effect.
"First of all, I'm not even supposed to be here. I mean, I'm not even a Goth-more of an emo kid, but not really (Dashboard Confessional sucks). By killing me, you might irreversibly damage the fabric of space and time. See, I was trying to meet this guy, Jhon."
"Your futile appeals for your life change nothing. You were making fun of that guy, so now you deserve what's coming to you."
"Who, Jhonen? No, see, I'm trying to ask him out on a date."
"That guy at the phone booth-you were.rude."
"Rude? Rude! Listen, that guy was accosting me with plastic fangs! Of course I laughed at him-it was ridiculous. I certainly don't expect to be taken seriously-anyone who habitually pretends to be Count Fuckula shouldn't either."
"But your judgment has no basis. You assume a level of equality when it's obvious that your social status puts you in a position of deliberate contempt."
"Right. Now who's judging people? Look, I'm the first to admit what a horrible person I am. I've lied about my SAT scores, laughed at people who've suffered great indignities, and I voted for Ralph Nadar. But for every socially-challenged boy I dated for two days in junior high and then dumped because I didn't want my cool friends to stop hanging out with me, there's ten dreamy punk rock boys that grew up from being dumped by stupid 14-year-olds like me and because of that they won't date me now. After every failed relationship, I think about how cool those boys really were, and how maybe I might have been happier with them, than hanging out with the asshole friends I ended up with. So yeah, I'm already dealing with the consequences of being a shitty person due to lack of self esteem. I'm not going to go into some detailed account of my misanthropic adolescence, and why, until recently, I had no self esteem. Suffice to say that to make up for it, I've finally, in my twenties, become a well-adjusted person capable of treating other people decently. And to various degrees it's the same for the other people as well. The behavior is compensating for their own miserable inadequacies. That doesn't make them any less shallow or stupid, but it doesn't make them any more so than your petty suburbanite-Gothic affectations or my indie rock pretensions of urbanity. True, they are horrible, shitty people. Fuck people, people suck. More power to you for your initiative-I envy your motivation. Patrick Bateman would find you inspired. Then again, your traumatic childhood hardly justifies any right you have to play judge, jury, executioner et al. Your actions put you on equal terms as those who you are punishing. This makes the converse also true. All those meat-heads you are so intent to represent your childhood demons are as justified in their treatment toward you, me, and any other hairless- monkey with an equal vendetta against them. Your hypocrisy is laughable, social message is without worth, and ethical argument groundless."
"Who's Patrick Bateman?"
"He's in this book 'American Psycho'; I think you'd like it."
"Are you done?"
"I guess so, yeah."
"I kill you now?"
"If you really want to."
"You're not afraid?"
"No-not when any multiple felon on my block could do so just as easily. No. Not really."
"You aren't afraid of pain? Of being tortured? None of that bothers you?"
"Well I imagine it would be unpleasant, but no. I know the pain will end and that when it does that means I'm probably dead. I've lived a life filled with good intensions. A lot of that life sucked, but it never made me into anything less than a decent person. I used to think that I would never be satisfied to die before completing a masterpiece that I would be remembered by. But I've recently come to the conclusion that I am my masterpiece-and I am as complex and vital as anything gracing the walls of a museum. I've seen all the places I need to see, and for those that didn't well I created them on paper all the same. I'm a little pissed off that I never did meet Jhonen Vasquez-but then again, we probably wouldn't have that much to talk about. But I have a family, and a friend on the other end of that cell-phone you took from me, they will all miss me should I suddenly disappear from their lives-and therefore, I have a history, and eventually-after you've killed me, I will also become a part of yours."
"That's depressing."
"Well life sucks all around. Give me my cigarettes."
"Smoking is bad for you."
"Yeah, I hear it kills people. And see, that's the whole point. What sort of artwork are you going to be when you die."
"To be honest, I haven't given much thought to my own death."
"That's unfortunate. If you had, you'd realize that killing people isn't even that special. It's not even interesting. Anyone or anything can kill a person. Destruction only creates more destruction, and that's predictable. It would be much more validating to create something, and I'm truly sorry you've lost the ability to do that. You can't even remember why you do what you do. You're not a piece of art-you're a piece of work. Now give me a cigarette. If I'm going to die, I'm going to do it on my terms."