Your distaste resource.
HOUSEHOLD GODS
8. Object
If you ask Ichigo about ghosts, he'll tell you that they're pains in the ass. They're impossible to please. They always have some sort of last request. And it doesn't matter if you tell them it's too late for those. They're dead, and it's too late. They'll just ask anyway. This one ghost, he wants his favor. He wants his last request. That one last right, that one phone call someone else had promised him; he wants it.
He says, "before I go, you just have to do this one thing for me." And he begins his telling, his life story. He spills it. All those dirty secrets you don't want to hear, he puts them all out there. He'd slept with his cousin, the pretty brunette. He couldn't resist and she'd wanted it too. He wasn't to blame. It's not his fault. And his wife's tabby cat, he hated it. So one night he took it to the garage.
He'd told his wife that Gary the cat wasn't at the door that morning. He must be out playing. And each night while his wife slept, he'd go out to the garage with a kitchen knife and hack away a limb. The first night it's Gary's back leg. He brought it into the kitchen, inside a grocery bag. And Gary would leak onto the floor, just a drip here and there. He would put the bag in the sink and rinse off the knife, then he'd get to work. That first night, he put Gary's leg into the In-Sink-Erator. The first time he does this, he's so excited that he doesn't really think it through.
Gary's leg, it's bent at the knee in the drain. His soggy thigh is humped over in the metal sink. So when he reaches for the button and presses it, Gary's leg makes like a typhoon. Gary's radius and ulna, and all those little, bony digits are getting grinded in the disposal. Really, it sounds like you're eating croutons by the handful.
Gary's thigh is spinning around the in sink, thumping around like a suffocating fish. And it's splattering out so high that it paints the ceiling. Above the sink, if you look straight up, there's still little bits of dried Gary. Really, who looks up there anyway?
So the second night, he shoves Gary's other leg right down the tunnel. He runs the sink so that water drains down constantly, and then he presses the button. Gary grinds away, snapping like croutons. This time there's no mess. When he goes back upstairs, he squishes some Purell between his palms and gets back into the bed. He lies next to his wife, his poor, grieving wife; she misses Gary.
He dies in the morning, hit by the garbage truck. Now, walking behind Ichigo he says, "just this one thing. My last request." The cat, Gary the cat, he's still in the garage. He's already dead; bleed out through the shoulders, just a stumpy pile of meat.
His wife, no doubt she'll find it. She'll go into the garage looking for something, anything. Maybe she'll wander in searching for that washing machine he'd sworn he'd fix. It's in there too. That white and rusted machine, what's lying next to it is Gary, dead and sticky Gary. When she finds it, the dead cat, she'll know everything. How he'd chopped him up every night. She'll know that those really long bathroom trips, during the night, weren't bathroom trips. She'll pick up Gary by the head and his body well dangle from side to side. Gary, who looks like he's been slid through a paper shredder, and she'll know everything.
All Ichigo has to do, he says, is sneak into the garage and bury the cat. It won't take much of his time. Just bury the damn cat. Hide it. Wipe the blood. By now it must be just be a black, crusty puddle; he could just sweep it away, all that blood. It's just like black dandruff. Easy.
He'd do it, right? It's just this one thing. His last request.
…
Ichigo walks through the doorway. He shuts the door behind him. On the couch is Rukia watching TV. She says, "Welcome back."
He kicks off his boots. The grooves of the soles are packed with soil. He wiggles his fingers at Rukia and says, "Where's Renji? I got a story that'll top last month's subway explosion." With his brown fingers typing in the air, he says, "You won't believe what I had to do."
"I don't know why you humor those souls, Ichigo," her eyes staring at the television, she says, "You shouldn't be meddling with the living anyway."
His fingers drop.
"That's what you do, don't you?" she asks. "You say goodbye to the lovers they left behind, or you turn the oven off in their house; you set little Ana's alarm so she won't be late for school…"
"I buried a cat."
"Why did you bury a cat?"
"It was his last request."
"There are no last requests when you're already dead."
"I know, but they don't get that."
"So you bury their cats?"
"It was," he frowns, "a one time thing… Do you want me to rub your feet?"
In the morning, Ichigo is squirming in the stale bed. He hears Renji shouting his name from the bathroom. Telling him to come over there for a minute. So he brings his feet over the bed and pads over. Without knocking he pushes open the bathroom door. Renji, he's standing there pointing to the floor, he says, "step."
"It's too early for this," Ichigo says, his voice sleepy, but he gets onto the scale anyway. The two men, they watch that red needle jiggle. Watch it dance over the numbers. Renji is holding his breath as they wait for the pin to settle. And it settles only for a moment before it leaps onto the three hundred pound mark. Renji has his foot on the scale between Ichigo's legs. He pushes down on it hard. "This is bullshit," he says, pressing on the scale and making the needle jump.
"Hey," Ichigo says, yawning. "You'll break it."
"Damn thing's already broken! There's no way you're that much lighter than me!"
"How heavy are you?" and Ichigo yawns again.
Renji's face gets hot, he says, "One hundred and seventy-two pounds."
And Ichigo snorts. "Fatso."
"That's it! I'm going running," and Renji rushes out of the flat. Renji is always running. He's always counting calories. On the table, next to Ichigo's shiny, new mail order phone, is a scrap of paper with Renji's writing. He writes down everything he eats and calculates some number at the end of each day. He calls it his food journal. Ichigo, he calls it 'fat diary'.
When Renji's out running, like he always is, Ichigo sits at the table. He grabs the blue pen and changes the numbers on the fat dairy. He makes every three an eight. He just mirrors the three. So now it's eight hundred calories for breakfast instead of three hundred. He draws a circle with eyes and labels it 'Renji'. He does this every morning before he leaves for work. And Rukia just says, "Doesn't that get old?"
And Ichigo always answers, "no."
This morning she sits at the table. She stares across its wooden expanse to look at Ichigo. She says, "What's going on between you two?"
"Nothing," he says, "well except… you know."
And she says, "Maybe, but what's going with you? You seem… down." And really, how honest can he be? Rukia, she looks at him with her big, purple eyes. He'll never let on. He won't tell, not a word. It's private, personal.
He says, "It's just a funk. That's all."
On the bus, the one he takes to work, he stands upright holding onto the roof handle. Out the window he watches the passing city. He sees people, all those people; who are alive and living. He thinks of how badly he wants his life back. Before he'd died, he'd never kissed anyone. He never had a girlfriend. He never had sex.
All these things he hadn't done. He wasn't ready to die, but he did, and Renji had been there too. A stupid, grinning face. A shinigami worried about the percentage of fat in his body. He was there to take Ichigo's soul.
For every grand, life-changing event in your life, there's a person attached to it. When you're born, life-beginning, it's your mother. It's your father. It's all those fucking relatives whose names you'll never remember. They're all just a link in the chain of sperm.
When you go to school for the first time, life-changing, there's a shitload of attached people. Teachers and their class of brats, lunch ladies and janitors, they're all fucking leeches on your life. Here, at life changing, it's the biggest section of your life. This is where you grow and mature. You'll fall in love and have babies, own a car and have an affair. Then, you butcher your wife's cat. At least, this is how it's supposed to work.
Ichigo, he feels ripped off. He doesn't get to fall in love or have sex. He doesn't even get the money back from the vending machine that crushed him. It's a double rip off. What he gets is an advance pass to life-ending. The finale. What he gets is Renji.
When you're fresh off the chopping block, when you're new dead meat, you're desperate for a friend. You need that person to attach to your life changing event, your life-ending. For Ichigo, this person is Renji.
When you die, you're the most alone you've ever been. You just aren't ready for it. Not even those old people who want to die are ready for it. You can wait for death, but you're never ready for it. It's like culture shock. Not even photographs can prepare you.
You see pictures of the Taj Mahal and you fly on a plane to India. You may even know the history of the Madhya Pradesh, but as soon as you get off that plane, it's too much. It's too bright; too fantastic. Culture shock. Maybe you manage to adjust. Maybe you covert to Hinduism and wear a pure silk lehnga cholis; but as soon as you've got to use the bathroom, and you're directed to a ditch, culture shock. You just aren't ready.
When Ichigo looked up to that bright, grinning face, he wasn't ready. He'd said, 'that's not fair.' Give me my life back. But that redheaded prick, he just shook his head and for Ichigo, it was an instant attachment.
Ichigo, latched onto the leech of his life-ending.
His dead life revolves around the man who started it, around Renji, because when you're alone and shocked, you need a leech. You need that one person to attach to the too big event. And without even meaning to, you're obsessed.
Everything relates to the leech. You need him. You can't be dead without him. You're so attached that you fall in love without actually falling in love. So in love you just touch to touch- because he's all you think about. He's all you know.
Without him, you can't be dead.
…
Ichigo works the nine to five. All day he's at the community center setting tables. He folds the napkins into tight origami, sets the forks by the knives and polishes the wine glasses. One hundred and fifty tables, all set by three o'clock.
As he takes the bus home, turning onto the street of the stolen flat, he sees Renji running on the sidewalk. The bus, it can't even catch up with him. By the time Ichigo reaches the front doors of the building, Renji's nowhere in sight.
He's already up in the flat, showering. Models. Rukia, she's on the sofa watching TV again. Without taking her eyes off the screen, she says to Ichigo, "Welcome back." And with a nod Ichigo heads into the kitchen. This how it begins.
In a few moments Rukia well escort herself out the door, and the front desk well receive a noise complaint.
Ichigo, he's reaching into the fridge. He gets a good grip on the cool, glass jar of preservatives. The water of the shower stops and Ichigo gives the lid a twist. His fingers slip around in a full rotation. The lid doesn't budge.
Behind the sofa, Rukia hears Ichigo's thudding footsteps. He marches across the room with the jar in his hand and opens the door to the bathroom with the other. She hears Renji yell, "Knock first, you moron."
And Ichigo starts screaming back. The lid on the jam; it's too tight. He knows that it's Renji's doing. Knows it.
Renji says, "I don't eat jam!" And he doesn't, too much sugar. A non-food.
It doesn't matter if he doesn't eat it. It's still him.
Renji yells, "How do you figure that?"
He must go around and tighten them all while no one is looking. It's obvious. He's looking to get back at everyone. He's angry and this how he expresses himself. Tightening the lids so tight that no one can open them.
Renji wraps himself in a towel, he says, "and why would I do that, eh? Why target the goddamn jam jars?"
Because he thought he could get away with it; because it's so low key, no one would say anything. Oh, and because it's fucking annoying and that's all he's good at, being fucking annoying.
"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard."
Well, if he actually listened to himself, like actually listened, he'd have to say that that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. Everything he says is stupid. He's stupid and he's tightening the lids.
Rukia gets up from the couch and excuses herself.
Renji, he shouts, "What's your problem, huh?" He jabs Ichigo in the chest, he says, "I got all the time in the world, but I still wouldn't waste my time tightening lids on your fucking jam jars. I have better things to do than try to get your attention."
Oh, like running? Like confiding in the fat dairy? Like acting like a fucking chick? What, no, he'd rather get slathered in makeup and hair shit and primp in front of cameras. Stripping for the entire nation. Real productive. Real manly.
Renji takes in a breath. He presses his forehead against the medicine cabinet and lets the air hiss out of his lungs. "Get out," he says.
What?
"Get out."
Who does he think he is? He can't—
And Renji shouts, angry and hateful, "get out."
Ichigo, for a moment, is stunned. He places the jar on the sink and leaves quietly, albeit furiously. Rukia passes him in the hall and then she steps into the flat. "Yeah," she says, "I talked to the guys at the front desk." She's back on the sofa. "So if you're not quiet while I watch The Days of Our Lives, they'll get cops up here. That is, cops at your stolen flat. Got it?"
Yeah. He got it.
9. Post Cognition
The rain beats down on his head. It's a wet night in Canon City and you're a rising star. Your face is plastered on billboards, your stomach is pasted into magazines and your crotch is broadcasted on television. Probably, if you look inside the lockers of highschoolers, your photo is taped up.
You're so renowned. You're so hot. Just look at you; but that's it. Walking down the road alone, just look. He walks on ahead, those designer sneakers becoming more and more soaked. He's thinking, what a beautiful day. He's so hopped up on Vicodins that he's practically numb with enjoyment. The dark storm feels just like warm hot jets on that moisturized and waxed skin. He opens his palms into the speedy rainfall; the wet drops smack against his manicured hand.
And he walks until the road and grass become just gravel and rock. He's thinking about who he is. He is sex. On the covers, on the pages, on the signs, he is sex. In front of that camera, you're not thinking about trying to be sexy; you're thinking about sex. You think about that girl from last night. How you were humping and sighing. You think about rough grabs and mouths going everywhere. To that camera you're just sex. And when they look at your picture, those editors and photographers, what they see are themselves getting laid.
Caught in your eyes is that left over pleasure. They look at it and want you. They want sex. They pay for it in their books and movies. When they're stuck in traffic, they pay to see sex painted on the billboards. There's you, almost naked, and presented to the public. While they swear toward the vehicles ahead of them, they're looking at you and getting themselves off. They get so hard and wet looking at you. This is what they pay for. This why you drive a Porsche and have a fake hair color.
He puts one soggy foot ahead of the other. Heel to toe. He walks along the edge, so high up over the gorge. And he's swaying all over the place, but he thinks he's in control. Nothing can harm him. His world is painless.
He'd say he has never been happier. Since he stopped eating bread, since he ostracized pasta, he's never felt better. His head is so light and his stomach so empty. And he's never been healthier. He's so content with his life. There's nothing more to want.
What's so special about a family, or love, or doughnuts? Fuck that. He didn't need them. Waking up in the morning with strangers is just fine. He didn't need commitment or gatherings. He didn't need to know he was loved. He was adored and that was enough. He had money and that was enough.
He grips onto the metal cord, stretched taut across the steel frame of the Royal Gorge Bridge. Looking down into the canyon he says, "God?" And it doesn't even echo. Nothing.
He says, "God if your down there," and takes a breath, "you really fucked things up for me." His red hair flies over the edge, soft tresses tugging him forward. A step and he'll pummel into the gorge. "But," he says, "I'm willing to forgive you. I'll be the bigger man here." He stares down into the dark, his belly stuffed with painkillers. He doesn't feel a thing. He says, "I just wanted you to know. Oh, and did you see the new board off River street? I looked pretty damn good, eh?"
And he steps over the edge.
10. Hegemony
When Ichigo gets home from work, there's a splash of blood on his jacket. He says, "Axe murder on Wing Street. I caught the head like a football. It was an automatic reaction."
"Welcome home," Rukia says with her eyes on the television.
"Where's Renji?" He asks and glances around the flat, watching a hefty weight roll next to the bed.
"If he's not in the kitchen, then he's running."
There's a knock at the door. Ichigo looks at Rukia. "You think it's the owner?"
Rukia says, "the owner wouldn't knock. He'd have a key."
So Ichigo opens the door. His brows press into a scowl. "I suppose you want to come in?" he says and the dark haired man glares.
He says, "if you wouldn't mind." And Ichigo steps aside. Rukia jumps off the couch and embraces the man.
"Brother," she says. "How are you? What brings you here?"
"Work," he says. "A contact in Berlin, but I thought I'd stop by first." Ichigo's eyes follow the man. "You look well." And Rukia nods. "And Ichigo, you look the same."
"You too," he says, watching, staring.
Byakuya smiles. Looking at Rukia, he says, "And how's Renji? Where is he?"
"Not here," Ichigo says over Rukia.
"Out running," she says, looking at her brother. "Who knows when he'll be back? You know how he is. I could call him?"
"No, don't worry about it. I wouldn't want to bother him," he smiles.
"Let's have some tea," Rukia says, hopping into the kitchen. The men follow and sit across from each other, a staring contest. "So, brother, tell us about your trip here."
"It was uneventful," he says. "But I suppose I should tell you, we've predicted an upsurge in human fatalities. So be prepared for an increase in appointments."
"What is it?" Ichigo says, "weather?"
"Death works like a math equation, Ichigo," he says. He opens his hand, "on one side, you have the living," he opens the other, "and on the other side, you have the dead. Both sides must be equal at all times or the equation is unbalanced." He puts his palms together. "So when one side gets heavy, it's a simple matter of balancing it out."
"Addition and subtraction, huh?" Ichigo muses. "Is that how you see people? As numbers in your grand equation?"
"No. It's just how a God sees the world."
Rukia puts two mugs on the table. "I don't like tea," she says and pushes the cups toward the men. "Thanks for the advance notice, brother. I'll pass it on to Renji. You know he'll be mad about it." And she laughs, "he's so apathetic."
"Yes," Byakuya says, touching the warm mug. "I know."
…
Renji, this night, he doesn't come home and no one is entirely surprised. Byakuya, he says, "it's becoming quite late and I have a plane to catch come morning. I should go."
Rukia kissing him on the cheek, she says, "Visit soon." He nods to Ichigo and walks out the door. They listen to his light footsteps down the hall. Ichigo swallows.
He says, "I know he's your brother and everything, but I can't stand him."
"I know."
"There's something going on between him and Renji."
"I know."
"This the second time he's visited and Renji's been nowhere in sight. It's like he just disappears off the planet."
"I-"
"-You know? I know."
Rukia lies down on the bed. "He'll be back in the morning, probably. Ichigo…" and her voice fades. He sits next to her on the mattress. "Renji… he's special to you?" Her voice is careful but unreserved.
"As if," the boy says, his face in a scowl. Renji is the leech of his life-ending. He is the person attached to the too big event; without him, he cannot be dead. Ichigo, he's obsessed with Renji.
"I think Renji is… special to my brother." Rukia's eyes watch the TV from the corner. The light is reflected in her eyes. Without looking at him, she says, "do you understand?"
And the fan rattles on the nightstand.
…
Renji sits on a wooden park bench. He blows into his hands and rubs them together. The cold is bitter. He sticks his finger into his mouth, letting his hot saliva defrost it. He has nowhere to go. He cannot go home.
He thinks about crawling into that stale bed, worming inside the covers between Ichigo and Rukia. On the nights he couldn't get to sleep, he would squirm as Ichigo called it. He would kick his feet into the sheets and nudge the boy with his arms. Sometimes he would blow on his soft, orange tresses or bite the boy's ears. Ichigo, he would huff and eventually wake up. He would make an ugly face and say, "knock it off."
Of course this was only encouragement. Renji would wait for the boy to doze, and then he'd slap him on his stomach or his sides. On some nights he would shake the boy awake again. Ichigo would stare at him, completely dumbfounded. He'd say, "what the hell is wrong with you?"
Renji, he'd respond that he couldn't sleep. Often, during these nights, Rukia would migrate to the sofa.
Sitting on the park bench, Renji folds his hands together. He rocks back and forth as his white breath dissipates into the dark. Another night he couldn't sleep, too afraid to go home. Fear, shining bright and ordinary.
Behind him, he hears light footsteps. Perhaps night patrolmen coming to shoo him, but this is wishful thinking. Behind him is not anyone alive. Renji knows this. Coming towards him is Byakuya Kuchiki. The ghost he couldn't forget, his haunted memory. The unwelcome face on the Royal Gorge Bridge, telling him he was dead.
An arm comes around Renji's neck and Byakuya says, "I found you."
And Renji says, "yeah."
The air of the motel room warms Renji's skin. Byakuya shuts the door behind him, he says, "I have to be up early tomorrow." The light bulb on the ceiling shines dimly. Renji sits on a large bed and watches as the other man walks toward him. He kneels between Renji's knees.
Renji says, "don't. Leave me alone." A mouth comes onto his neck and he's pushed under Byakuya. He stares at the light, he says, "stop," but the mouth keeps moving. It keeps sucking. A tongue slides down his chest, his shirt already discarded. A hand fondling between his legs and Renji says again, "Don't. Stop."
Byakuya just ignores him. He always says this and it means nothing. He says, "Renji, get on your knees." And Renji just lies there. Teeth sink into his shoulder, he says, "I want you on your knees."
Renji, looking up at the ceiling, he says, "go to hell." And now his face is sinking into the sheets, Byakuya's hand at the back of his head. His body flipped, stomach pressing against the bedding. Renji breathes in the small threads of the sheets, sucking for air. On his lower back, he can feel Byakuya's hips. Again he says, "don't." He says, "stop."
Fingers curl around his throat, a voice at his ear says, "you want this. You want to be fucked so bad you can't stand it." You can smell the lube coating the other man's dick. You can smell the musk in his hair and you already feel everything that's about to happen. He says, "don't you?"
And Renji fists the sheets. He hides his face from the man and says nothing. Byakuya, he says, "You don't really want me to stop." The tip of his head fitting into Renji, he says, "You want this." And Renji hisses as the man presses into him. A hand snakes between his belly and the sheets, lifting him onto his knees. Renji grabs onto the headboard, his grip damp and sweating. He clenches his jaw tight, Byakuya slamming into him from behind. The man's voice whispering, "this is what you want. You want this."
You hate yourself so much as this man brings you to your climax, his hard dick sliding in and out of you. Hate yourself, because you don't want him to stop.
…
"Oh," Ichigo says, his hand around the door handle. "Look who decided to come home." Renji pushes past the boy and heads straight for the bed. He burrows underneath the stale sheets. "Hey! Aren't you even going to say hello?"
Rukia heads out the door. "I'll be back by two. I have to watch Young and the Restless." Her heels echo as she walks down the hallway. Ichigo shuts the door. He sits next to Renji.
"Hey," he says and Renji says nothing. "You have so much explaining to do," he says softly, but Renji doesn't respond. "Tomorrow. Or now."
Renji says, "Check my cell for me?"
"Already did," he says. "One appointment at 15:08:01. John Street." Ichigo presses his lips together. "Where did you go?" he asks, letting out a breath, "last night?"
"The park," Renji says, his voice muffled by the bed sheets. Ichigo sighs, running two fingers into the man's damp, red hair. It smells of shampoo, of conditioner.
He says, "you showered before you came here." And that's all he needs to say. He lifts himself from the bed and says, "I'm heading off to work." Renji doesn't say good-bye and Ichigo heads out the door.
…
On John Street at 3341, a store is having its logo replaced. Trucks are stationed in front of its automatic doors, orange pylons directing you around the construction. People are walking in and out. All the while this man is drilling up the letter 'S'.
Renji stands beside the truck. In a minute someone is going to die, probably violently. He looks at the newly fashioned letters and thinks, hazard. A few seconds to go and this large man carrying a bag of kitty litter steps out the door. Renji thinks, this is it. He starts moving.
Above his head, a drilled letter loosens. It tears from the wall and the guy with the kitty litter gets pancaked by the letter 'E'. The logo, it reads, P TS. His soul stands empty handed next to Renji, he says, "fucking fantastic."
Renji puts his arm around the soul's shoulder and says, "alright. Are we ready?" And they walk around the orange pylons.
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