Chapter Two
American Idol

 —

I’ve always had a bit of a memory problem. To be honest it’s not anything that’s ever caused me an inordinate amount of trouble, and the various prescriptions I down with bravado over the course of each day help to keep the more troublesome aspects of my disorder at bay. But though the pills help to ensure that I have enough cognitive ability to make it through life rather unscathed, I’ve never truly been cured, with tiny bits and pieces of my memory seeming to slip away while I’m not looking. “Blanks” I call them, voids of nothingness that scream at me for substance.

Once such blanks were a constant annoyance. These days, I’ve learned to ignore them almost entirely. I figure there are enough kids dying of consumption in third world countries that forgetting what year it is now and again is a decent enough hand to have been dealt. Inconsequential things like that:  forgetting if I’ve brushed my teeth; if I’ve eaten lunch; or for instance this very moment, staring deep into the supermarket’s refrigerated abyss, not knowing whether I’d meant to purchase milk or not.

Lost in the dairy section’s chilling embrace, I can’t be sure.

I curse myself inwardly for not having made a list, though for all I knew I’d wrote one out in advance of my shopping trip, only for another lapse of memory to leave it neglected on the kitchen counter. Racking my brain for an answer I manage to find a faint recollection hanging somewhere towards the back of that dim cavern. Nothing well defined, simply the faint sensation of dry cereal filling my mouth, the lack of chilled bovine secretion causing this rough processed grain to steal an inordinate amount of my body’s natural internal moisture as it burrowed deep into my digestive system. But for all I know that particular meal had occurred months ago, a phantom memory from an undefined era.

On the bus returning home I press the button to signal my stop, noticing the words “No Milk” scrawled in my own hasty typeface across the back of my left hand. Gathering up my groceries I glance down, a freshly-purchased carton of milk peeking at me through the top of the plastic bag, mockingly.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, a child dies from malaria every 30 seconds. 7,884,000 children a year.

All things considered, I think I’m doing alright.

I arrive home without incident, clicking my Walkman off as I prod the front door open with a foot. In the living room I find my uncle’s armchair notably empty, the sad piece of furniture sagging low after years of supporting my legal guardian’s sizable beer gut. Leaving the grocery bags on the table in the adjoining kitchen, I return to the living room to helpfully gather up the various aluminum beer cans scattered about, bending to snatch the few empties which have taken up residence in the thick shag carpet. Depositing the armload of potential nickels into the recycling bin, I briefly wonder as to my uncle’s whereabouts, though seeing as his car is parked in the driveway I can only assume he’s in his workshop. Not that I cared to actually confirm this belief. I’d learned long ago that it’s usually a bad idea to venture into the workshop without good reason, assuming one desires to return unscathed.

As I open the fridge I’m forced to frown, placing the freshly bought carton of milk beside its countless untouched brothers. Rather than dwell on my failings, I reach for the single open container, a tired king hiding behind his proud pawns. With the paper carton to my lips I drink greedily, anxious to drown my thoughts of the phantom cereal. Wiping  my mouth on a sleeve I move to retrieve the freshly purchased box of toaster pastries from the bag beside me, though as my unskilled fingers lose their grip I’m instead greeted to the sound of biscuits wrapped in cheap foil clattering onto the tile floor. In the back of my mind I consider a society where such an abstract sound is considered the pinnacle of art, and in my clumsy lack of talent I am regarded as their greatest maestro. I take my bow, grumbling as I bend over and scoop up the mess I’ve made before rising to return the snacks to their perch above the microwave, and it’s in that moment that the fallacy in my previous statement becomes clear.

There is no microwave. There had been a microwave, one which, even despite my failing presence of mind, I’m sure I’d used to nuke a breakfast burrito just that morning. All the remains now is an obvious microwave-shaped space on the counter, handily outlined by a few miscellaneous boxes of that accursed cereal and a squished loaf of white bread, still bearing bruises from having been inconsiderately shoved between this now vanquished appliance and the fridge. Unsure how to come to terms with the situation, I absentmindedly tear the foil from a corner of my toaster pastry and take a bite.

It was an action that confirmed nothing, yet seemed altogether correct.

I find my uncle in the garage, the patches of human features vaguely identifiable, obscured as they are behind racks of half-useful technology. I’m surprised to find him actually working, the impressive appearance of the expensive welder’s mask worn over his face offset by his traditional unkempt fashion, the flurry of sparks flying from the tiny torch working to illuminate every the numerous unknown stains covering his ratty white wifebeater and grey college trackpants. Too busy fiddling with the precise work on his workbench he doesn’t notice my entrance, unaware of the casual interest I’ve taken in his work, watching curiously while taking slow sugary bites of the cherry-flavored pastry still in my hand. Moving closer to the table I accidentally brush against some metal hosing hung from one of his many storage racks, the masked man looking up from his work as the coiled tubes clank angrily against themselves.

“You’re home!” He exclaims, raising his mask to reveal an excited smile framed by his scraggle of a beard. I’m unable to return the enthusiasm.

“The microwave is missing” I state simply.

“Microwave!” He laughs at the thought. I survey the scattered mass of wires and circuitry beside him and know that my beloved appliance is already dead.

Uncle David calls himself an inventor, though his profession serves largely as an excuse to get drunk before noon in the name of ingenuity. He’s one of those brash artistic types, callous poets who regard their own works as gifts to creation. In truth he’s only ever invented one actual marketable product, a highly effective (and corrosive) multi-purpose household cleaner called Miracle 9, the residual sales off which we live.

Once, after a particularly heavy night of drinking, my uncle revealed to me the truth behind this grand invention of his. It turns out that following a rather messy divorce from his second wife, he’d decided to attempt suicide by crude poisoning, mixing together a potpourri of whatever dangerous chemicals he could find around the house. The list of ingredients could fill the first few pages of a trashy pocket novel, though the bulk of the concoction was made up of Bleach, paint thinner, a box of alka-seltzer tablets, and a packet of grape Kool-Aid mix (for taste). Almost immediately after ingesting the swill he began vomiting, accidentally kicking over the bucket containing the mixture as he stumbled towards the bathroom. When he finally returned he discovered that his vomit had been miraculously dissolved, along with a corner section of the carpet.

The Miracle 9 bottle is understandably covered in a multitude of sternly worded warning labels. The Dutch apparently buy it in droves, for reasons unknown to myself.

My uncle considered his discovery a miracle, hence the name. Personally, I’ve always wondered what sort of Rube Goldberg-type deity would have the mind to destroy a man’s marriage only so that in the ensuing suicide attempt a new household cleansing product could be happened upon. Truly, the only real miracle is how he had managed to pour that swill down his throat and live to tell about it. But I’d never voice this opinion to my uncle. I respect him far too much, even despite his faults and occasional delusions of grandeur. Maybe he isn’t the ideal father figure, but he’s better than most, not to mention the only family I have.

“Let me tell you something my boy…” he says with a snide smile. “We don’t need a microwave anymore! In fact, America will never need a microwave again!” My uncle stands, taking what appears to be a gun from his table and pointing it in my general direction.

“Whatever the hell that is please stop aiming it at me dear god please” I plead in a stream of panicked dialogue, taking desperate cover behind my own arms. He approaches as I cringe, getting within execution range before suddenly snatching the half-eaten pop-tart from my hand. “Hey!” I protest, watching helplessly as he casually tosses the pastry onto his worktable.

“Time for a field test” he says, grabbing the lip of his welders mask. He looks at me suddenly, furrowing his brow. “You might want to stay back… you know, just in case.” I take this as my cue to hurriedly shield myself behind a piece of heavy sheet metal at the other end of the garage, peeking around a corner and waiting for the subsequent explosion. My uncle notes my position with a nod before quickly lowering his mask back into place, and before I can remember the words to the Lord’s Prayer he’s already begun, the gun lighting up with a fiendish orange glow that radiates through the vent holes he’s punctured through it’s plastic casing.

Despite my distance from the scene I’m almost able to recognize the design of the firearm. It’s one of those cheap toy ray guns, some cheap piece of Chinese plastic originally designed to fire ping pong balls or some other form of harmless projectile. I can only wonder what fiendish modifications he’s made. And yet despite the devilish glow and odd whirring noise the toy emits, nothing really seems to be taking place, at least nothing that I can discern. No laser beam, no catastrophic explosion, not even a puff of smoke. As my uncle sets the gun down I move forward to comfort him, as I often did following his numerous failures. But as he lifts the mask up there’s an unexpected grin across his face, eyes wide with dumb excitement. “It works! Dear god Watson it works!” he exclaims, and intrigued, I quickly rejoin my Uncle by his worktable.

At first I can find nothing of interest, though as I examine the pop tart further it becomes apparent to me what inspires his enthusiasm. The thin layer of confetti speckled icing has noticeably lost its former rigidity, the once solid white mass now slick with evidence of its failing structural integrity. Meanwhile, the large corner I’d bit open earlier leaks an obvious steam, a distinct cherry ooze trickling from the wound. And instantly I recognize the horror my Uncle has wrought.

“You built a microwave gun” I state in stunned silence.

“The Micro-Blast(TM)!” He declares, me already sure that a trademark symbol follows his rather obvious attempt at product branding. He spins around in his work chair towards me, still clutching the device in question like a ecstatic child. “All the convenience and efficiency of the modern microwave; now contained in the palm of your hand! Just press the button!” Before I can process my thoughts he’s already plucked the errant pastry from where it sits and taken a bite. “Perfection!” He declares, offering it to me with an extended hand. I recoil in horror.

“You built a microwave gun” I repeat.

“I… built… a microwave gun” he confirms slowly, as if speaking to a mental invalid. The smug smile remains plastered on his face. I breathe deep; shaking my head at the horrible implications.

“This is unfathomably irresponsible… there’s no way this can be safe.” He shrugs, taking another unadvised bite.

“What’s the problem?”

“Didn’t it occur to you that maybe microwaves are built a certain way by design?” I argue. “Like maybe they shield the rays behind a sturdy metal box for safety reasons?” He scrunches up his face in confusion.

“Hell, I don’t know about that sort of thing” he admits carelessly, looking around the room before again meeting my disconcerted gaze. “C’mon, don’t you think you’re over-reacting? Beside who’s going to be dumb enough to point this at somebody?” He jokes with a slight laugh. I look at him in disbelief, pointing towards the device in question.

“It’s shaped like a toy gun!” I decry. My uncle looks down at the object in his hands, the child’s plaything turned deadly weapon that he, in his shortsightedness, has created. There’s a brief moment of awkward silence shared between us, and when he finally moves to speak again I assume he’s come to his senses.

“Well… I mean this is just a prototype. I’m sure, they’ll put a disclaimer on the—“ As I turn to leave he’s already midway through a moral defense of his potentially hazardous invention, something which very quickly turns into a half-serious rant about my inability to recognize genius once he realizes I’ve already left the room. If his points are valid I’ll never know, already out of earshot, ears only picking up the occasionally expletive hurled into the hall.

Back in the kitchen I listen as the Chinese man on the other end of the line confirms my order, absent-mindedly staring into a microwave shaped hole in the world and picturing a platoon of child soldiers crossing a hill with rainbow-colored microwave weaponry in hand, boiling the brains of their countrymen as they go. I can see their deep sorrowful eyes, eyes which have witnessed horrors I could never comprehend. All of them silently asking me to put a stop to the madness before it even begins.

“I need to pay on a credit card” I tell these unfortunate youth. “Extra duck sauce if possible.”

—

In the bathroom mirror that night I examine my doppelganger curiously, pawing at his portrait like a confused animal. This is a nightly ritual for me, watching as the cascading waterfalls of drug-induced normalcy slowly recede, revealing the jagged and uneven stone beneath. Some are still so slow as to complain about how medication-dependent we’ve become as a country, with most every American now nurturing their own anxiety disorder / deficit-of-attention. What these complainers fail to recognize is that normalcy was redefined decades ago, and their (claimed) ability to navigate life without the aid of such chemical supplements made them the true freaks. Maybe our hunter-gatherer ancestors were content with simple distractions like fire and rape, but we had new needs now, need for the potions and tonics which helped to dull our never-ending despair.

Downstairs, my uncle sits passed out in his chair, a container of Microblasted(TM) moo-shu pork rotting away beside a phalanx of beer cans. My thoughts turn to my own meal, the ground-up remnants of sesame beef now quietly gestating in my stomach. Waves of sloshing digestive fluids mingling with grease and soy sauce, churning the organic matter around, breaking bonded amino acids down into base proteins for redistribution throughout my bloodstream. In this moment I am suddenly aware of myself, the various functions of my body not mere instinctual routines but instead the workings of a grand and precise machine. I can feel my lungs expanding, the slow steady beating of my heart, even the nervous crackling of electrical brain signals, which make this awareness possible. Looking into the mirror I see my audience, the lonely witness to my moment of revelation. I show him my body, constructed as it is of clear Lucite plastics, letting him bear witness to every internal mechanism, exposing to him the raw horror of our simple and meaningless existence. He looks at me blankly, unimpressed.

IC DIANACIPAM, 5MG TABLET MYL

There’s always been a disconnect between myself and that man in the mirror, that gaunt dumb beast with empty eyes. I’ve just never been convinced that that sad creature is truly a reflection of myself, unable to see anything more than some anonymous creep peering his way into my universe, some sinister intent hidden behind his complacent features.

I wish I could blame my eyes for this problem, but I had perfect 20/20 vision etched into my retinas with a goddamned laser beam sometime long before I can remember. The surgery is so simple now they even have kiosks for it at the Wal-World, automated booths operated by barely licensed community college grads. As impressive as the technology seems, I don’t believe it goes far enough. All around us right now exists a brilliant spectrum of radio waves, these endless vibrations cascading across the universe like a deep and endless ocean. Yet still humanity is unable to comprehend anything more complicated than what the pitiful visible light spectrum reveals to us? How can a man expect to truly know himself given these constraints? When all he sees is this flat chromatic world, inhabited only by himself, his lonely ego, and the bottle of prescription medication in his right hand, screaming voicelessly in thick black type:

TAKE 3 TABLETS BY MOUTH EVERYDAY AT BEDTIME

Normally I’d heed the demands of my orange idol, ending this flirtation with insanity by devouring greedily of his innards. Tonight I’m content to ignore the kingly decree, replacing the unsullied bottle in the bathroom cabinet and embracing my slide into delirium, the world beginning to warp and blur at the edges as I bid farewell to the man in the mirror. The hopeless vagrant says nothing, turning to take a similar exit. Hopefully the usher catches him on the way out and makes him pay for a ticket.

I stumble into my bedroom, the light from the hallway behind me spilling across the carpet, eventually coming to rest on the portrait atop my bedside table.  It’s a cheap director’s ploy but I fall for it all the same, making eye contact with the smiling couple, the young lovers eyeing me suspiciously from within the confines of their lacquer frame. As I watch, their features twist and distort, muted LED colors sliding around like oil, until it looks as if the pair is violently scowling. Closing the door behind me with a heel, the hall light disappears, and with it go the distortions, the two lovers again greeting me with familiar catalog smiles. Still, as I stretch out on the small twin mattress, an uncomfortable mood persists. Though I refuse to look, I can feel their eyes on me still, both judging this slow sad doppelganger who had replaced their son. Awkwardly I reach to turn the picture off, a futile attempt to hide from ghosts.

I once stumbled across some Christian literature, which argued that the concept of guilt proved the existence of a higher power. That such a complex emotion, the ability to both recognize wrongdoing and feel tangible shame and anguish regarding it, was beyond anything the universe could construct by happenstance. I’ve always wondered if that tiny mass-produced pamphlet was right. If the heavy feeling in my chest I got whenever I looked upon the picture at my bedside was not the result of some random evolutionary mutation, but rather the great will of the creator, having chosen to punish me for my one great crime. It was far from a rational punishment, especially considering my utter lack of involvement in the events that transpired.  Though from what I know of the Bible, a simple backwards glance was once worthy of the classic “pillar of salt” treatment. I should be thankful that god has gotten less creative with age.

That’s why, lying here in the horrible darkness, the waking world slipping away, I realize I cannot escape my fate. My finger rests on the tiny plastic nub, which would extinguish the dim electronic panel and vanquish my accusers, but it would be a useless gesture, the burden I bear too heavy to be simply forgotten, even knowing my condition. That was the cruelest irony of all, to have been cursed with a damaged mind, yet being unable to ever escape that one horrible moment. Forced to relive the scene again and again, still as clear and vivid to me as the day I first bore witness to it.

My birth.

I entered this world fully-formed, crawling forth from a womb of twisted metal and shattered glass out into the frozen air, gasping my first panicked breaths. I’m screaming then, in the memory I am screaming like the newborn that I am, a gash in my head spilling blood down my face as I try to stand and stumble, collapsing instead by the roadside. Behind me there is only carnage, so I do not look behind me. Instead, I stare blankly forward at the space between the guardrail and the ground, head resting on a pillow of sharp and dirty gravel. Beyond the confines of the guardrail these is nothing but dark sky, appearing to me like a portrait of deep blue framed by rusty and forgotten steel. If time passes I am unaware, watching wordlessly as the sun breaks through the ground and into the frame.  I am in awe of its brilliance, eyes assaulted by the light though I dare not blink away the tears. All pain forgotten as my entire being is engulfed by its burning embrace.

Several days later I awake in a white room, bathed in artificial florescent lighting, barely able to form a coherent thought. Various men come and go, poking and prodding me until basic functionality returns. At this point they begin asking questions from behind their clipboards, recording my scattered and failing recollection with precise strokes of ballpoint pens. One of them tells me everything will be all right.

He was a liar.

As I and these doctors would soon discover, I have developed a very rare form of retrograde amnesia. I remember nothing from before the crash, nothing of value anyway. The memories that remain having largely been reduced to unrecognizable blurs of color and sound, with the few tangible scenes too abstract to be worthy of critical study. Meaningless snapshots taken at random moments in time, photocopied enough times to render them almost completely unrecognizable. I am holding a woman’s hand in a department store. I am watching a man smoke a cigarette. I am crying because… a toy is broken? Because my favorite sugar cereal is sold out?

Whatever the reason for my former self’s dismay, it mattered little. The crash had knocked my past from me, severing any emotional connection I might’ve had with these scenes, so that as I watched that pair of mahogany boxes were slowly lowered into the earth, all I could think about was how uncomfortable the suit they’d made me wear was, playing anxiously with the loose sleeves while trying to ignore the other mourner’s stares. Everyone’s eyes were on me, all of them waiting for the appropriate emotions to overtake me. Waiting to see this unfortunate child put on the show they expected, waiting for me to cry and wail and curse fate and whatever else was considered the traditional juvenile reaction to tragedy. But I couldn’t. My parents were dead, that’s what they told me. But these people meant nothing to me, my scant memories of them too pitiful to inspire a sense of loss.

That’s when my first true emotion came to me, that first twinge of irreconcilable guilt. Only through this couple’s unknowing sacrifice had I entered this world, the single undeserving survivor of this tragedy, a damaged moron who served only to remind the world that something of value had been lost.

I was probably supposed to die in that crash.

Sometimes, I’m not so sure I didn’t.

Soon I found myself living with my uncle in Massachusetts, the only family member willing to foster a presumed sociopath like myself. Almost immediately I began collecting my government-sponsored medication, with a younger more hopeful me earnestly adhering to the drug regiment in hopes of forging through the tragedy and returning to normalcy. But despite my efforts, the scant memories I had of my former life continued to fade, as if my new body was rejecting its former soul.

For a long time I tried to hold onto these decaying moments, filling journals with elaborate descriptions of each minor recollection. I continued this practice for about a year, until the day I found my uncle passed out in front of a cop movie marathon, realizing that the angry mustachioed man I’d devoted pages of my memory journal to was simply Detective Griff Monterrey of the B-movie New Detroit Justice.

I burned my journals that same night.

That’s the problem I face now, the problem they can never fix. Regardless of how well the drugs temper my unstable chemical balance, or the various notes and other aids I employed to help keep my mind straight, nothing can return that past to me. I look at my peers with adoration, watching as they fill their days with idle pursuits; with hobbies and sports and other passions, all of them daydreaming of the grand futures lain out before them. As children they had declared their professions boldly. They were to be doctors and firemen, ballerinas and professional baseball players. Of course few (if any) of them would ever truly achieve these dreams, but even as their prospects of fame and glory continued to erode, there was still that spark left in them. They had once believed in something beyond their mundane simple lives, their childhood spark of short-sighted idealism enough to drag them unscathed through adolescence, driving them towards their true destiny.

Though while my peers ran headstrong down their own paths, I could only shuffle my feet at the starting line and act unawares that the race had even started. Even now, I have no true ambitions, no desires, no tangible goals. I am entirely lacking in that necessary youthful foolishness, that dumb unbridled optimism which the television instills in our six year olds; primary colored cartoon heroes telling them they can accomplish anything if they want it hard enough, telling them they can be whatever they want to be. But what did I want to be?

Who am I?

Not wanting to bother the world with my hesitation, I’ve resolved to instead sink into peaceful obscurity. I found it quite easy to become that quiet loner in the back of the classroom, wearing a look of passive melancholy to frighten off anyone who might approach, so forgettable no one even thinks to pick on me (maybe worried that if they do, I’ll return to school with a shotgun). Feigning my contentment, gritting my teeth and smiling stupidly for the cameras, all the while watching as the world slowly leaves me behind.

Filled with a bizarre resolve my eyes dart open suddenly, and I find that the room is bending inward on itself, the once rigid cube and it’s smart 90 degree angles suddenly turned to jellied horse hooves bathed in black dye. I stand suddenly, the rubbery floor rippling as I take unsteady steps toward the large double bookshelf across the room. Like many friendless misfits I was an avid reader, a habit I’d apparently inherited from my now deceased father, his former collection now helping to fill my own shelves. I’d also inherited his appreciation for outdated media formats, choose to seeking out well-worn copies of the classics in thrift stores rather than downloading any of the slick digital versions. This also means I haven’t read any book written since the print industry collapsed twenty years ago. Having seen the primary readers which pass for novels these days, I don’t think I’m missing anything.

Point is, books are a rare exception to my condition, the printed word lodging so firmly in my mind that I can recall even the most minute details of a tome with autistic precision. This is why I turned to their pages for the answer to my identity crisis. I read whatever I can get my hands on, from Kafka to cookbooks, from Proust to porno. Though I secretly find myself constantly drawn to the epics, the grand tales of old men sailing to the edge of the world, standing on a rocky shore while loudly proclaiming their defiance of fate. That’s the resolve that I long for, that strength of character, the refusal to settle for what most men would consider fulfillment. Burning so fiercely that one’s death births stars, passions made eternal in the night sky.

I reach towards the shelf then, running a hand across the leather and paper bindings, daring to touch the monstrous uneven teeth of the many-mouthed creature that looms over me, grinning cruelly. Mocking my thoughts of emulating the heroes it had long ago devoured. I know the fallacy of my desires of course. Besides the obvious fact that the time of the merchant ships is far past, I am someone barely courageous enough to try a new brand of soft drink, let alone consider venturing into the metaphorical belly of the beast with some manner of phallic Freudian weaponry held aloft in my hand. But though I try to disregard these fantasies as impossible, drowning them in the sweet candy pills and the smooth faceless complacency I feign in public— on nights like tonight, as the past returns to haunt and to taunt me, I still dream.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A gun fires and the arm jerks in recoil. My uncle’s career is saved by an accidental cleaning solution while somewhere in Deutschland a man eternally drowns his sorrows in a bottle of Miracle 9. And here I am, the invisible man. Standing naked in my bedroom, bathed in the slow rotating shadow of a ceiling fan, recklessly hoping something will arise out of the darkness and save me from my mediocrity.

Spotting my shadow on the wall my finger instinctively makes the shape of a gun, and with the cool glance of a prison sniper I turn and fire off a shot. Watching as invisible bullet silently exits the non-existent barrel, moving along a fantasy trajectory at the speed of nothing, a nonentity heading forever towards oblivion.

I wait for the recoil.