How to Terrify Your Girlfriend, Pt. 117
(taken from my best-selling expose on sexual politics, Men Are From Mars, Women are From the Blackest Pits of Scorching Eternal Agony Commonly Referred to as Hell)
by Chris Adams
Illustration by Jeff Taylor
O.K. It’s New year’s eve. Like every other New Year’s Eve of the past decade you’ve ended up at a half-assed party in a crumbling loft in the middle of some vacant bohemian ghetto. You’re surrounded by all the usual suspects: to your right there’s the standard contingent of ultra-pretentious art-chicks, all wearing exactly the same slinky black cocktail dress and Louise Brooks hairstyle, laughing in a self-conscious blase fashion at opaque jokes about obscure Somalian frescos…
Then of course there’s the usual drooling herd of baseball-capped, beer-swilling, bellowing Blowfish boys prowling ineptly for “some ‘tang” in between high-fives. In direct contrast, over to your left by the fake fern and “found art” there’s the wispy smattering of anemic post-grunge pretty boys sucking in their cheeks while frantically seeking wayward Details photographers. You’re half in the bag, drinking some vile purple liquid out of a plastic cup, trapped in a corner by some coked-out motherfucker with bad breath who cadges your cigarettes and won’t stop chattering about his scheme to end world hunger with aspirin and orange soda A “post-apocalyptic” lighting scheme is artfully provided by two flickering 40-watts, the stereo blasts the Fugees at a volume usually reserved for sub-atomic detonation and your next-door-neighbors’ arguments, and the place stinks like a damp monkey cage on the set of a Nikki Dial film.
Suddenly, your girlfriend emerges from the murky smoke-haze of this cavernous netherworld. Damn, she looks good. (of course, she’s wearing the same slinky black dress as all the art chicks, but her fresh-faced lack of pretense makes it genuinely seductive, rather than just some in-crowd pose.)
She mercifully drags you away from the nefarious clutches of powder-nose/aspirin-gibberish man, and leads you toward the one open window for some fresh air. You’ve been seeing each other for a long time now – two and a half years or something like that – and over the past few weeks you’ve given everything a lot of thought. And by everything, I mean everything: you, her, him, them, the wasted past, the uncertain future, the whole fucked-up convoluted mish-mashed ball of existential wax. And you’ve come to a few conclusions, you know what you have to do. You glance over your shoulder at the office clock on the wall. 11:34. Well, it’s now or never. Time to find out if she’s with you – I mean really with you – or just another sculpture of gorgeous flesh you’re passing through on the road to wherever the hell it is you’re going. You draw a deep breath, look into her eyes, and it all comes pouring out, with no effort on your part. It’s like you’re possessed, like you’re speaking in tongues, but every word is your own.
“Listen, baby, this year it’s gonna be just you and me. At the stroke of midnight tonight, we’re cutting out. We’re gonna toss a few blankets, bags, and bottles into that ancient sedan of yours, and burn down the black highway under a spectral procession of stars, burn through our tethers of fear and denial, catapult off the edge of the world and screech straight into the center of our dreams. We’re gonna slit the throat of time and ride the clean red Euphrates of blood into the basin of a primitive new universe. We’re gonna flush all the scatological buildup of our previous lives with a shrug and barrel towards the future which is NOW and beat it to the finish line ‘cos we have no time to waste, everything’s happening at once and we’re gonna see it all, do it all, and be it all. Cut the brakes, we don’t need ’em, we’re not stopping until we reach heaven or Armageddon, whichever comes first. Cut the anchor of your possessions, put ’em to the torch and let the flames rise high into the splendor of the sky, we’re blasting off, two silver bullets with angel wings on a holy mission straight into the heart of life. Tabula rasa, babe, a clean slate, a New Beginning. We’re leaving nothing behind but ten year’s worth of wasted time, neglected dreams, two splintered souls that whispered a thousand tiny screams. We’ll be lean and sinister, cold as murder, as unpredictable as love, the fiery eye of a hurricane piercing the eye of a needle. THERE’S A WHOLE WORLD OUT THERE. Don’t be scared, there’s nothing to fear, this isn’t about death or self-destruction. This is about hope, a rediscovery of innocence, this is about spirit and flesh, heart, blood, and brains, this is about sex and soul and sensualism. This is about killing every devil perched upon your shoulders, about ripping every monkey from your back. This is about releasing emmanuel, the god within us all, and skating the razor’s edge of life to the time of his almighty pulse. This is a rebirth of joy and wonder, unlocking the love you buried when the pendulum of adulthood and responsibility first whizzed past your ear and spilled its innocent blood. This is about not just eating, but really tasting, not just listening, but really hearing, and not just idly wishing but dreaming hard and making the dream flesh. This is about the reinvention of self, discarding your tattered shreds of identity and transforming yourself into a breathing, fluid work of art. This is about rediscovering the vibe of those teenage autumn nights, the silhouettes of branches clawing at the moon, the silver wind flowing through your hair, whipping the autumn leaves around your ankles, and you inhaled the cool blue midnight air tinged with a cigarette’s bitterness, looked up at the clouds and the stars and the glory of it all and knew that EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE. Make a list of every dream, hope and ambition, no matter how crazy they sound, and I promise you, we’ll make them all come true. Starting this year, this brand new year. Raise your half-empty glass to the first light of dawn, we’re waking up.”
You inhale. You exhale. You refocus your eyes on your girlfriend. She’s looking at you. And, aghast, stunned with genuine terror, she slowly backs off, turns, and walks away.
Or doesn’t.
