The Mallard God Complex (Chapter 1)

The Mallard God Complex

            I watch lazily from the street as all my belongings fly out the window of my third story, one bedroom piece of shit apartment. Up there, just above the street lamps, I can hear the verbal assault that accompanies a breaking heart. If only I had my keys, there might have been something to do about this.   CRASH!  I step to the side as my computer screen falls onto the pavement beside me. It’s a little sad to watch everything I have worked for slowly disappear out the window, but that’s love . . . I guess . . .

1. Beginning at the Beginning

            The first night I met Sheryl was over three months ago; three long, nasty, wild months. How it began is still somewhat of a mystery to me as I don’t really recall introducing myself, although she swears I did. Alcohol can have a sort of paralytic effect on the brain, freezing judgment, as well as shattering the crystals of memory. That night is a haze for me. The only memory that remains clear is of me, pissing in the bathroom, and staring intently at a painting of a mallard.

            The painting hung right above the one toilet (an odd place for a painting), so that the mallard was staring directly at me while I pissed. It might’ve been a heron, but for ease of the story, let’s call it a mallard. I’m only fifty percent sure it was a duck, but it really doesn’t matter. OK, sixty percent sure it was a duck. Whatever the hell it was, it stared directly at me while I was taking a piss. There was something eerie about it.

            The background was a nondescript swamp that could have been anywhere. The reeds in front and the mallard were all painted in vivid colors, almost photo quality (it might’ve been a photo), but the background was blurry. Lazy artists, they can’t even be bothered to do  the background of a stupid painting! What is it supposed to be anyway? It looks nothing like a duck; which might have been because it was indeed a heron, but again, I really can’t be all that sure.

            “What the hell are you supposed to be?!” I yelled accusatorily at the painting. I waited, and pissed, hoping for a response. The mallard continued to stare at me and I felt a chill creep slowly up my spine. It felt as though the mallard was actually looking back at me. There were real eyes behind the painting. “Sneak up on me while I piss do you?!” I reached a hand forward and poked viciously at what I was now sure were eyeholes in the painting.

            My finger broke through the painting and left a hole where before there had been canvas. At the back of the painting was solid wood. I stubbed my finger and swore some more, spilling piss on my shoes. Overall the night was going pretty well for me. As I zipped up I stared at the substantially creepier version of the painting. It now sported a dark socket for one of the bird’s eyes. I laughed to myself and then stumbled out of the bathroom and into the warm conversation of the pub.

            The mallard in it of itself is not important, but what is important is that some time that night, I met Sheryl. After the mallard painting everything else is pretty much a blank canvas. I could have gone to an underground fight-club, won the match, and gotten into an argument about Syrian foreign policy with a particularly shanky bum, and I wouldn’t have known it. For those who are unclear, the verb shanky signifies someone who is more than likely to shank someone else. Those who are still unclear, read a prison book.

            What is important to this story is what she claims happened. Fast-forward to one month later, we’re in a relationship, and things have passed into the stage in which I am forced to interact with her friends. That particular night I was sitting in the middle of an uncomfortably crowded booth. I had been talked into an awkward double-date (is there another kind?) with her two friends Steve and Lailie (I’ve always hated that name). I was between Lailie and Sheryl, listening uncomfortably as they gloated back and forth about their respective boyfriends, while Steve and I sat in silence. It was the typical double date in which two overly zealous and competitive friends attempted to show how each of them had managed to best the other in the sticky game of trapping a mate.

            I think that dating can often be like trying to fight for your life in the web of love, in which there are constantly other flies trying to attract the spider to eat them next. All of the flies are very excited to have the spider come to them, until they realize what it intends to do. In the simile it is clear that the spider wants to eat them.  In life, the mate’s intentions may not be as clear, but the result is ultimately the same. Someone is getting eaten at the end of the night.

            People are always appalled and shocked when they hear about the mating habits of the praying mantis, but metaphorically, we’re all in the same boat.  I can hear my Beatles records crashing down on the street, no doubt as a result of a similar statement. But that is beside the point. I loved my records dearly; but my love for them doesn’t really apply to how I met Sheryl, or why I stayed with her.   In fact, things we had in common, or shared interests for that matter, never really played a factor.  

            “So, how did you and Michael meet?” The question hangs in the air like a loaded revolver, pointed right at my head. I have two options: Tell her how we really met (shot in the head), or sit in silence and wait for Sheryl to tell the story (live to fight another day). With options like those, who really needs to choose? Sheryl gave me a quick sideways look, letting me know that if I ever wanted to get laid again  it would be better if I said nothing and agreed with whatever bullshit tale she concocted.

            “You see I was alone in a bar, all by myself.” That sentence, albeit redundant, was in fact true. She was there alone that night, but I can assure you the rest of it is fabrication. I don’t remember any of it, but never in my life have I had a romantic bone in my body, and alcohol did not act as a surgical tool to implant one that night. I’ve been told that when I’m drunk I’m really more of an asshole than anything else.

            “Michael came up to me and asked to by me a drink. I accepted, we hit it off, and before I knew it he was whisking me through the streets by moonlight. By the end of the night he had bought me a rose from a street vendor and I had fallen in love.” I nearly gagged at the falsity of the swooning coming from across the table.

            While I can’t remember much of what happened, I can remember where I woke up, and it wasn’t my apartment. Something tells me that rather than waiting for the first date, we went back to her place, did the deed, and then I was stuck. Checkmate for the spider once again, better luck next time I suppose. The moonlight story was better suited to polite company than the truth. My truths are often hard and lewd, which often makes conversations more beneficial for everyone involved when I lie and dull the edges my diatribes. Real truth, the hardest truth, is something I save for those late nights at my laptop, window open, bottle in hand.

            The truth about my predicament at the moment was that I had become stuck. Once at the point of double dating, it is infinitely harder to break away from a coupling without some sort of blowback. I sat there quietly for the rest of the evening as they debated which of the two silent men at their sides was the most thoughtful and caring. As I sat, it dawned on me; the question that would drive me into the street with all of my belongings raining down beside me. It was the seed of my freedom.

            The seed was a simple thought: What the fuck am I doing here? Not meaning ‘here’ as in the relationship, nor in the restaurant; or even necessarily what I was doing existing at that moment, but a vague sense of ‘what the fuck?’ regarding my general life. I looked at the faded red cushions beneath me and wondered why the restaurant owner had picked that color. Was it because the color red had been demonstrated in age demographics of 18-45 to increase appetite? Was it because of the association with family and love? Or was it a more sinister notion that red caused more fights for the disgruntled old man behind the register to watch?

            Deep in the cushions I felt something. It definitely wasn’t anger, but it certainly wasn’t being at peace with the world either. I felt like this every time I had sat in a similar situation; stuck with a girl I really didn’t give a shit about, and following her blindly wherever she told me to go. I didn’t feel a sense of wasted time, but I did yearn for the freedom of the open road. I wanted to be alone, I wanted to abolish her reign of tyranny, I wanted to slap myself in the face and wake up.

            “Check please.” Dinner was over; I had sat there silently for what appeared to have been three hours. The clock read eleven PM. The next morning I had work. Work in those days was hell, as I’m sure it will always be in some way. I don’t much like working; it takes away from the finer things in life such as: Loving, music, and drugs. I shouldn’t include drugs in there as there are perhaps children who will read this someday and I don’t want to turn them into opiate induced speed addicts, but god damn is that marijuana a good time.

            Sheryl was shocked by the abruptness, but she settled on being done with dinner, presumably because she had won. After three hours of spacing out I could see the defeated look of one who knows they have lost that one fight they most wanted to win. A little dramatic yes, but it was all these women ever did. When they weren’t fighting over whose boyfriend was sweeter, they were working dead end jobs in second tier retail stores, selling garments to customers who wanted nothing more than to not buy garments.  Their lives were small, consumed by an industry of larceny, and I didn’t have an ounce of shit to give about it.

            It may seem like I held a deep level of contempt for the woman I was allegedly in love with, and, well that’s true. But the other, uglier truth was that she gave me sex, and no one on this green earth can say that sex is not a powerful motivator. Sex has brought down kingdoms, led to crucifixions, and toppled even the mightiest leaders. Unfortunately as males we find ourselves so preoccupied with sticking ourselves into other humans that we often ignore the less base instincts of logic and reason. Hence the pissing contests between rival nations trying to show how they can stick it to another  better if given the opportunity.  It’s a bit sad really.

            Anyway, that night I felt much like one of those warring nation figureheads.  Though I wasn’t really in a pissing contest with anyone, I was dealing with an irate madman making unreasonable demands. I’m talking of course about Sheryl. She is of course a mad woman, but something about the latter term doesn’t have the same ring to it. I assure you the former isn’t sexist, but merely a literary preference based on enunciation, pronunciation, and masturbation.  I guess Freud was right.

            “What do you think you were doing?!” She says as soon as we get into the alleyway, out of earshot from the other couple. The goodbyes had been perfectly pleasant, but like the citizens of Pompeii I felt a rumbling beneath my feet as the end neared.  At that moment, I marveled at how being in relationships makes us experts at defusing very specific bombs. It is important to know when it is going to go off, and what exactly needs to be done to stop it. As she stood there yelling at me in the alleyway, I calmly analyzed the situation.

            Young female, mid-twenties, very aggravated.  Spittle flying from the left corner of mouth to the pavement.  Frothing  not due to rabies, but one can never truly be sure, best to stay away from the mouth until further examination is conducted. Hands are clenched in a display of anger and intimidation. They are small fists. Getting hit by them will probably not hurt as much as if they were larger. Well at least there is that.  Overall threat assessment - level six. Diffuse with the usual.

            The usual consisted of a very sappy apology as well as a bullshit excuse.  This was no exception to the level six rule. “I’m so sorry honey; I just didn’t know what else to do. I just love you so much, and couldn’t bear not having a few moments alone with you tonight before I had to go to bed.”

            Fist clenching has ceased, as well as tension in the arms. Eyes are brimming over with tears. That’s a good sign; mission accomplished everyone, wonderful job. Let’s all go out for drinks to celebrate! She begins to cry and then hugs me. Her sobs are so violent that someone in the street might have thought I was beating her. That would have been a truly awkward situation. To avoid this image I gently pat her back in a very clearly non-threatening manner. Through choked sobs I can hear her talking about how sweet I am and how sorry she is that she overreacted. Once again the bomb is diffused and I get to live another day.