A Quiet Piece of Longing – One

This is a project I’m working on inspired by my short story Cassie. It’s basically the same premise. A psychopathic young man who cannot connect with others on an aimless road trip across the country. It’s split into several interconnected short stories where The Narrator meets random people. Here’s the first story.

It’s not that I despise the human race. It’s not that I’m some maniac who only wishes death and destruction for the world. Simply, it’s that no matter how hard I try, I can’t connect. It’s like I’m behind glass and everyone else in the world is moving at a faster pace. I can try to catch up to them. I can try and walk behind them. I can speak, I can fuck them, I can take them out on dates. But the glass will still remain.

I tried cocaine. I tried prescription meds. (Really, painkillers were my favorite.) I tried therapy. I once had this doctor named Rodriguez. He was this man who graduated from Harvard so I naturally thought he could fix my problems. Really smart, too.

“What’s one thing you like?” He’d ask me.

Then I’d always respond with, “Not many things.”

“Well, does anything draw an emotional reaction from you?”

“No.” I’d say. “I feel nothing all of the time.”

Our sessions were once a week on Fridays in a Los Angeles building that was five stories tall. I’d climb up the elevator and knock on his office. Then he’d let me in and I’d talk while his hands combed the scruffy white beard on his face.

On the wall were simple posters and poems about therapeutical sayings and nonsense like that. “Live. Laugh. Love,” one of them said. And on the other side were framed photos of degrees and family members. He had two sons with this beautiful Latina chick.

Going deeper into the sessions, I found myself envying him. He was so perfect. He had a wife, he had kids, he could connect. The switch that was off for me, obviously wasn’t off for him. You know? There was no glass wall for him.

In one of our sessions, he asked me a very basic question. “Do you feel love?”

I didn’t know what to say at first. In school, I always had the girlfriends. I also had a couple boyfriends. We’d skip school and go to the park or a gas station for lunch. Then we’d smoke weed under the baseball park bleachers. We’d kiss, we’d make out, we’d hug. But the entire time I just didn’t feel anything. No hugs, no kisses, no sex could make me feel intimate. Perhaps I didn’t even know what intimacy felt like.

“I don’t know. What does that feel like?” I said.

“It feels like butterflies. Heart palpitations. It feels like someone truly knows you.”

“Then I guess I just don’t feel that. It’s not something in me.”

Back then, I had the dream of being the “Pablo Escobar of weed.” I was twenty-one and I knew how to grow it, how to dry it, and how to prepare it. Stacks and stacks of marijuana existed at my house in boxes. My mother almost caught me one time when she was over.

Clients would stop by my house nightly to pick it up. They’d ring the doorbell and I’d ask them how much they wanted. An ounce, three, five, etc. Then they’d just hand me the cash and I’d give it to them. I made about two grand a week.

Once I brought this up to Rodriguez, he questioned my motives. “Why is being successful at drug dealing so important to you?” He had the habit of just asking more and more questions. Not focusing on treatment.

“I just like it. I make money, and I like smoking it.”

“And how does it affect you?”

“I guess it makes everything more… focused? I’m more aware of my thoughts—who I am. It’s relaxing. It’s dreamy. I just really like weed.”

“And what would happen if you went to prison?” Another question.

“I’d only get a hundred twenty days. I’d survive.”

One day, I was just walking around the park at night. It was about eight and there was this girl just standing at a stoplight smoking a cigarette. I ran up to her and decided to speak. Her name was Cassandra. I eventually got her number by charm and we struck up a relationship.

Our first date was at a theater and we watched this sci-fi movie about aliens. She got scared and hugged me for protection. I wrapped myself around her and made sure she felt alright. Though I couldn’t feel human emotions, I could mimic them.

Eventually, it got serious. She didn’t have a good relationship with her parents so she’d stay at my house a lot. Then we’d just screw all night or smoke weed with a bunch of movies. Then she’d go back to her parents house and return hours later saying another argument happened. One day she vomited. Then we did a pregnancy test and I found out I was going to have a child.

And then, at twenty-two, I had no idea how to raise a kid. I thought and thought about it a lot. How was I going to discipline him? How was I going to teach him right and wrong? What would I do if he didn’t love me?

Sadly, she lost the baby and that lead to the eventual corruption of things. She fell deeply depressed and stopped texting me. She wouldn’t show up for days. And then, when she would show up, she wouldn’t talk. And any time we would talk it’d lead to an argument. I had to break things off.

And that’s what lead to this road trip. I left L.A. in the summer when I was twenty-two. I found myself in Arizona, heading down to Phoenix. There was roadkill under my tire and that caused it to pop. An hour later, under the scorching sun, I managed to fix the tire and carry on my way.

I found myself at this empty gas station and ran inside for food. I grabbed a candy bar, chips, and a drink. At the counter was this bald old man with dozens of wrinkles across his body.

“So, how are you?” I asked.

He nodded. “I’m alright. You?”

“I feel… fine.”

“That’s great.”

“Where do you live?”

He paused for moment and took a step back. “Just out back. It’s a nice little trailer.”

“Wife and kids?”

“No wife. She died a while ago. But I do have three children.”

“How nice. And I suppose they’re all grown up?”

He smiled. “Yeah. One of them’s a doctor. Can’t say much about the rest—you know, they’re all lazy.”

“Ah, I know that very well. Laziness isn’t a virtue here in modern society.”

He finished scanning my items and I walked back to my car. The head remained the same and didn’t falter. It was a hundred degrees outside and wasn’t getting any colder. Getting back in my car, I put the AC on full-blast and headed to my motel.

There were roaches sometimes there, but I didn’t care. I ate my food and even had a TV dinner while watching the Food Network. I fell asleep shortly after, and woke up at eight. In the afternoon, I returned to that gas station with one goal. Rob him.

I parked right behind the wooden fence and hopped it. His trailer was this big old motor home that towered in the sky. It must’ve cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Inside, were the usual things. Alcohol, food, and pictures of his wife and kids.

I did find a dab rig and some THC concentrate. I stole that and put it all in my bag. I took the bottles of vodka and the six-pack of beer. Finding some necklaces in the drawers, I took them. They were gold and diamond. Could be sold for quite a pretty penny.

Noises came from outside, and I heard the door about to open. I reached over and locked it and that gave me some time to decide. I paused, unsure what to do. There was a window, so I quickly unlocked that and went outside.

I was just behind the trailer, and had to be quiet. I climbed the fence and when I reached the top, I heard a shrill gasp.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

I didn’t care. I hopped the rest of it, and stormed to my car. I took off down the road and got back on the highway. I wasn’t being followed so that was good, though I did decide to go to a different hotel. I even took a different way to the highway.

I sold the necklaces for a thousand dollars and smoked the concentrate in my motel. It made the television much more interesting and I always liked how it affected me. Then, I just fell asleep. I’d be heading to Phoenix the next day.