Entropy
October 6, 2008
Jim came home really drunk and shitfaced. As soon as he came in he was like, “Seth, you fucking pussy!”
So I told him to fuck off, and then he started yelling at me like, “What? Did you just tell me to fuck off? You wanna start something?”
And I told him no. I didn’t want to fight him. Then he tried to punch me. I moved out of the way but he got me on my left cheek, and as a reflex I threw one of my own, and I knocked his glasses off. My other roommate George who was sober came in to try to reason it out, and Jim was like “we’re just messin’ around.” We went into the living room to talk it out.
I said that he had tried to hit me first, and then I hit him back, but apparently Jim had forgotten what happened exactly 30 seconds ago. When I mentioned that I hit him, he was like, “Did you fucking hit me?”
I said, “You hit me.” He denied it, and asked again if I had hit him, and I said yeah. He started looking for his glasses which were still on the ground in my room from when I took a swing at him.
When he found them he looked puzzled and yelled, “Why are my fucking glasses on the floor?” I said because I hit you, which was probably a stupid thing to say to someone who’s itching for a fight.
Then he got really close, up in my face like, “What did you say?” And that’s when I said fuck it and fired my fist right in his face. He stumbled a step back from being stunned, and I felt my fist hurting. I threw another punch, and another, and another, and another. I got really angry and couldn’t control myself. Even when he was slumped against the wall, I kept going, beating him, until George said that’s enough and stopped me.
I was shaking. Jim was bleeding. I was scared. Of what? Of myself. Of the thought that I could lose control like that. And if Jim would be the type to try to get even.
George took Jim to the hospital. I cleaned up some of the blood on the floors and walls.
The next morning Jim was back. I came home and found him watching TV on the couch with bandages on his face. He apologized to me and said he didn’t even remember anything from the night. George had to tell him what happened. And I knew I didn’t want to live here any more.
Everything seemed to fall apart all at once. During the summer, the sorority house needed a new housemother. They hired an older woman who I got to know pretty well. She had a daughter and grandson who would come by and we’d hang out together. But after about one and a half months she had to quit for some reason, and there was a new housemother Kayla who was relatively younger. I forgot what exactly I did, but after a few months we didn’t seem to get along any more and eventually had a falling out.
Soon after that, I had a fight with Jim. I’d never been in a fight before and had no training either. Jim was, however, extremely drunk and the punches came at a snail’s pace. He was easy to dodge, but I was still scared of being knocked out, so I overcompensated with brutality. It wasn’t exactly dangerous because I wasn’t very strong. After I went back home to Nashville, I studied Bruce Lee and his philosophies. Many of the things he believed and taught were things I had thought about before as well, so his ideas resonated with me.
October 7, 2008
I lost my job two weeks ago. I was paying my phone bill on the computer when Kayla wanted to use it, and so she got all pissy and wrote up a contract that said that I wouldn’t use the computer or take a break at work (or else “termination”), and she proceeds to hand me a schedule of porter duties. So the next day I came in a bit early to wash the trash cans and what not and worked my ass off to finish everything on the list with time to spare, which pissed Kayla off more for some reason. Then the next day I came in at my usual time at three, which was the hour the last housemother and I agreed upon as the new time, but Kate refused to clock me in because I was scheduled at four. Of course, then in that passive vindictive way of mine, I didn’t wash the lunch dishes because the task on the duties sheet said “dinner dishes” specifically, not lunch dishes.
So dinner time came, and I went and washed only the dinner dishes and left the other plates to rot when she came up behind me and said, “If you aren’t going to wash those dishes, then don’t bother coming to work tomorrow.” So I dropped everything and walked out.
A week later I got a job at Quiznos. After a day of slicing meat and making flatbread sandwiches, I decided I hated working there, and that I deserved to earn a living doing something I liked. The next day (this morning) I told them (lied) that I got a job somewhere else, and the guy said, “so you’re not working here? Ever?” And after I said no he said, “Good.” Like what the fuck? Why doesn’t anybody like me?
Don’t know what I’ll do for a job now.
What’s the deal with Nell? She’s only intruding as much as I let her. But I’m talking to Anna and Leah through e-mail (at the library now). We’ll see how long that lasts (it’s never that long). Once I start talking about all my problems, it’s going to drive them away. In fact, I think I’m getting way too attached to Leah already. She’s got me thinking about college. Yech…
Meanwhile the dreams involving Nell get more frequent, and therefore a bit more fascinating, depressing, obsessive, etc.
It wasn’t long after this that I called my parents and asked them to bail me out. It was a tough call for me to make. After spending the whole summer and part of fall in a new city, trying to make it on my own, I felt like the city had beaten me. After only a few months, to call it quits was embarrassing, but it told me that I wasn’t emotionally ready to handle it.
I had dreams about Nell so frequently and so vividly that I wrote down a lot of the dreams I had about her. None of them make much logical sense, but all of them triggered deep and intense emotional responses in me while I slept. After she started college herself, we didn’t talk on the phone nearly as much as we used to. I was scared to dial her number. During and after the call, I had a hard time controlling my emotional state, which depended entirely on my perception of what she did or didn’t say. On occasion I fought through it and dialed anyway. After I was fired from the sorority job, I gave her one last call, and we didn’t talk again for a while after that.
I didn’t feel comfortable at the house any more and also lost my job. I still needed to figure out a way to tackle my fears. It just wasn’t going to take place in Austin any more.