Part 6 (1/2)

Marla shoves Tyler back out into the hallway, and she says she's sorry, but he shouldn't have called the police and that's probably the police downstairs right now.

In the hallway, Marla locks the door to 8G and shoves Tyler toward the stairs. On the stairs, Tyler and Marla flatten against the wall as police and paramedics charge by with oxygen, asking which door will be 8G.

Marla tells them the door at the end of the hall.

Marla shouts to the police that the girl who lives in 8G used to be a lovely charming girl, but the girl is a monster b.i.t.c.h monster. The girl is infectious human waste, and she's confused and afraid to commit to the wrong thing so she won't commit to anything.

”The girl in 8G has no faith in herself,” Marla shouts, ”and she's worried that as she grows older, she'll have fewer and fewer options.”

Marla shouts, ”Good luck.”

The police pile up at the locked door to 8G, and Marla and Tyler hurry down to the lobby. Behind them, a policeman is yelling at the door: ”Let us help you! Miss Singer, you have every reason to live! Just let us in, Marla, and we can help you with your problems!”

Marla and Tyler rushed out into the street. Tyler got Marla into a cab, and high up on the eighth floor of the hotel, Tyler could see shadows moving back and forth across the windows of Marla's room.

Out on the freeway with all the lights and the other cars, six lanes of traffic racing toward the vanis.h.i.+ng point, Marla tells Tyler he has to keep her up all night. If Marla ever falls asleep, she'll die.

A lot of people wanted Marla dead, she told Tyler. These people were already dead and on the other side, and at night they called on the telephone. Marla would go to bars and hear the bartender calling her name, and when she took the call, the line was dead.

Tyler and Marla, they were up almost all night in the room next to mine. When Tyler woke up, Marla had disappeared back to the Regent Hotel.

I tell Tyler, Marla Singer doesn't need a lover, she needs a case worker.

Tyler says, ”Don't call this love love.”

Long story short, now Marla's out to ruin another part of my life. Ever since college, I make friends. They get married. I lose friends.

Fine.

Neat, I say.

Tyler asks, is this a problem for me?

I am Joe's Clenching Bowels.

No, I say, it's fine.

Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains.

Just great, I say. Really.

8.

MY BOSS SENDS me home because of all the dried blood on my pants, and I am overjoyed. me home because of all the dried blood on my pants, and I am overjoyed.

The hole punched through my cheek doesn't ever heal. I'm going to work, and my punched-out eye sockets are two swollen-up black bagels around the little p.i.s.s holes I have left to see through. Until today, it really p.i.s.sed me off that I'd become this totally centered Zen Master and n.o.body had noticed. Still, I'm doing the little FAX thing. I write little HAIKU things and FAX them around to everyone. When I pa.s.s people in the hall at work, I get totally ZEN right in everyone's hostile little FACE.

Worker bees can leaveEven drones can fly awayThe queen is their slave

You give up all your worldly possessions and your car and go live in a rented house in the toxic waste part of town where late at night, you can hear Marla and Tyler in his room, calling each other human b.u.t.t wipe.

Take it, human b.u.t.t wipe.

Do it, b.u.t.t wipe.

Choke it down. Keep it down, baby.

Just by contrast, this makes me the calm little center of the world.

Me, with my punched-out eyes and dried blood in big black crusty stains on my pants, I'm saying h.e.l.lO to everybody at work. h.e.l.lO! Look at me. h.e.l.lO! I am so ZEN. This is BLOOD. This is NOTHING. h.e.l.lo. Everything is nothing, and it's so cool to be ENLIGHTENED. Like me.

Sigh.

Look. Outside the window. A bird.

My boss asked if the blood was my blood.

The bird flies downwind. I'm writing a little haiku in my head.

Without just one nestA bird can call the world homeLife is your career

I'm counting on my fingers: five, seven, five.

The blood, is it mine?

Yeah, I say. Some of it.

This is a wrong answer.

Like this is a big deal. I have two pair of black trousers. Six white s.h.i.+rts. Six pair of underwear. The bare minimum. I go to fight club. These things happen.

”Go home,” my boss says. ”Get changed.”

I'm starting to wonder if Tyler and Marla are the same person. Except for their humping, every night in Marla's room.

Doing it.

Doing it.

Doing it.

Tyler and Marla are never in the same room. I never see them together.