THE DOG HUNTERS (completed)

43 - NEW DEATH MISSION

Missions really are fantastic, even when when they concern your own annihilation. As soon as I made the decision that there were no decisions left, it meant I had to die, I felt a surge of energy and became super productive. It was much better than my last suicidal experience. Maybe because I was sober. Accepting the concept of death in a personal way, pushes you back a bit into the Big Clock, and you can really take care of business. I cleaned the entire place (and I'd let it get really funky, and yes, the bugs had gotten in), which took the better part of a week. I felt so good doing this I wondered to myself if there was maybe another mission I could get on board with,to keep the good times going. But there wasn't. There was only death, that was the only thing that made sense, the only thing meaningful tome, and there was no way at this point to deny it, or otherwise fuck around.

Once the bunker was clean and shiny, and the bugs were addressed as much as I could address them, I took my last shower and selected what would be my last set of clothes, a green leisure suit that made me feel like a leprechaun posing as low rent real estate agent. It seemed right for some reason.

I breathed mostly through my nose and sipped a warm six-pack of Heineken, followed by one cup of coffee and two glasses of water.Business. I left the bunker, making sure the door was securely shut,and I didn't look back. I walked my familiar route down the hill and didn't try to think of how I would do away with myself. Better to let it come to me. Acceptance, or something like that.

It was night. I didn't want to know where I was going and I didn't want to think about anything, I just wanted to let it come. The death urge, the death wish, I would come to it by letting it come to me,and let there be no bullshit between the two.

There were parks, more construction sites, apartment complexes. Wide boulevards. I tried not to think about it. Wide boulevards meantstrip malls and the strip malls out here, where ever I was, somewhere between Rodes Hollow and Mountain Town. Eventually I found myself ata dive bar, something small and stanky. A bar. More booze. I was trying not to think, but I think I'd been looking for one.

I still had what was left of the that fifty bucks.

The establishment was called the Tee Hee Tree, located in a strip mall,sandwiched between a hardware store and catering store. Everything else was closed and there was nothing about the Tee Hee Tree indicating it was open.

"Fuck you, Johnny Bobo," I said to myself. "I'm not wandering. I'm on the clock and I can have a drink before I go."

Inside a heavy black door was a narrow sliver of a place. Car parts and deer heads festooned the walls, walls which were lined with dusty fake brick, the sort you see covering the shacks in the Lemon Flats,a lot of it peeling away. The light was cold and blue and the music was Chris Isaak or someone Chris Isaak had ripped off.

I felt both out of place and completely at home.

Hardly anyone in there, a few people at the few tables. Some chubby punk dude talking to the bartender, who was also a chubby punk dude. Alady sat by herself at the bar, staring into her drink. Her body was stiff. She appeared to be extremely uncomfortable.

She was familiar. She was the lady from the mental hospital. The redhead, the one obsessed with cheese, and I think, obsessed with me. Hair completely different now, short and black. The eyes, when she looked over at me, when I took the chair next to her, had a different life in them. No more of manic beautiful vulnerability I'd seen at the hospital, now she looked coy, perturbed, somewhat mean.

I asked her if she wanted a drink, my suicidal ideation apparently bestowing me temporary powers of social extroversion.

She didn't look at me. She said, "Of course I'd like a drink. Of course."

Even if she had looked at me, she didn't recognize me. Maybe I just looked too different. I'd lost weight. I'd become very white. My hair was long and tied in a ponytail.

"Do you I know you?" She said, sticking the little red straw between her lips, having more of her drink.

"You might have met me before once."

"But not here."

"No, I've never set foot in here before in my life."

She nodded. "I go to a place until it starts getting familiar. I hate that. I hate going to, like a bar, and the bartender gives you that knowing nod, and maybe a smile when you're trying to order. I hate knowing people."

"You and me both."