Chapter 9 (LONG)

The next day, Cage, Dyce, Eros and I returned to The Garden with news of my commitment. Madame Rook nodded knowingly, she didn't seem surprised in the least. She ordered that I accompany each of them on their individual tasks until I became familiar with the clientèle and felt comfortable managing a job on my own. When that day came, I was told to go with Eros and do all the talking, not letting on that I may have any insecurities. Eros was there only to rescue me if things took a turn for the worst or I lost my footing. After a few of these confrontations I was ready to brave the streets alone and in fairly good standing with my fellow “peace pawns.”
I gradually learned more and more about the force behind our system, and the role we played in propelling the dreams of Madame Rook. She seemed to be fond of offering hope to those with none, such as a little ice-blue-eyed street urchin, caged in the routine of survival, fighting demons both real and imagined. He had offered, yelling through the thick glass window of her Rolls Royce, that he would wash her windows for a dollar, no, 50 cents, hell, anything... when the door opened and a well-manicured hand motioned him inside. Cage felt he grew up in debt to the Madame Rook, to his “Mother,” feeling nothing but gratitude and loyalty towards her, and an ever-deepening faith in her alliances to the greater good.
He would ask no questions when he saw little girls, most much younger than himself, boarding private jet planes to and from foreign places his limited education made difficult to pinpoint, some returning a few days later with their teddy-bear backpacks stuffed with funny looking plants and tiny vials, others never coming back at all. When little Cage did get curious about something, he would only ask Mother a harmless, innocent question, (worded carefully so as to always keep her in a positive light,) and sit patiently through her answer, absorbing her every word like a sponge. He would keep her secrets and guard her with the fierce, stubbornly naive loyalty of a son. A son who happened to sleep in the tool shed.
I discovered that even as I worked with her, the Madame had children going overseas to visit imaginary grandparents to bring back extraordinary souvenirs-opium and other concoctions I don't have the power to describe. The children she used in “missions” such as these were usually those of other “Peace Pawns” that she had taken under her wing throughout the years, raising and manipulating their perspectives to not only condone such transactions, but to encourage their children to feel honored when chosen to play a part in them. They were pleased to help the lady who had helped their mommies. It was all very organized, very under the radar, and, in a warped sort of way, very impressive.
Eros told me that her mother had been one of the children who had traveled internationally for the Madame Rook, although she had never actually known her real mother. She had lived in the maid's chambers of the Madame's house with two women who kept a constant eye on her and made sure that she didn't get in Madame Rook's hair. We would lay awake all night, curled into each other, talking and laughing about the tragedies that were our lives and the things we were going to do to change them. The two of us became beyond close , nearly reading each other's thoughts and laughing at both the trivial and the bizarre things that only we seemed to understand. She was the most talented person I had ever met; her art left me speechless and inspired. It truly made me want to do more with myself than just peddle drugs to the local junkies and rob the recycling center of aluminum cans so that I could get more money from them when my “allowance” wasn't quite enough.
Eventually it got to the point where Eros really wanted to make something special out of our relationship. I wasn't entirely comfortable with the concept though because there were so many things about myself that I still didn't know. I didn't know where I stood on love or sex or even whether or not I could see myself on this earth as anything but solitary. I told her that I wanted to wait things out, until I could kind of have an idea of what our lives were leading to, because if we jumped too soon and fell on our asses, then we could lose what we had for good.
Basically what she heard was rejection.
I guess I wasn't clear enough. I knew I cared more about her than I had ever cared about anyone in my life, but I've learned in life that the sooner you label things, the sooner they lose their enchantment, their meaning. The sooner I would say, “Yes, Eros, I will be yours forever,” the shorter forever would become.
She dealt with what she perceived as a personal insult by finding someone who wouldn't keep her in the dark, someone who felt secure with a label tagged around her neck like a dog tag. She found Echo.
Echo and Eros.
Nice fuckin' ring, right?
Echo wasn't one of us though, she wasn't a “peace pawn”. Actually, she worked as a secretary at the veterinary clinic where Eros was sent to pick up prescriptions for the Madame's poor, fabricated little puppy dog. Echo had a place in the world where Eros so desperately wanted to belong, a world I honestly don't believe any of us will ever be a part of. Eros seemed to think it was possible though. She didn't feel at all like an outsider, an intruder in Echo's safe little world of euthanasia the way that I would have.
I guess that Eros believed that there was no better or worse in people, in status or gender or race or anything like that, there were just different shades of tolerance. That's something we disagreed a lot about. I was personally very intolerant of people willing to look down their noses at someone shuddering in the street as they're on their way to enjoy a thirty dollar meal for one. Eros though, she was different about it. Part of me even thinks that she understood it. Not me. I can't even watch a spider drown.
But no.
According to Eros, I wasn't supposed to judge those walking the streets, blinded by their own greed. She thought that judging people who are acting the way that they were taught to act would be the same as blaming a four year old for calling her a nigger instead of its parents. Personally, I don't see the connection there. And if I could, I don't think it would make much of a difference, because I believe that once they reach a certain age, people can choose what to learn from whom, and have control over their actions and what they do with what they have. Eros and I aren't always on the same page, Echo or no Echo.
Personally though... I prefer no Echo.
Not that I'd ever tell Eros that. I try to hide the fact that I'm the jealous type. It makes me feel noble... or something useless like that.
I mean, a lot of good nobility does when you've got the sickening idea of a picture perfect “E&E 4-ever” rotting in your heart. Sometimes I can almost relate to those crazy bastards who let their jealousy get the best of them. It's not that I'm controlling, I just hate the thought of not being the one to make her laugh. It makes me feel so meaningless.
Once Echo came along, my relationship with Eros grew steadily worse. We could hardly stay in the same room for four seconds without one of us getting annoyed by the other. Like I said, I try to hide the fact that I'm the jealous type. It doesn't always work. It got the best of me at times I didn't even realize that I was being transparent enough to let it. Eros, well, she just got pissed off because I was the one who had “rejected” her in the first place. But of course, I didn't see it that way.
The way I saw it is, I wanted to wait until everything was foolproof, that way we wouldn't make any stupid mistakes and ruin our friendship completely, until I knew myself well enough that there would be no deceptions on my part, no disappointments, no misunderstandings. I mean, I'll be honest, she told me a hell of a lot more about herself than I ever told her about me, and a part of me wasn't comfortable with that. I felt like by not being completely available, I was manipulating her somehow. I know it's ridiculous, but that's how it felt. I felt guilty for not being as open as she was, not that I had anything to hide. It's just that solid relationships aren't built one-sided. It's kind of like a rule.
Try explaining that to Eros.
Eros, who, at the time, was completely caught up in her flawless seraph. Echo. Eros and Echo. Echo and Eros. Saccharine sweetness at its best. So sweet, in fact, that it just makes your teeth hurt so badly that you wish they would fall out of your skull and bleed on the bright white paper Eros used to create declarations of love and capture the shocking likeness of her...beloved. It's the kind of sweetness you experienced when you realized for the first time, bent over the toilet, why so many pesky adults warned you not to eat too much candy. It's that chocolate bile sweetness. Bitterness. Bittersweetness.
And the worst part of it all was that I actually liked Echo. The little shit. I couldn't find one thing wrong with her. Echo was generous. Echo was kind. Echo was smart.
Echo was P.C.
She was going to school to be a social worker, to help kids who might end up trying to run from Lady Ebony so that they don't end up pushing drugs to their rich Madame's gynochologist or shrink, to old money and lotto-winners, to pregnant yuppies, twitching and clutching at themselves with withdrawal who still force fake smiles to their lips, meanwhile avoiding your eyes. Echo didn't want kids running around giving drugs, courtesy of Madame Rook, to people who hide them in their diaper bags.
Madame Rook, who didn't want any of us getting sick, lest we spoil the day's profits. She wanted her kids healthy, she'd say, nudging a syringe towards Cage, or a crack pipe towards Dyce, or a sheet of acid towards Eros. Our health mattered, she'd claim from the couch (where I had never seen her move from the entire time I knew her), watching us take handfuls of pills out of the candy dish as though it were bubble gum or bar peanuts. Feeding our addictions deeper into her debt, she would tell us how important we were, how we had to stay alert. How we had to take care of each other.
No.
Echo would not have cared for the Madame Rook.
And Eros knew it. She went through great pains to keep Echo in the dark about that side of her life. I thought it was aggravating that she was more willing to say “I love you” to someone she was constantly lying to than to even talk to me. She would do her coke or pop pills before a date, and Echo was completely oblivious. She had to keep up the facade of being a step away from perfection, keep her thinking that she was flawless. One in a fucking trillion. Obviously, after believing a person to be on par with creation itself, disillusionment can prove hazardous.
Personally, I think Echo was sort of an idiot for not figuring it out, or not calling Eros out if she did. But I guess some people need their messiahs. If you don't find one in your church, you find it in your girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Or parents. Or the devil. Nobody stops and takes the time to find it in themselves though. I guess that would be too obvious.
Honestly, who really wants the power to dictate their own emotions? Who would be left to apologize to when you did something wrong? Suddenly there would only be you and you wouldn't have any excuses for doing the same detrimental shit that you always do. When you put someone else in charge of your mistakes, then innocent little you can't help but make them, right? You don't know any better!
But no.
If you had to forgive yourself, it would be a hell of a lot easier not to indulge in careless, harmful bullshit that makes that gut feeling inside you squirm with discomfort. You would be forced to listen to that little voice deep down that everyone's always talking about. And who wants to listen to that little voice? Who wants to put moral priority ahead of ego? Fuck that little voice, right?
That's why you push your guilt onto someone else's shoulders, so that you don't have to live with it. Being your own person is just fine and dandy until you realize that you don't want to be responsible for your own greedy bullshit life.
But I digress.
Eros and I stopped sharing the futon. I got a little foam mattress and put it across the room on the floor in a spot where the wallpaper was hanging so low that it gently swiped my forehead with every subtle breeze or movement. One particularly bad night I just snatched it up and tore it off the wall, leaving a long, sharp-looking white area where it had torn.
It was particularly bad for me at the time because Cage and Dyce had abandoned me at the apartment by myself to go to the Garden and get fucked up. So I was feeling a little bit left out, when, to my dismay, Echo and Eros arrive at the apartment and claim the living room to watch some stupid movie and talk. So, being uncomfortable being the third wheel, I retreated to the bedroom, where I proceeded to feel very sorry for myself because I could hear every awkward, silent kiss and their conversation.
In case you're interested, they were making doomed plans for the future. They were talking about how they should get a Pomeranian named Wiggle or Snowball or Fruitloop, or some stupid cliché like that. I wanted to punch the wall, but I since I was supposed to be laying down with a headache, instead, I tore that moldy old strip of wallpaper from in front of my face and got a little uncomfortable bit of something in my eye. Then I shaved my head.
It makes me feel better because it's something I can actually achieve, as stupid as that may sound. It's a goal I know I can accomplish. That's what matters in the long run, right? Setting goals and reaching them so that you don't have to feel like a piece of shit failure for your whole life. What matters is destination. What matters, exactly, are goals.
Daydreaming about getting Mr. Wiggles or Snowball or Dandruff (or whatever you're going to call the poor over-priced dog you emancipate from the puppy mill) with someone you confessed to loving a week after she slipped you the tongue is not among my list of important life shit.
Rather, what matters, ladies and gentlemen, are things like shaving your head.
As for the lovebirds, I was pretty convinced that all they were doing was killing time and getting off, fooled by physical and emotional dependency. You know, the euphoria of having someone to kiss or cry to every time you feel happy or sad or lonely or secretly high and guilty about it. That's not love. That's addiction. What that is, is an in-between. What I call a “filler relationship.”
A filler relationship is when deep down, you know that you're pumping each other up on a steady steroid-strong diet of over-nice, over-concerned lies, sex and secrets. It's a filter of your orange personality into the hot-pink one you sense the other person wants to see. It's when you cut down your puzzle piece, you whittle and grind it down until it somehow manages to just fit into someone else's even though you know that it's not meant to. You're so busy compromising yourself for that other person to sustain the durability of a relationship that was never meant to work out in the first place that when it ends, and it inevitably will, you have to reattach all the pieces of yourself that you tried cutting off for that other person so that you know who fits for real. That is, unless you repeat the process, meanwhile losing valuable pieces of yourself forever for people who just want the same thing you do. To sincerely fit into someone else's life. Most people feign sincerity because they think it will bring them closer to it. They completely miss the point.
The way I saw it was, Eros and I fit. We didn't have to whittle anything away the way she did with Echo about Madame Rook and her secret career as a drug dealer. And I wasn't about to try changing who I was so that we wouldn't ever fit again. I could never have asked her to wait for me until I was ready because that would have been selfish, but that couldn't stop me from trying to wait for the day to come when things would be normal between us again.
I tried to push it once or twice, and lay with her on the futon to try talking the way we used to do, but she would just get up and say that things were different now, that I couldn't replace Echo and it was really shitty of me to try. It left me feeling pretty much like the scum of the earth, and after a while, I didn't even try anymore. I was in exile, wishing more than anything that I would have kept my mouth shut.
That's the loneliest I've ever felt in my life. And coming from an orphan, that's pretty fucking pathetic. I had just started getting used to the fact that someone on earth could love me, care about me, want to be around me eventually for good after such a long time of not having anybody in the world except people like Lacey, and even that was a sham. But with Eros it was different. I mean, I felt like we were walking on eggshells in case I somehow did or said the wrong thing, in case it would ruin us. And instead, I did exactly the right thing. And it ruined us.
Nobody ever told me there was such a thing as being too careful.
Well, I'm here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that if you're living your life too scared to be anything but too careful, whatever it is that you're being too careful about might just blow up in your perfectionist fucking face. And as much as I say I'd do things all over again next time, all right, I wouldn't. Because I listened to that little voice. I was honest. And everything being all right was what went wrong. I usually tell myself that everything worked out the way it did for a reason. If I was going to be brutally honest with myself though, I'd have to admit that my life so far hasn't exactly prepared me for the idea of closure. In fact, I don't even think I believe in it... I don't see how it could possibly exist. It's up there with freedom of speech and the easter bunny.