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Trailing Behind
It was a yuck mouth afternoon at the Japanese Lantern. Layers of nightclub rose to the ceiling
and half-moons lit up the landings. Melinda told me I was mad and I was vain and that when we had
made love, it was like I had forgotten she was there. I took that as an insult.
I loved myself, certainly, but it wasn't like I was on the list to be cryogenically frozen. For me,
in those days at least, self-love was like two stones I could rub to ward off failure. To rise above
mediocrity, I thought you had to get obsessed and stay obsessed. My self-love, my vanity, my… whatever,
was the mother of my perseverance.
But now, having tried and realizing that failure is a real possibility, I'm probably worse
off than I was. Someone who has never tried, and then, years later, says, "Oh, I could've succeeded
if I'd tried," is better off than I am. At least his or her vanity is still capable of cranking a wheel
and turning the reels of a dirty old projector so delusions of grandeur can dance on a wall. I feel
like the guy in front of the tank at Tiananmen Square. Shit, not even the actual guy, just a photograph
of him - a symbol of futility disrupting the obvious for a millisecond before people can haul me away
and get the gears grinding. That kind of pissiness put me in this predicament, I realize that, but
what can you do when you have laid it all on the line and figured out that it wasn't enough?
People say to remember the good times, but that shit just depresses me. I prefer the insults, the hard
slaps from the times you're glad are gone, like that day at the Japanese Lantern. Melinda was as mad
and vain as I was, but different. She never gave two shits about sentence-level edits or any of the
bullshit hiding between the lines. She was a voluptuous blonde sea animal attached to the ocean floor,
snatching everything floating by. Her mouth got around the snouts of some big ol' monsters, and she
held on until they were suffocated. Only then did she begin to suck. It was the hunt, the destruction
process, that got her off and powered her self-absorption, which, at the time, was more powerful than mine.
When she said what she said about me forgetting she was there when we had made love, I just laughed.
So did she. She knew what I knew. No way could I provide the nourishment she needed. She killed me.
My mouth running right now is a death reflex, so are my fingers typing. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm
a chicken with its head cut off. And since I'm running… We went back and got on each other, off,
on, in, out, rumbling, quietly, building to a point, loudly, clanging, and then, finally, we
rested our systems and started everything over. Our desires were two fucking streetcars.
And what's funny is that even now, after so many years, after so many entrances and exits, and, even
in death apparently, my vanity still swoops down. It still comes from out of nowhere with its cape
trailing behind - my Self, my Charm, my Mother! Still, with its arms stretched wide, lifting me,
lifting my arms wide and turning invisible, so it looks like I'm the one rising, raising my own arms
and hovering like a god. Amazingly, it demands no payment for this service, other than maybe a beer
or a fair warning, as long as I have one to spare. And if it had a warning for me, it would go like
this: "You keep your eyes on the goddamned horizon. If you see any monsters out there, you let me know.
Maybe I can get something for ya'."
Derek Tellier's work has appeared in Pindeldyboz.com, The Pedestal Magazine,
Poetry Motel, Bluelit.com, and Small Spiral Notebook.com. He is a recent graduate of Minnesota State
University, Mankato’s MFA Creative Writing Program. He is currently working on a short story collection
and teaching in the Twin Cities.
Email: Derek Tellier
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