Chronicles of a Pretend Psychic Part One

This is a true story, but it takes place in the future.

Glass spread like fountain drops from the breaking bottle Oscar chucked at a stop sign. My feet dangled against a mangled, melting sidewalk and my eyes lit up a world in napalm cigarettes.

“How much did you take?” asked Oscar as shattered glass ballets unfolded on the street corner.

“I don’t know, like a swig?” I replied in automated and dissociated throat sounds.

“Holy fuck!” he exclaimed, “You’re not gonna go crazy are you?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” And I thought I would be. I was wrong.

It had been a year since I first fled my holocaust state and hit the road. I’d always looked up to Jackie Kerouac and the abandoners but assumed ifI tried the same I’d starve two days in and my parents would find a voicemail describing the way my body was found like roadkill and stinking. Being hypoglycemic, starvation presented a real danger to me even without involving homelessness. But the choice made itself for me when I found myself forced to flee Law Enforcement for conspiracy to take over the government. I’m lying, my charges were not so epic, but I always admired acid dealers labeled revolutionaries even though all they were trying to do was get people high.

Truth be told the incident occurred one particularly upsetting night at Helicon West where I sat in intolerable rage, required to listen politely to a wannabe novelist reading a chapter from her shitty book about Unicorns raping Griffins or something to that effect. I’d taken all I could stand, and I know I should have just stormed off. A normal person would have left, or even just smiled politely while secretly whispering hateful criticism and sharing awkward stares with their friend. But I am not a normal person. I rose to my feet and approached her with a look of cruel deliberation as if I just discovered she’d fucked my mother. She stopped mid sentence and stared at me in discomfort, and I stared back unsure of what I would do next. Unsure which of the two of us was more frightened by that fact. But after I bit her nipple off and spit it in Josh’s face as punishment for permitting this torturous presentation I knew instantly which of the two of us was more afraid.

On the day of my appointment with the Judge my attorney advised it would help my case to drink some datura tea and blast enough meth to kill an orca whale. Needless to say both the bailiff and prosecutor left that day with scars where their nipples used to be. I was going away for a long time, but luckily for me a month into my sentence Lindsey Garvin crashed her van into a school bus full of mentally handicapped children and I was granted furlough for the funeral. I’m not lying when I tell you I did intend to return to jail, but bath salts are a hell of a drug and waking up in the middle of nowhere covered in my attorney’s blood told me that bridge was burned to dust. I never even made it to the funeral.

I always admired Andy Kaufman and Aleister Crowley so pretending to be a psychic with a fake British accent was a natural occupation to keep me fed on my journey. Calling myself Kipernicus Drifter, originally I intended to trade readings for food money but soon learned if I bought booze instead I could just get drunk enough to turn any garbage can I saw into a buffet. I felt like Jesus in that sense.

On one particularly hungry day I found myself searching for food in a dumpster when I stumbled upon a rather delicious looking piece of shit. Upon attempting a bite I discovered it wasn’t actually shit at all but a short Mexican named Oscar. It was at that moment I realized I might secretly be a little racist. Oscar and I would soon become best friends. It turned out he was making his home in that dumpster but in case you’re wondering this is not an allegory for Sesame street, though we did end up purchasing acid from a guy named Big Bird. Well, I use the word “purchase” loosely. To speak more accurately, we beat him within an inch of his life and stole the vial. Police would later find him stark naked with a chest covered in fresh diarrhea, though neither Oscar nor I are willing to take credit for that one.

Apparently the acid we stole was some really high quality shit. It’s the same acid that would end up preying on my sanity like a predator drone on Muslim children.

“It’s okay,” Oscar consoled, groping my shoulders. “You’re just a bad person, that’s all.”

I lay at the peak of my trip, gripped by a terrible empathy for beating up Big Bird and stealing his drugs.

“Why did you have to shit on his chest though?” I asked with a quivering lip and a tear exploring my cheek.

“That was you,” Oscar rebuked.

Shaking my head, I rose to my feet and stumbled through a cacophony of sorrow and self-resentment. What had I become? I asked myself. So many mistakes, so many people left ruined in my wake. For eternities I wandered, Oscar following and handing out comforting quips like, “At least we didn’t rape him too” or “Everyone makes mistakes, yours was being born.”

Eventually I stopped, some new feeling flooding through me. Some holy presence called out. I turned, and before me stood two massive doors, behind which I heard the tongue-speaking repertoire of a Pentecostal Church. My feet inched toward it.

“The fuck you doing?” asked Oscar, “That place is evil.”

“Wait out here,” I instructed, “I’ll be right back, I’m gonna to go get saved.” As I slipped inside, my nostrils basked in the foul stench of Holy Ghost. Together, men and women of all ages, races and creeds mumbled pseudo-Aramaic praises for a man that allowed himself to be murdered by his own people in order to protect them from the Devil. A man whose every pore became a menstrually bound vagina when he witnessed the collected pain of every human being, including me. For I was also one of those things.

Slowly, I approached the snake-skin attired cowboy of a pastor as he channeled grace though his palm like a needle. One by one, each broken sinner fainted only to awaken moments later perfected and ready to join the masses shouting nonsense in Jesus’ name. Finally, he stood before me with his hand raised above my forehead ready to mainline the Word of God directly through my skull. As I fell back, Angelic visions flooded my perception. I knocked upon the pearly gates and God answered, who it turns out does actually look a lot like Morgan Freeman.

“Yes?” said God, “What the fuck do you want?”

“Um,” I was taken aback by the harshness of his greeting. “I was… sorta hoping to be forgiven for my sins, God. You know, be made whole again?”

“Fuck no!” snapped the Lord.

“But I’m one of your creations, aren’t I? I thought you were supposed to love me.”

“I was so fucking wasted when I made you,” God explained, “You are a mistake. You are the broken condom of the wonder that is the universe. I will never love you. Now get the fuck out.”

I awoke dumbfounded. The church had mostly emptied. The pastor slyly conversed with a handful of his fans. A woman leaned against a pew next to me, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Are you okay?” I asked sincerely.

“I’m healed,” she choked out. “God healed me. He healed me. For thirty years I was a filthy, worthless dike but now I’m cured. God healed my gay.” Then she turned to me and smiled, “Did he heal you too?”

“No,” I answered flabbergasted. “He rejected me.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“He… he kicked me out. He doesn’t want me.”

“But that’s impossible,” she argued, “God is love and compassion.”

“Actually,” I reflected, “God is kind of a dick.” I pulled myself up and left the church to find Oscar standing outside smoking a cigarette. He offered me one, I took it.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I answered, searching my pocket for a lighter. I felt the vial of acid and pulled it out, opening the cap and taking another swig.