I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell Page B

my head. Is he hitting my face? I’m pretty sure he’s hitting my face. And my head is full of pressure like when I used to swim to the bottom of the deep end of the pool and I see him— actually see his fist hitting my eyes —and I can’t figure out why he’s hitting my eyes and FAGGOT FUCKING FAGGOT and how can somebody be punching my eyes and yet I can still see the fist? And his knee is now pinning the side of my head to the floor, which is good because he can’t quite get any more straight-on face punches, and I see the younger one grabbing my bag—my bag with the two hundred dollars I made from the club—and wigs and clothes off the floor and he turns up the stereo, why is the stereo so loud? My ear is smashed against one of the speakers and then the older one is up and kicking me in my back and I curl up with my arms over my head and he kicks the back of my head STUPID FUCKING FAGGOT DUMB ASS FUCKING FAGGOT FUCKING FAGGOT FUCK YOU! And he grinds the heel of his sneaker into my ear. And they are leaving. And they are gone. And they are gone.
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    I need to be at work soon.
    The dull gray pink light of morning is starting to slither down the eight-story airshaft and sickly ooze into my apartment. The carpet under my nose starts to heat up slightly in the sun and smells of spilt vodka and hairspray.
    Jack is probably just stepping into his penthouse and realizing that it looks exactly like he left it. I’d never been there, and wasn’t going to be in his bed when he walked into his bedroom like he had asked me to be. I let him down. And he let me down. He wasn’t here to stop me when I needed more than anything to be stopped.
    I stand up and go into the bathroom.
    I look at my face.
    I decide to tell people at work that I was mugged. I decide that there’s not enough time between now and the time I need to be at the agency for the bruises to darken enough and the swelling to rise up enough for the public sympathy I know I will need to get through the day ahead.
    I take the nail scissors on the sink and slice an even line down the side of my temple. Blood. Nobody can refute the importance of blood.
    It feels so clean, the drop on my cheek. It’s so much brighter than what’s left of my makeup.
    In my head I’m replaying what it felt like to have the boy standing over me punching me. Every time his fist connected was a relief. A puncturing of façade. A blister lanced.
    I lay on the bathroom floor and I masturbate.
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    â€œWhy don’t you pick up your goddamn phone?!”
    Laura’s standing in my doorway. Her office is four doors down the hall. Apparently she’s been calling me. I’ve been ignoring the phone, assuming it was Jack calling, wondering why I wasn’t at his apartment when he got home.
    â€œJesus, what happened to you?” she asks.
    â€œI got mugged,” I answer.
    â€œIdiot.”
    Only Laura would blame someone for getting assaulted. Then again, only Laura would correctly guess that it actually had been my own fault.
    â€œThey followed me home from the club and mugged me when I got to the door,” I say.
    â€œWhat’d they get?” she asks.
    â€œMy purse.”
    â€œWas your money in it?”
    â€œMakeup, drugs, money, and several phone numbers of cute boys,” I say.
    â€œYour loss…cute boys’ gain.”
    â€œBitch.”
    My face has swollen nicely. I got into work early, since sleeping seemed anticlimactic. I had been planning my dramatic walk to the coffee machine since my arrival. I wanted to time it for the maximum size of audience. Probably about nine forty-five I figure, since advertising hours begin a little later than most workplaces. In lieu of sleep, pity would keep me going today once the drunken buzz had worn off.
    I keep thinking about Jack, wondering how badly I’d messed things up with him. It was probably smarter just to ignore him. Let him call a few