Knockout by John Jodzio Page A

he let me go, I saw there were tears in his eyes.
    â€œYou’re the only one who understands,” he said.
    I knew the horse steroids were giving him crazy mood swings, but from what I could tell his gratitude seemed genuine. Maybe Jayhole just needed some time to trust me? Maybe these jokes he played on me masked some sort of unresolved inner pain? Maybe everything would be wonderful between us from this point forward?
    Later that evening, Jayhole broke into my room and wrote the word “Fuckstick” on Stabby’s fur in purple marker. He also took a scissors and cut cock-and-ball-shaped holes in all of my T-shirts.
    While I scrubbed the marker off Stabby, I thought about disassembling all my jewelry and selling the stones for scrap so I could get enough money together to move out. I got out a pliers, but I just couldn’t tear everything apart; I didn’t want to give up yet. In the end, I decided the best plan of attack to survive the next few weeks was to avoid Jayhole as much as possible. To make it harder for Jayhole to keep tabs on me, I started to climb in and out of my room through my window. When I was inside my room, I used a flashlight and moved around slowly, trying to notmake my floorboards creak. At first I had a hard time adjusting to the darkness, but soon I became proficient at eating soup from a bowl I couldn’t see and pissing into a Snapple bottle using only the faint light of the moon.
    O ne night, I heard Jayhole out in the hall doing some push-ups. I was paranoid he’d heard me moving around in my room so I slid underneath my bed to hide. As I lay there among the dust, I noticed a manila envelope taped to the bed frame with the words “Dan’s Suicide Note” written on it. I ripped it open.
    â€œTo whom it may concern,” the note inside said, “I’m killing myself because my roommate Jayhole is driving me insane. He keeps playing horrible pranks on me and every time I try to move out he tracks me down and brings me back here. It’s like some demented game to him. I’ve tried to escape a number of times over the last year, but he won’t let me leave.”
    I must have ripped open the envelope too loudly because the next thing I knew Jayhole burst into my room, grabbed on to my ankle, and yanked me out from under my bed.
    â€œWhat’s this?” he asked, snatching Dan’s note out of my hand.
    â€œI found it while I was cleaning,” I lied, “but I hadn’t gotten a chance to read it yet.”
    Jayhole read Dan’s note and then he crumpled it into a ball. He took his lighter from his pocket and lit it on fire and then he dropped it onto my floor and stood over it while it burned. The fire alarm in the hall went off, but Jayhole yelled over it. “That Dan,” he bellowed, “that guy really had a bizarre sense of humor, didn’t he?”
    T hat night, after Jayhole left for his dart league, I put Stabby in his carrier and packed my suitcase. I was planning to sleep in my Corolla that night. The next morning, I’d go to a laundromat andsteal some newer bras and panties to give to my sister-in-law as a peace offering. I hoped this would be enough for her to let me crash on their couch again.
    I loaded Stabby into the trunk first. When I walked back to get my suitcase, Jayhole popped up from the azaleas. He was dressed all in black and his face was painted camouflage. Strangles was draped around his shoulders. I ran to my car, but before I got there, Jayhole shot me in the neck with a blow dart. My hands went numb and I dropped my keys. My knees went sideways and I toppled over into the shrubs.
    â€œI didn’t think I put enough tranquilizer on that blow dart,” Jayhole said as he stood over me, his head blocking out the moon, “but watching the way you fell, I might have used too much, huh?”
    Even though my eyes were having trouble focusing, I could tell Jayhole was excited about