The One Where Jayne Loses Her Shit

Here’s something to get out of the way: I am not a good person, and my admission of that fact doesn’t lessen it one iota. Let’s be real. Everyone thinks they’re basically good, but when you think about how unbelievably fucked up the world is, it stands to reason that not everyone can be a good person. The only difference between me and most other people who aren’t good is that I’m honest about it. Unlike you.

Here’s what I thought—in order—when I stumbled through the door that night, and Angela’s asshole of a cat pushed its way out into the street: 1) I should just let it go, and if it gets hit by a car or eaten by a coyote...well, good. 2) If either of those things happen, I will have to put up with crap from Angela for...probably forever...so I need to go after it, because I really don’t need the hassle of Angela throwing me out and having to find another place to live. And 3) it might not be all that safe to be a woman out alone at this hour, looking for a cat I hate.

Turns out that last part was true AF.

Imagine how pissed I was to find out the cat ended up safely back at the house that night all on its own. The little shit curled up on Angela’s purple satin comforter, while I spent the night chained in a basement, lying in a puddle of my own piss.

I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Maybe because I still want to believe you give a fuck.

Here’s how I knew I loved you: In the beginning, you didn’t piss me off as much as you should have. I’ve never been a fan of men who like to talk about their feelings. I mean, who actually gives a shit about anybody else’s feelings? But there you were in Neon’s, with Jason from Shipping, wearing your Suicidal Tendencies t-shirt. You had tattoo sleeves of Victorian gas lamps and your beard was scruffy in places and I liked you right away. No, not true. I didn’t like you: I wanted to fuck you, and I wasn’t even done with my second vodka tonic yet.

You were spouting Bukowski, and I could tell Jason thought you were a pretentious prick. You looked at me when you said, “A woman must be nursed / into subsistence / by love / where a man can become / stronger / by being hated.”

“Prepare to be hated, motherfucker,” I told you, but I wasn’t really angry, even though I wanted to be. That came later.

I sucked on your tongue, awash with whiskey, and we fucked for the first time in the bar’s graffiti-scarred bathroom. I saw that one of your eyes was a different color than the other—a hazy green when the other was brown—and I thought that was cool. Like you might see me differently, depending upon what eye was doing the looking.

Here’s the cat-searching moment when I should have known I was screwed: The guy was way too clean-cut and polished to be out on the street that late, offering to help find a cat. He was all shiny and pink and freshly shaven, like he had just gotten out of the shower. But who does that at three in the morning? I think part of me half-expected the hand over my mouth, the prick of the needle in my neck, the burn of the Ketamine.

Here’s something else to get out of the way: I never wanted you to give up drinking. What I wanted was for you to hold down a job. To not soak my sheets through with one-hundred-proof sweat. To stay hard for more than fifteen minutes. If you could do all that on a bottle of whiskey a day, fine. Who am I to judge? We’re all killing ourselves one way or another.

Here’s what I hate beside cats: children, overtly religious people (just keep Jesus in your pants), lateness, kale, Daylight Savings Time, people who break promises, bad head (if you can’t do it well, don’t even offer...and don’t just do it to get it), liars, people who text in movie theaters, saran wrap, lima beans, women who get off on trashing other women. And now a new one: serial killers who want to forge an emotional bond before they kill you.

Here’s why I thought you loved me: You started hanging around the house so much, Angela asked if you were moving in. You started wanting to be next to me while you slept. Your arm thrown over my my waist, my fingers stroking the bump on your left wrist from when you broke it falling off the playground monkey bars in the third grade.

Also, you told me you did. Fucking liar.

Here’s how you win a round of “Which One of You Dies?”: You go for the throat, like your life depends on it, because it does. You viciously call out every single one of your opponent’s failings. Her dirty hair, her mom jeans, her fake tits, how she cheated on her husband, how she popped out a disabled kid and then abandoned it, the number of times she’s offered her body in exchange for freedom, how she stole from her boss, the way she can’t stop crying. It gets easier and easier. Especially when, one after the other, they start to trust you and break down in the dark, confessing all the shit they’ve done that they believe God or the Universe or whoever is punishing them for by landing them in a psychopath’s basement.

Here are the things I wanted to tell you—but was too afraid to—that night we drove back from Tahoe, after we spent three straight days together just to prove we could: That I loved you. That I wanted us to get a place together. That I had started to believe that if you did actually love me, then all the rest of the bullshit didn’t matter—your drinking, my anger, how your drinking made me angry, how my anger made you drink. And that maybe I wasn’t such a bad person after all.

I had my chance, and I shit the bed. Facing down death brings a clarity that kicks your ass. It also shows you who you are.

Here’s how you escape a serial killer: Be the worst person he’s ever captured. Make his warped, stunted heart go pitter-pat with admiration as you validate every demented atrocity he visits upon his other victims. And when he trusts you—loves you—enough to undo your shackles so you can make him lunch, gouge out his eyes with your nails and then bludgeon his head with a microwave.

Here’s what I told you instead on the drive back from Tahoe: That I was sorry I had lied about not knowing who my father was, but it wasn’t really a lie because how are you supposed to know someone you’ve maybe exchanged fifty words with your entire life? That Angela was getting on my last nerve with all her detoxing and mindfulness crap and telling you how you owed it to yourself to get sober. It’s pretty easy to be sanctimonious when you live rent-free in a house your dead mother left you. And screw her wanting us to hang out together, like some fucked-up version of “Friends,” where Rachel is stealing Phoebe’s Perocet and Ross has the DTs and is downing mouthwash because he’s out of whiskey money.

Here’s the shittiest thing to find out after you’ve escaped a serial killer: that the man you love has been fucking your roommate. Guess that was a “Friends” episode I missed.

I know you’re uncomfortable. Your head hurts and the zip ties are too tight and Angela won’t stop crying.

Do I want to talk about this?

Hell yeah. Let’s start with all those questions.

Here are mine: How long? Who started it? Do you love her? What do I need to feed this cat so it will shut up? Which one of you dies?