John Shirley

answering machine

Darla? Um...Darla? Yeah Hello, Darla? It's Georgy. Yeah look I couldn't talk about this with you, like, in person? I hope it's okay I just wanna like, leave a message on your machine? Listen, it wasn't my decision, it wasn't my choice to kill your sister, it was Tush, it was her thing, she goes, "You're such a faggy little wimp." And she tells me I bitch about people saying I'm faggy, and people just assume gays are wimps - and here I'm acting like a wimp, whining because she was going to put her in that thing and do that to her - she was running that whole fucked up trip on me Darla - And she goes, Tush goes, "Darla's little Tandy wantsa be mutilated let's go all the way...I mean, you know she wants to die...she's, like, tried to commit suicide five times..." I told her, I go, "Guy if she wanted to commit suicide really Tush she'd be dead by now. It's like it was never serious?" But she didn't listen. She has that... she has that dominance thing... and it's like... it's so much like her counselor says about her, and she told me what her counselor said like it was such bullshit and I was supposed to agree so I pretended to agree but I secretly thought it was true: that she's trying to get out from under something by getting people in shit as deep as she can? You know? So I said, "Don't put her in there, don't put her in that..." I mean, it was at the junkyard after midnight where we go to smoke bongs and sometimes we get some black tar and... you know? And then, when she gets into that place, Tush likes to pretend she's talking to spirits of people who got killed in the bashed up cars and stuff... ? You know? So I said "Tush, that's - I'm not signing that check, bitch putting somebody in one of those car compactor things... I mean if she wants to commit suicide she wants it to be painless -" But Tush goes, "She's totally fuckin' numbed out from the pills I gave her anyway, it's like heavy tuinol and codeine, she won't feel shit, I just wanna see how it looks afterwards..." Her dad, Tush's dad, he's just the same he's got that same... that same thing... He's, like, an LAPD cop and he used to handcuff Tush... Anyway they were saying - I swear to God, dude - they were saying that they were going to put me in there too, in that machine, if I didn't shut up and then Tush said she heard the spirits of the people killed in the car accidents from all the smashed junkyard cars around us... you know how she goes there and gets stoned and says she talks to the ghosts of people thatdied in those cars... and the spirits were asking her to put Tandy in the car compactor and I couldn't even cruise with that, serious, and I'm from Venice Beach I mean we've seen it all... we used to set bums on fire but... you don't know the bums, right?

And I don't even believe the ghosts told her to do that. She just wanted to do that. I mean, the ghosts - before that night - the ghosts were always saying shit like, "Would you pray for me? Would you take the battery out of the car and drop it off the pier because I think that my spirit is stuck here because of the battery, my blood got on the battery and the electricity is trapping me here... and one time one of them asked if we could put some semen on the car seat so Tush talked me into jerking off on the car seat and she said she wouldn't watch but then she jumps out with everybody and starts laughing just when I - You know what I mean about her? I mean, what a cunt? I mean God. And like who would listen to those spirits in their right mind, because last time... last year they told us to do that paint thinner and make those marks on the ground and then Duggy-pup, that red-haired guy that used to - ?You remember Duggy. I don't think you were there that night. We made the marks and then he starts foaming at the mouth and shaking and he starts clawing his face and saying, "I don't deserve this face, but only bone, but only bone..." Like, over and over, it was sickening, "but only bone, but only bone..." So we had to come up with some explanation at the ER for him and his Mom sent him to military school but he kept talking to himself and then he hung himself in the boy's bathroom of the school but anyway - About Tush and your sister. And the trash compactor. Um... I said... So I said, "No way are the spirits asking to put her in that car compactor and I'm not going to stay here so..." So I just-- I just left, I left right outa there, serious -and she woke up in the thing I guess your sister woke up in the car compactor, woke up from being zonked - Well I'm sure who wouldn't. One Time I was zonked out at a party and this guy started putting ice in my butthole and I can tell you I fucking woke up from that so... I'm sorry. I'm so freaked out. I can't think. Anyway I guess she woke up because... Because I heard her scream from like a block away?- I swear to god; I was a block away. Tush just has that thing... that... I went home and took a sleeping pill and went to sleep and I had this dream I dreamt... I had a dream about dead people in car wrecks trying to tell me to call you so... oh wait if this is being recorded it could be used for evidence... I was - I was just making all this up... except... Tush has that... I'm sorry. I'm sorry about your sister. I mean-- I just heard about it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't think. But... don't keep this tape okay? Erase this okay, after you listen to this... okay? Darla? Darla? I gott - I can't... I can't think. I'm gonna hang up. I'm just... I'm sorry... I was a block away... Darla? I'm gonna hang up.