As with sooo many ill-conceived spontaneous actions, every neurotransmitter in the dense standing-room-only revelry of brain cells, partying like it was 2009, were in agreement. We are all in agreement that they were all in my head during those moments.1 We are all pretty much in agreement that I was not.2
Too much was going on in that cranial cavity. I say that cranial cavity because by then it was no longer mine other than by default.3 I got lost in the shuffle. I didn’t lose myself. For, if I had lost myself I would have found myself. I was a bit misplaced, shall we say, ashamedly so. I can only blame myself for the misplacement of myself, however temporary the misplacement. Missing car-keys and billfolds, I know now, are but trivial inconveniences.
Every cell of grey matter that so nicely urges on this writing at this moment had at that time surrendered to anarchy. Urgent behavioral checks and balances fell to the dare of what must surely have been frenzied mob mentality. They carried no torches but were the torches, each their own flaming torch ignited atop dully glowing embers of unresolved Black Friday aggressions, exploding with the enthusiasm that a week of consecutive good nights sleeping allowed, fueled with holiday boredom bellowed with winter’s cabin fever and the finally expired vestiges of the SSRIs I quit taking 30 days earlier. This particular idea seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
Innocent fun begins so cheerfully and with such joy. Who can tell where the line is before it is crossed, before the light of play dims under shadow of having gone too far? “Enough is enough,” is never warning enough.
Our new Christmas mattress awoke the slumbering reality of dealing with the old mattress. Old was this mattress. Stained was this mattress before the most recent stains. What those stains were from before or after is of easy speculation, of personal embarrassment and now property of the state as evidence in the ongoing investigation.
It seems to me that when you run into a bunch of people with a mattress strapped to the front bumper of a VW, the people you run into should bounce off, laugh at the whole thing and either want to do it a gain or tell their friends to give it a try. According to testimony, this is what happened for the first few minutes until somebody got their wind knocked out. It was like everybody wanted to try, to have it done to them. They wanted it more. They wanted it faster. Then they wanted to rest. Then they wanted to do the whole thing over again. Then they didn’t want it. Then they wanted it to stop. Then they really wanted it to stop. Then they really, really wanted it to stop. Then they started getting really upset. Then things started breaking: glass; bones; laws; records; hearts.
They, whoever they are, tell me this is what took place, and they’ve presented some fuzzy, jerky video from near and distant security cameras, all at odd angles, to support their story. I have no memory. I do not take drugs. I do not consume alcohol. Could this really have been me?
Everyone I’ve talked to since then, in and out of the infirmary, in and out of the interrogation chamber, in the exercise yard, in my cell, everywhere I’ve been since then, everyone says to me “Happy New Year!” Sure, they say that. But do they mean it? Is it? Will it be? Has it been? When will the year no longer be new? Why will we not wish each other a happy old year beginning six months from now, about the time my trial should be starting if they can seat an untainted jury, I am told.
My lawyer tells me he’s working on negotiating lesser charges for a plea agreement. The lightest he thinks they’ll go is Involuntary Manslaughter by a Non-Lethal Non-Weapon. It means that I admit that I killed those who died but that I didn’t use a weapon, per se, and that the object used to terminate life would not ordinarily have taken a life if used for its original purpose. In this case, the death-causing object would be the mattress. Oh, the debates that could ensue! But I focus on the situation’s gravity. “How many people die on a mattress every single day if not every single minute?” My court-appointed attorney does not appreciate my question. “Just let me do my job,” he says. ”Would you like me to pursue matters with in mind?” My court appointed attorney looks rested, refreshed, too much so to be any good at the job he has asked that I allow him to do. He reminds me of me just before I strapped the mattress to the front of the VW. “I don’t know,” I tell him. “I’ll have to sleep on it.”
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