SOO LA SEN — CHAPTER 2

Our story now shifts to Cassis, France, a city famous for the sweet black currant liquor of the same name.

Gert-Jan was currently relaxing on the deck of his beach house. He owned the house now, due of the tragedy, but he still thought of it as his parents' house, as if they would magically return one afternoon and yell at him for getting wine stains on the plush white living room carpet.

The French government officially dubbed the jet explosion an Algerian terrorist atrocity and exterminated a few Arab bunkers that had been terrorizing Paris of late. Any excuse for a government  to murder a group of party-people is good enough. Aliens, Algerians, acid heads merely subtle semantic differences, ahem.

It was only 10 AM and Gert-Jan had already been through a bottle and a half of Pernod. His ex and now current belle, Donna, walked out the sliding glass doors onto the deck and looked at him with disgust.

" Give it up, Gert-Jan, it's killing you. You are deliberately drinking yourself to death! "

" Laisse-moi crever, putain ", was the half-sober response.

" Leave you alone to die? It would be easy if I didn't give a fuck about you. You've been drunk for three months now "

" Ah yes, so you must have been counting them too. And don't remind me of my own pain any more, I had just forgotten it for a second. "

" Really, it's all good, I just don't need this now ", comforted Donna. 

" Yeah, well I never need this shitEVER!, slurred Gert-Jan.

" Don't be so sure. You seem to revel in it. "

" Don't start playing Super Girl on me or I'll get sick with those pains again ", Gert-Jan said, clutching at his abdomen and trying not to recall the experiences that can make one clutch his liver in hangover agony ( it's a French thing ).

"Those pains are you whimpering like a coward," reminded Donna.

"Yeah, but at least I'm not afraid to be a coward!"

Donna rolled her eyes. "Yes you are. You're afraid of everything."

"You could have a point there, " Gert-Jan admitted upon lighting up a Gauloise cigarette. "Life is going to pass you by."

"Gerty, maybe life will pass us all by and I am just accepting it. Maybe I want a nice house in a Versailles with a Porschce and educated friends. Maybe I dont want to be a hippy forever and end up living in a trailer park in Indiana with Victor.

Are you sure? White trash lives well pretty these days in America. They got cable, Internet, Dominos, crystal meth labs right next door what more could you want, Donna?"

Id rather give five pound blow-jobs than se you snort that chemical shite, Gerty.

Donna stole a drag off Gert-Jans cigarette and exhaled intermittant streams of smoke into his face as she spoke.  "So you would rather fuck around with Victor than build a life?"

"I miss him. He needs me. Don't you miss him?"

"No, I don't miss him. I'll be seeing him soon enough anyway. I've decided to leave you for a while until you heal yourself or die.   I may visit him before I run off to Vancouver to kidnap Sarah and take her back to London where we can be happy.

But Fred the Junkie will eventually show up and try to do whatever is necessary to win her back.

Easy. I will set him up for a quick bust. It wont be hard. Hes always carrying. And he has more tracks than the British Rail System. Women only sleep with men because your stupidity and frailty amuses us. And after sleeping with Freddy for a few months, an orgasm will be real nouvelle cuisine."

"In my reality, when you have nothing better to do than chase a little bit of pink cunt and free heroin around the world, then that just means you have nothing better to do", said Gert-Jan not sure he was making any sense.

"You're not making sense Gert-Jan. Why do you drink all the time? You're sloppy at 11-fucking-AM. And Im worried about the amount of sleep youve been getting. Sometimes I wish you would stop using drugs and do something special again like DJ.  

"Id be doing way more drugs if I were dj-ing. You just like to be around famous people because youre so ficking insecure. And anyway, honey, if there were no drugs, there wouldnt even be a club scene. It would just be a bunch of skinny assholes in tight clothes. Sorry to enlighten you to this most obvious point. Look at me, I'm very happy being a ruined sot. A fucking shadow of my former self. Digging dead dreams from the cold Earth. I have lost my mind in the sewers of fucking time and space. I've crossed over the boundary between rational and fantastical thought. My consciousness is nothing more than the certain juxtaposition of chemicals I have indulged in. Do you understand me? I cant tell my waking life from my nightmares anymore! Drugs. It may all start with an hit of e, but it all ends with madness and sloth cum. It starts to catch up with you after a while, you know?"  

"Are you tweeking again? You are starting to worry me, Gerty. I bet you haven't slept 8 hours in the last week. Your eyes look like gunshot victims. And you havent fucked me in two weeks. What the fuck is up with you?

"Babe I'm damaged goods and that's all there is to it," Gert-Jan said with a subtle hints of both fear and shame.

"You're not damaged goods, Gert-Jan, you are just a lout."

"A what?" asked Gert-Jan, as this was one of those words he had never learned, English being his third language after his native Dutch and French.

"A lout," said Donna with an exaggeratedly pleasant smile on her freckled face that served to remind Gert-Jan that she was indeed his academic superior in most every respect.

" Im glad you think its funny. I wouldnt want you to be on a bummer while I go mental. What the fuck is a lout anyway?"

"I believe the root of the word lout, spelled l-o-u-t is from the Middle English world louten, which means to bend or stoop. Throughout the last few centuries, however, the word has taken on a new meaning. I believe calling someone a lout is a nice way of calling them a lazy- fucking- drunken- fat- tweeko- cunt- bastard."

Gert-Jan thought about this a few seconds and prepared a response. Then he spoke wholeheartedly as if he were justifying not simply his own existence, but the existence of all of disenchanted humanity as well,

"I am not a lout. I am DJ Gert-Jan.  I am a European in a world of confusion. I have been slacking a lot recently, yes,  but that is because I am about to save the world."

"You are a brainless motherfucker. Probably the only Frenchman dumb enough to snort that tweek shite."

"I will not be insulted for playing the cards that I have been dealt. What am I supposed to do? Have a party? Live in a dream world and write punk rock songs about aliens sodomizing insects? The lifestyle that I have chosen is wrong. I promised myself a long time ago I'd never die until my heart stopped beating. I was deader than moon rock. I needed a holiday, baby. The living dead dont get holidays like me. So shut your dumb cake hole and make me some cheese fondue or something."  

A slight pause occurred.

"Holiday? Your gonna need something that starts with an H, but it's not a bloody holiday, it's a fucking hospital."

Donna approached Gert-Jan contemplating an opportunity to give him a right hook in his big fat head. But as she neared she sniffed the air and was repulsed at the sickly odor that was coming off the ocean waters. A mutilated sea skunk must be decomposing in his own offal, she mused.

The fuck is that horrible smell?

What smell? Oh you must smell my apathy and self-loathing.

"GERT-JAN THEUNISSE IS THE MOST USELESS SHITE IN THE UNIVERSE!", she screamed.

Gert-Jan stood up on the balcony spilling his bottle of Pernod and wailed,

"DONNA TOMKINS IS A FREELOADING DETRITUS NON-HALLUCINOGENIC MUSHROOM LIVING OFF THE FECAL MATTER OF SAID DECOMPOSING SEA SKUNK AND SHE WILL LIVE AND DIE AND NONE OF IT WILL EVER MATTER BECAUSE SHE IS AFRAID TO FEEL WHAT IT'S REALLY LIKE TO BE ALIVE!"

Donna's brain made an internal buzzing and clicking noise, which it usually did just before she started to lose control. Her parents had always fostered an aggressive instinct into her and she knew little about fear or reason when she became upset. Donna was tall and quite athletic. She had studied the martial arts as a girl, and was quite capable and prepared to eliminate a drunken Gert-Jan provided she connected the first few blows in the appropriate places.

Donna forced her aggressive impulses into restraint. If she beat up Gert-Jan she could lose a battle in the War of the Sexes. Suddenly thinking this thought ridiculous, she tittered an evil laugh and shook her fists threateningly.

Youve gone too far this time, cunt-boy!

"I knew this would happen before I even got up", Gert-Jan said in a tone that struck no melodic chord in Donna's violin of regret.

Oi, Im gonna pop you in the face now! .

"So I guess this is the end" spoke Gert-Jan again.

"Ce serait plus noble si nous nous battrons commes les decadents," challenged Donna.

No I wont fight you, Donna.  I couldnt take getting my ass kicked by my girlfriend and then being thrown out of my own house. Not today, anyway.  

You should have thought of that before you threw my love away.

Gert-Jan spoke as eloquently as he could considering his delerium. He attempted to look cute and realizing his failure decided to whip out his cock and stick it in his drink glass.

"Come on now,  a nice stiff drink can make you see the light, Donna."

Donna laughed.

"Fuck off. I can't defeat you. You are not a worthy opponent, you. You're not altogether there. Fighting you would be like hitting a retard for spitting up.

Donna knelt and sucked the drink off Gert-Jans cock. She took the glass and downed it.

Now go get another bottle and pour me a drink before I change my mind about your beating."

Gert-Jan instantly perked up.

"That's my girl. Don't worry, this depression / insanity thing is a passing phase. I'm confident in our future. Great things are on the horizon babe. I can feel it."

"I'm confident in our future too- alcohol abuse. If you can't stay sober until at least 6 PM then I'm going to leave you. It's only a matter of time."

"No. Don't leave in anger. You know. We only have one life to go insane."

"Fine. I'll stay here and not fuck you forever and take drugs. That's a good lifestyle," Donna chided.

Gert-Jans head had cleared now due to the adrenaline rush of almost being taken apart by his own  girlfriend. He decided that he would tell Donna what he really thought of her, but not before going to the kitchen to get another bottle of Pernod and refill the ice bucket.

"You are too smart to give a damn about modern culture", he said upon re-entering the deck. "Just because we live in dark times doesn't mean we have to act like it."

"Do you know what I think?" started Donna, closing in for the kill. "You are a phony. And I know it's hard for you to hear coming from a Brit, as we are such bastard imperialist creatures to begin with, but you have no talent. You aren't special. You haven't produced anything of value. You played a few good sets and wrote a few good songs and took a lot of pills. Now you are a smelly waste of food and drink and you don't work, you don't exercise, you are a terrible conversationalist, you are as spiritual as a plastic Buddha necklace and you smell like a wild animal. I think I really am leaving you forever."

Gert-Jan bled internally from the wound. He summoned what was left of his strength and replied:

"Go ahead, leave me. Then I could pity you. Maybe I already do. My condolences for Donna Tompkins, Queen of the Living Dead. I would be embarrassed to say I dated you if you turn out to be some lowlife scum-fucking epitome of bourgeois respectability. If you can't play life by ear, and especially if you can't let my feelings alone, then you are just wasting space. Structure is for mental zeros. Structure is for the old and religious. I am going to fucking Alaska to cool off for a while. The house is fucking yours if you want to stay here and complete your metamorphosis into the ugly tick-like parasite that you are becoming."

And dont forget, Gert-Jan sternly added as a note of insecurity, don't fuck any boys over 21 or I will be jealous and leave you.

"Is that the way you truly feel?" asked Donna pausing to add effect.

"Yes and truly," said Gert-Jan grinning a wide smile.

Donna frowned and tensed. She faked a right punch to the chin to catch Gert-Jan off guard and then leant back on her left foot and connected a roundhouse kick to the temples that nearly sent Gert-Jan hurtling over the edge of the balcony and twenty feet down below to the jagged rocks.

Gert-Jan, even in his wobbly state, saw it coming enough to move his head with the kick and break the force a bit. He probably would have went down anyway, but he tried to play the battered boyfriend sympathy card by hurling himself into the railing of the balcony. Unfortunately for him he was quite drunk and smashed his head on the barbecue.

"Don't tell me who to fuck, Gert-Jan!"

"Ouch! I'm bleeding", whimpered Gert-Jan.

"Get up, pussy boy!", Donna yelled.

YOU FUCKING BITCH!!

Get up and take some more, you sackless soulless lout.

"That's it. I'm leaving you now, or as soon as I stop bleeding anyway..."

"You would never leave me here alone. You are too helpless like a baby. You would die in a week or two without me."

"Not only would I leave, I'm ready and set to leave. My ticket is on the living room table. I wasn't joking. I'm going to Alaska."

"Alaska? Why?"

Reality stepped back inside the head of Donna for a moment. She loved Gert-Jan a lot. He had never held a knife to her throat and raped her like Henri, her first lover, but he had always been more or less cool to her in other respects.

Gert-Jan lay on his back on the deck and let the morning sun beat down upon him. He felt the blood pumping out of his nose and saw a small pool forming on the tiled deck.

 Im a fucking drunk. My own beloved has kicked my poor dumb ass. I need a holiday.

Donna returned to the balcony clutching Gert-Jans airline ticket in one hand and a rag to clean up his bloody nose in the other.

"Awwwwwww. Did I hurt your poor little face, Gerty?

Donna knew that only someone she truly loved could bring her to such a violent rage over leaving her. Suddenly she wanted him more than anything or anyone else in the world. His penis became the center of her universe. She wanted it to live inside her and spray her with life.  

Men are such cocky pathetic creatures, like the gorillas in the nature shows and the hosts on game shows. Gert-Jan is still cute enough to allow him to get away with all this. He is still rich he will probably dj again when he stops obsessing over aliens and lost pencils.

"I'm sorry Gert, luv. I didn't mean to be such a bitch. It hurts to see you waste yourself. You could make something of yourself you know. I'm leaving temporarily while you sort out your life.  But we should spend some quality time together. Maybe a quick trip to Paris would settle our minds?"

"Maybe even Amsterdam responded Gert-Jan cracking a wide smile, The Chems are spinning next week. And we could visit Maggie and Svenja, our lesbian friends from Stockholm."

"You wouldn't go," replied Donna, eyes wide and thinking of discotheques and drugs and flashy new dresses.

"Oh yes I would. One last bash. I have to keep up with my loyal fan base anyway. We must go together. My will to live has returned! We can buy some more ecstasy pills and have a blast. I may never see Europe again, for my plane to Alaska leaves in 14 days. Lets spend them in Amsterdam."

"What ethereal spirit just took over your body? You're glowing like the boy I once fell in love with."

Gert-Jan smiled proudly and cocked his head up like a soldier talking to a little girl,

"I am not insane, I am a prophet. A seer. A bisexual messenger from God. I am gonna convert the world to happiness.  I am gonna trip around the world and save humanity from the eternal death of religion and science. I am gonna be all I can be and kill the Army. I am gonna give all the soldiers ecstasy and Viagra and make all the soldiers disco dance and have a giant orgy."

Donna looked a little surprised.

"Okay." 

Gert-Jan didn't look it.

"And please dont try and stop me from going to Alaska. My mothership is coming to get me. I don't know why I'm going with them, but I must. I just must. I must always follow my dreams."

"Deal!", Donna retorted thinking once again about discotheques, drugs, and flashy new dresses.

Gert-Jan thought how much better the hugz of old friendz would be compared to the cold stare of tweek. He hadn't seen them all since the funeral.

"Let's leave tonight baby,  I'll go book the flight."