This is Eric. He’s dead.Ok, not really, but he looks dead,...
This is Eric. He’s dead.
Ok, not really, but he looks dead, doesn’t he? Eric has always been fascinated with death. He thinks about it constantly, talks about it to anyone who’ll listen. When he has a spare moment, like in this picture, he pretends he’s dead, tries to not breathe, ignores the beating of his own heart. He imagines the cells that make up his body popping and spewing their guts forth in putrefaction.
Eric is a very fucked up dude. Seriously. He’s deeply weird, but somehow has managed to get a girl to agree to marry him. In a graveyard. By me.
Oh, me? Yeah.
One time, about 10 years ago, I sent five bucks to the American Fellowship Church and they ordained me as a minister. I did it for a gag, but now Eric wants me to marry him and his woman under a full moon in a graveyard.
I gotta get, like, a somber robe or something.
Another thing about Eric you probably don’t know: he collects skulls. Human skulls. He’s got eleven of them at this point, only one of which he stole from a grave. These skulls will be present at the wedding. They will be the witnesses, in addition to the two live people required legally.
Eric and his bride will be, according to Eric, “Shrooming hardcore, dude,” so I plan to be sober as a judge and well armed. I gotta get, like, a handgun or something. All I have are these shotguns—not exactly subtle.
I can see it now: “Here comes Preacher Mike in his somber robe with his trusty Mossberg over his shoulder.” It just won’t do. We will have a hard enough time coming up with two legal witnesses as it is: “Shrooms? A graveyard? Human skulls? A shotgun-wielding preacher? Um, yeah, I think I’m busy that night.”
Sorry, Eric.
I haven’t met the wife-to-be, but she must be some special lady. He says she’s really smart and “came around to my way of thinking pretty quick.” That’s why, according to Eric, she didn’t have to stay down in the basement “as long as the others.”
It’s great when two people find each other in love, don’t you think? Be right back, playing Barry White.
* * * *
Ok, I’m back.
You’re probably wondering how I met a guy like Eric. I mean, there aren’t too many guys like him in the whole universe, especially ones still roaming free, completely unincarcerated. Obviously since you’re reading this, I must feel compelled to write about him. Or vice versa. Millions of people have been written about, most of them fake, a few real, but in my opinion nary a word should have been said about the vast majority of them. Eric is an exception, though. Big time.
Eric is just one of those friends you’ve always had, ever since you can remember. I met him in 5th or 6th grade, way back in the mists of time, long, long ago. Back then he was all about killing things, neighborhood cats especially, but pretty much whatever he could get his hands on. I’d follow along, disgusted and fascinated, unable to look away. In high school we drifted apart. He became a loner and in the manner of loners, always by himself. We’d talk at school sometimes, but never really hung out anymore.
After high school, he went off to college and I became an alcoholic. I busied myself with working dead-end jobs, getting DUIs, and kicking around the same shit town I’d always kicked around in. I didn’t see Eric for years and years, had no idea what he majored in, didn’t know if he got one of those careers like the people on tv have, nothing. For all I knew he was a fucking congressman or something.
Then one day he just showed back up. I was living in a camper at the time and there came a knock on the tinfoil door. It’s been downhill ever since.
We became roommates for a while, but that didn’t last long. Eric needed his own house, you see. He needed privacy, a place with, as he said, “a basement with thick cinder block walls and a good locking door.” A place where he could practice death in peace.
That was five years ago and I’m still a drunk and Eric is still a weirdo. Also, I suspect, a registered sex offender.
Anyhoo, this marriage is going to take place next month, on the full moon, under what he hopes are cloudless skies, in Rose Hill Cemetery, and, no, I’m not looking forward to it. Sure, I’m happy for him and his future missus. The universe is a cold dark place, full of meaninglessness and absurdity. If you can a find a person to love, hang onto them like grim death. But I don’t even know how to marry anyone. Sure, I’ve seen it done on tv. I know you start with DEARLY BELOVED and end with YOU MAY NOW KISS THE BRIDE, but what goes on in the middle? Remember, this is Eric we’re talking about. He’s about as far from conventional as you can get and still be in the same dimension.
And where the hell do you find a somber robe?
