Pat Frankly Doesn’t Give a Fuck

I get lost sometimes. Sometimes I get lost. Sometimes it feels like I am spinning in circles, and nothing will make it stop.

I don’t panic. If I squint for an instant, usually I can keep my shit together. Rise to the occasion. Be the leading man of the hour.

A stalwart prince. Zero fucks to give.

But when I wake up this morning, I look in the mirror. I beg and I plead for the man to show me something. Anything. A sign. A hope. A reason to go on.

I don’t panic. I put my shoes on and jacket and hurry out onto the street. My head’s in a hurry. What else can be done? Got to try, got to shove on, got to live another day.

Across the street, Harold is wrestling lovely Caroline in the grass. He is chuckling as he turns her on her side. She shrieks in glee.

How can someone so lovely wrestle a bastard like Harry out of love?

The sun is shining brightly in the sky. Harry reaches one arm around Caroline and pulls her in closer.

I envy him the sun shining down, the light illuminating her white hair that rests upon his arm, the rosy flesh of her back now exposed as he takes his hand away.

I envy him the sun and all its illuminants.

Before Harold sees, I’d better hide out somewhere. But I am lost inside and no good at decisions, so I just stand still. My eyes fixed on Caroline.

“What the hell is that creep doing?” I hear him cry out.

“Oh, let him be, Hare, you know he doesn’t mean anything by it.” Caroline coos, still playful.

“Goddammit, Caroline. You always stick up for that creep. Somebody’s gotta put that bastard in his place.”

I remember one time Caroline sat with me and rubbed my shoulders after I had cried. “You’re one of the special ones, Pat,” she told me as she turned to leave. “You know, good at heart.”

“Hey creep!” Harry growls, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? What did I tell you about watching me and the missus?”

I don’t reply. I don’t make a move. I just stand there watching. I don’t budge. I stare back. In my dreams, my most colorful dreams, I’ve seen Harry beaten to a pulp and begging for mercy.

But this isn’t a dream. It can’t be. This morning’s episode, too real. My head, too lucid. My nerves, on a wire.

Harold is coming for me now, rushing across the street. Caroline rises to her feet, waiting on the grass. Her mouth is moving. “Leave him alone,” maybe she says. I don’t know. I can’t hear anything but a million other voices screaming inside my head.

I want to run. I want to scream like they scream. I want him to die. I want Harold to die.

“Do you hear me ya whack job?” Harry shouts, his fist raised.

Caroline looks afraid. Butterflies flutter-fly away. Harsh rays of the sun beat down upon the street. Black tarmac lays unmoving, beneath swirls of blurring heat.

In dreams, in my most fantastic dreams, I imagine swinging a large rock against Harry’s head and watching blood spill out. I imagine a stupid grin, like an idiot’s, on his face as he collapses to the ground.

I stumble back, trying to catch my balance. But it’s useless. I’m plunging too quickly backwards.

“C’mon, you little pussy!” I get stung in the eye a few times, then the nose. “Gimme all ya got! Show me who’s boss, ya perverted little wimp!”

I hear this as my head hits the cement, my body following soon after. Then comes the searing pain, everywhere, seconds later. I feel hot blood drip down into my ears. Everything goes black.

#

When I open my eyes again, I see Harold a few feet away. Caroline stands in front of him, her arms crossed, her forehead tight.

My face throbs as I tongue the swelling around my mouth. Dried blood is caked to my face. It feels like I’m wearing a tight-fitting mask.

I shut my eyes and, for a moment, dreams, the most vivid dreams of Harry gasping and shrieking in pain fill my mind. I clench my fists and try to feed the rage but inside everything’s collapsing into itself. Salty tears run down my face, stinging the cuts on my cheeks.

Desperate, I look up and squint at the sun. Around me the light of day shimmers dream-like. The sky’s a never-ending blue. The grass’s a lush green.

Tears run down my cheeks, wetting the blood caked to my face. I feel the mask peeling away.

#

“I don’t care, Harry, you should’ve listened,” Pat hears Caroline shout. He sits up in time to see Harry throw his hands up in the air and shake his head. “Caroline! You don’t get it, how to be with guys like him.”

“No, Harry. You are wrong about Pat.” Caroline steps away from Harry. When her eyes meet Pat’s, they twinkle. In seconds she’s crouching down next to Pat in the grass, in pieces, with Pat’s face in her hands, her thumbs running up and down Pat’s cheeks. “You. Pat. It’s always been you,” she says, near tearful.

“Caroline, what the hell?” Harry stares at Pat and Caroline with a look of bewilderment—mortification even. His big uncomprehending eyes loop back and forth.

Caroline wipes the blood from Pat’s nose with her sleeve. She kisses his forehead. “Won’t you take me?”

Pat reaches for Caroline’s hand and when their hands touch, Pat rises to his feet and the two embrace. Pat takes Caroline by the waist like a fast romantic, dips her, and plants a juicy one on her lips.

In that instant a shooting star flashes in the distance.

BIO: Graeme Richmond Mack is a college history professor who writes flash fiction and historical commentary that has appeared in literary magazines, journals, and on platforms, such as BigCityLit, the Northwestern Indiana Literary Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Please See Me, Literary Garage, Suddenly, And Without Warning, the Washington Post, The Conversation, H-Net, Yahoo!News, and the Journal of San Diego History. He is also a reader for Flash Fiction Magazine. Originally from Canada, Mack studied history and literature, earning his B.A. at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, M.A. at McGill in Montreal, and Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego. He lives in Virginia with his wife and young children.