Track 1 - Remedy - Hot Water Music

Jake worked at a restaurant. Jake was a manager. Jake hated his job. Did I say all this yet?

Nathan, he worked there too. People called him Scooter, because he looked like the Muppet. He wasn’t a manager. He was more or less indifferent about the whole matter. Scooter never took off his shoes, and he had a lousy nickname.

But that’s all gone and it doesn’t matter. Here’s what’s happening right now as you read this on your plane trips and in your bedrooms before you go to sleep and while you try to take a shit:

Jake will probably be gone soon, or so he thinks. Lots of things are broken in him. One of his lungs is a water balloon. Someone put a rib bone through it. His arm doesn’t work. He doesn’t know it, but the sweet taste he can still remember in his mouth is spinal fluid. Generally this isn’t a good sign.

Jake’s life is no good until now.

The foot bone’s connected to the leg bone. The leg bone’s connected to the knee bone. The knee bone’s connected to nothing, and it all gets tossed aside.

Jake hates his job. He doesn’t work there anymore. Now he’s in a hospital in Seattle—he doesn’t know which one. We have flashed forward. Now we’re flashing back.

He stood at a concrete guardrail and looked at the dark brown stain running down its side. It was still a little bit wet, and it looked something like chocolate sauce in a sponge. The sun was going down, which must have been important.

They are all rushing around him last night. They are all in such a hurry. He wants to tell them to calm down, he’s just a guy. That’s all. Nobody special.

Jake’s apartment is always messy and he upsets a girl there. But he’s special to me. I made him. Jake has to live through my machinations because I’m lonely and afraid.

It had felt good but he didn’t want it to. It was over pretty quickly. Now his dick was wet and small. He wanted a shower, but he had been told that a woman needs to be held, after. His mind was putting up walls. He felt like a great, hollow light was pouring out of his mouth, eyes, fingertips, the kind that doesn’t shine on anything. Was it death?

No, his dad says, you’re just being a pussy.

Jake has a concussion, so I’m sorry this is all jumbled up right now. He can’t help it. I’m trying to sort it out as best I can, but it all seems like the present.

They cut his clothes off him. It is a good shirt they are cutting off. Jake gets it at a tiny punk show in Barker. The band is called Beat-Up Book Club. He trades his shirt for the lead singer’s, and gets the one that they cut off of him last night. There goes a good story about a good shirt.

“Is this Jenny?”

“Yes, who is this?”

No one is rushing. No one is there. I’ve rewritten this at least ten times. The lights are out, the TV is off. Jake likes the dark. He can’t stop thinking about it. They say Jake is stable. Jake says he is going to die.

Molly doesn’t buy it, but you haven’t met her yet. Molly looks good in her funny way, as always. Not as good as Alex used to look, but Alex doesn’t matter anymore. You won’t meet her, but her ghost has a hard time leaving. Scooter’s ghost dies with Scooter—he doesn’t believe in that shit. Molly holds Jake’s hand in the dark while he sleeps. Wait, I just said no one was there. Jake wakes up with a splitting headache.

Jake looked in the rearview mirror, at the headlights behind them. Those headlights were a family ruined, a hateful act of stupidity.

Every story I’ve ever read was about a girl. Even the ones that weren’t. Maybe that’s what she’s doing here. Maybe I can’t think of anything better.

Jake can’t open his eyes. Jake can’t remember how he got here. Jake can feel someone holding his hand but she’s been gone for an hour. Jake’s girlfriend is dead. Jake’s best friend is dead. Jake is not dead.

Here’s the story I’m telling.