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Do you kiss your Goat with that Mouth?
Feb. 20th, 2013 02:43 amNothing beats that special feeling when your ex's psychiatrist finally realizes that you're not an imaginary friend she made up to help process a traumatic episode of Satanic Abuse. Not that my actual existence helps shed any light on why she still dreams of a disembodied goat's head that commands the unspeakable acts committed by black robed strangers. When we dated she often spoke of the disembodied goat's head wistfully, as if recalling a former lover from not too distant days when every impulse was forgiven through the earnestness of youth. Some nights, usually after an invigorating bout of danger sex, the goat's head would appear in her lap from under the sheets and speak in a terrible Bulgarian accent while I slept.
Naturally, when I was first informed of these nocturnal visits during my post-coital slumbers, I asked the only sensible question a man could ask: "How'd you know it was Bulgarian?"
"Oh" She nodded wisely, "A woman knows these things."
"Fair enough." I nodded in concurrence over a bowl of generic supermarket brand fruit loops soaked in day old coffee. That was her idea of breakfast in bed and it was kind of sweet looking back on it. That she always added an action figure of a scuba diver was also kind of endearing, even if I almost always ended up choking on the harpoon gun or a loose flipper.
Anyway, as the weeks passed, I learned the goat's head had a name, Koziyat Rŭkovoditel (pronounced exactly as it's spelt). However we just ended up agreeing to call him 'Kozi'. At first Kozi spoke to her about the usual stuff. A future when hellfire would descend upon the earth, as the heavenly throne burned and the smoldering skeletons of angels plummeted like stars from the that last night man would ever see. Around our bed the black robed strangers chanted Enochian in reverse with only their Cheshire grins visible beneath their hoods. But then Kozi started telling her about his dreams, of one day going back to college to finish up his Doctorate in Post Modern Eastern European literature. He really didn't want to get into the whole disembodied head speaking terrible prophecy business, but when his dad got outsourced to some offshore inferno, he had to do what he could to help make ends meet for the family. It wasn't long before the disembodied goat's head stopped talking to her and started listening to him.
It wasn't long before the situation escalated from mildly disturbing to full blown What The Fuck status. Which would be when I started waking up besides her wearing a goat mask she attached to me in my sleep or the strange stains on my boxers. When we began making love she would insist I wear the mask and speak to her in a Bulgarian accent.
"Natasha, dahlink...," I'd whisper tenderly in her ear through the tiny slit in the rubber mask only to receive a stinging slap across the face.
"That's Russian!" She protested.
"Pottsylvanian technically" I corrected but it was too late as I was left with nothing but a cold shoulder and a bell tied around my neck to pass out to.
Well, a few days after that episode, I come home from the Cube Farm to discover a suddenly half empty apartment (okay, practically all empty save a couch I found on the side of the road and a microwave I stole from the office when they made work on a Saturday once). Inside the refrigerator there was a note scotch taped to the last beer she left me. She couldn't continue to live the lie and instead was going to follow her dreams (figuratively and literally) of becoming a knife thrower at the carnival. Kozi apparently knew some people in the industry and could put in a good word for her. She told me not to hate her, after all how long did any of us have to take the crazy chances or risk a long shot on happiness? Not long according to Kozi, who gave the planet twenty, twenty-five years tops.
I tried to fill the void with plenty of office overtime, outrageously priced drugs and old Hanna-Barbara cartoons. But while that filled the hole for the first few days it wasn't enough. Unable to stand either the heartbreak those hollow rooms engendered or their unremitting petting zoo funk, I broke my lease to pursue my own dream of becoming a writer (or a 'word hobo' as they still say in certain parts OTP). Eventually we ended up friend-ing each other on the social network du jour. She was married briefly to a goat-faced boy she met in Albuquerque, until he lost his work visa and was deported back to Belarus. She's retired from the carnie life she yearned for so much, settling down to teach blind children how to throw projectile blades and lives with her new boyfriend who plays the ukulele in a bluegrass-speed metal band. We trade little more than the occasional like of one another's post or exchange a politely wished happy birthday. We've both clearly moved on and whatever pangs of regret I feel are only a shadow of the grief I once felt.
Still, whenever I pour coffee into a bowl of cereal or see children kneel before inverted pentagrams I cannot help but think of her. On the other hand, whenever I see a disembodied goat's head on TV, often selling home exercise equipment or alchemically charged cleaning solutions at five in the morning I remember why I try not to.
Naturally, when I was first informed of these nocturnal visits during my post-coital slumbers, I asked the only sensible question a man could ask: "How'd you know it was Bulgarian?"
"Oh" She nodded wisely, "A woman knows these things."
"Fair enough." I nodded in concurrence over a bowl of generic supermarket brand fruit loops soaked in day old coffee. That was her idea of breakfast in bed and it was kind of sweet looking back on it. That she always added an action figure of a scuba diver was also kind of endearing, even if I almost always ended up choking on the harpoon gun or a loose flipper.
Anyway, as the weeks passed, I learned the goat's head had a name, Koziyat Rŭkovoditel (pronounced exactly as it's spelt). However we just ended up agreeing to call him 'Kozi'. At first Kozi spoke to her about the usual stuff. A future when hellfire would descend upon the earth, as the heavenly throne burned and the smoldering skeletons of angels plummeted like stars from the that last night man would ever see. Around our bed the black robed strangers chanted Enochian in reverse with only their Cheshire grins visible beneath their hoods. But then Kozi started telling her about his dreams, of one day going back to college to finish up his Doctorate in Post Modern Eastern European literature. He really didn't want to get into the whole disembodied head speaking terrible prophecy business, but when his dad got outsourced to some offshore inferno, he had to do what he could to help make ends meet for the family. It wasn't long before the disembodied goat's head stopped talking to her and started listening to him.
It wasn't long before the situation escalated from mildly disturbing to full blown What The Fuck status. Which would be when I started waking up besides her wearing a goat mask she attached to me in my sleep or the strange stains on my boxers. When we began making love she would insist I wear the mask and speak to her in a Bulgarian accent.
"Natasha, dahlink...," I'd whisper tenderly in her ear through the tiny slit in the rubber mask only to receive a stinging slap across the face.
"That's Russian!" She protested.
"Pottsylvanian technically" I corrected but it was too late as I was left with nothing but a cold shoulder and a bell tied around my neck to pass out to.
Well, a few days after that episode, I come home from the Cube Farm to discover a suddenly half empty apartment (okay, practically all empty save a couch I found on the side of the road and a microwave I stole from the office when they made work on a Saturday once). Inside the refrigerator there was a note scotch taped to the last beer she left me. She couldn't continue to live the lie and instead was going to follow her dreams (figuratively and literally) of becoming a knife thrower at the carnival. Kozi apparently knew some people in the industry and could put in a good word for her. She told me not to hate her, after all how long did any of us have to take the crazy chances or risk a long shot on happiness? Not long according to Kozi, who gave the planet twenty, twenty-five years tops.
I tried to fill the void with plenty of office overtime, outrageously priced drugs and old Hanna-Barbara cartoons. But while that filled the hole for the first few days it wasn't enough. Unable to stand either the heartbreak those hollow rooms engendered or their unremitting petting zoo funk, I broke my lease to pursue my own dream of becoming a writer (or a 'word hobo' as they still say in certain parts OTP). Eventually we ended up friend-ing each other on the social network du jour. She was married briefly to a goat-faced boy she met in Albuquerque, until he lost his work visa and was deported back to Belarus. She's retired from the carnie life she yearned for so much, settling down to teach blind children how to throw projectile blades and lives with her new boyfriend who plays the ukulele in a bluegrass-speed metal band. We trade little more than the occasional like of one another's post or exchange a politely wished happy birthday. We've both clearly moved on and whatever pangs of regret I feel are only a shadow of the grief I once felt.
Still, whenever I pour coffee into a bowl of cereal or see children kneel before inverted pentagrams I cannot help but think of her. On the other hand, whenever I see a disembodied goat's head on TV, often selling home exercise equipment or alchemically charged cleaning solutions at five in the morning I remember why I try not to.
