Eugene

Life is cruel. Life is unfair. Just today I saw a cockroach clinging onto the thrashing ear of a shrieking rat on the street. Now, tell me this is a benevolent god. 

Eugene wrapped up his journal entry. Daily, he wrote on the ungodly things he saw in New York City, and how horribly tortured his soul was. He was ugly, he was miserable because of it. He self loathed at his undesirability and was undesirable because of his self loathing.

Eugene dragged his sorry feet from his desk to his canvas, and began to paint the harsh image of vermin warfare while it was fresh in his mind. Eugene had hit that unfortunate roadblock that every artist must face, and could think of nothing new to ache over in his life. He had milked most of the despair that exuded from his 36 year old involuntary virginity. So much so, he’d resorted to absorbing the torment of a rat and a cockroach! Oh, but all he had ever known was art! Art and misery, that is. To Eugene, these were one in the same. The only praise he’d ever received was of his art, and analogously his misery. He could take on no other form of living.

The sadist curators of New York took some interest in his pitiful portrayal of existence and would buy only the most dismal of work he produced. So he opened his chest and let the vultures vouch for how delicious his rotting intestines tasted. For the sake of a living, miserable Eugene was and miserable Eugene would remain. The validation they offered him was the singular thing that kept him from taking a knife to his chest. But his virginity was tired in its dormancy. He was in dire need of more ways to dwell on the tragedy of his poor, poor life.

The land line’s ringtone cut through his invaluable train of thought. It was his Mother. His ugly face contorted into something uglier at the unbearable, cyclical screech of the phone. But he endured it to its end, for the wails of his Mother’s insufferable, prying questions were even more abhorrent. That woman has done nothing but curse him, beginning with the curse of his grotesque name.

Aha! His name… Suddenly, Eugene became extremely morose at the misfortune of his name. So much so that he ceased his incomplete painting of the rat and roach. He had to feel his hatred in whole.

Why would my Mother curse me with such a repulsive name? That witch of a woman ought to be burned alive at the stake for creating such a demon as myself. Eugene. No woman would scream that in bed. This must be the reason for my lack of lovers. Oh what a terrible life I live…

*****

The following weekend, Eugene went to a dive bar to dwell in his loneliness, which he had now figured was most certainly brought by his horrid name. He wrote it over and over on a napkin.

Eugene. EUGENE. Eugene. Eugene. Eugene. EUGENE EUGENE EUGENE. He tried to make it look pretty and ugly and normal. He looked at it till it didn’t look like a name anymore, or like anything at all. A curious onlooker who happened to be sitting nearby and happened to have nobody else to talk to and happened to have nothing better to do noticed this strange behavior. She leaned over to the artist and asked,

“Who’s Eugene? Your ex-boyfriend or something?” Eugene looked up from his stupor and met the woman’s scientific gaze.

“It’s an ugly name isn’t it.” he said with a scowl.

“Actually, I was gonna say I love that name, and you should’ve kept the guy just for his fantastic name.” she leaned in.

A woman who liked Eugene’s name! How wonderful and awful for the starving artist! To his delight and dismay, his nominal malignance was cured. But now… now he had to find something new to trouble himself over. Now something new. Aha! Even though the strange woman liked his name, she assumed he liked men! For this, Eugene convinced himself he still could never obtain a woman. His lack of love and attention, which served as his fountain of golden misery, was protected.

But the woman sitting next to him at the bar happened to be particularly bored and particularly curious and particularly lonely that night. She continued to question him. “So… you have an ex named Eugene”

“Ya.. yes I am a homosexual um.. gay man. I like men. Eugene had a very large penis.” Eugene was confused by his own feelings: up was down and left was right. He was not ready to alleviate the misery brought to him by his deficiency in female companionship, and so he feigned homophile. His misery was the only thing, the only thing of value that he possessed. Much more valuable than a potential love interest. What could love ever bring him anyway? He never knew love to be anything but a guise for exploitation. Anybody who had claimed to love him ultimately wanted something from him, something. Love brought him nothing. Misery brought him recognition and some pocket change.

The woman continued “Ok so you’re like, fully gay? Are you completely anti-pussy?” Eugene was starting to think this woman was actually quite weird. What kinds of questions were these? He could be a murderer for all she knew. He was significantly larger than her, overpowering her would not take a great deal of effort. And here she was saying such crude things to him. He was self aware of his image. Hideous and creepy. Unkempt, greasy haired, and pungent. He had a flap of skin hanging from his neck that made him look like a turkey despite his relatively young age. His clothes looked like they’d been fished from the dumpster. His dejected personality, horrendous looks and rank odor all worked together to repel men and women alike. How this woman was leaning in so close and could stand his smell, he did not know.

The woman lost patience waiting for his response and asked, “So what’s your name then?”

Eugene tried to think of the second ugliest name to his own.

“Enoch.”

“Oh that’s a fabulous name. Vintage!”

Eugene was not anticipating nor had he ever received such praise.

She continued “So, do you live near here? I’m a little bored… a little lonely tonight. I’d love some company.” She said this with a certain look in her eyes. Eugene could not identify it. It was wide and hungry and so strangely focused on him. This face which so many averted eyes from. This face which he could hardly gaze on himself. Not one mirror went unshattered when

Eugene’s eyes prolongedly met themselves. Yet, she held her eyes on him without shattering his reflection…

Was this woman completely out of her mind? She was not ugly. She was young, and seemed to be put together. Was she desperate? Practically begging for a hideous man that as far as she knew, was not interested in her genitals at all? Eugene contemplated. The chance of fornication was very tempting now that he thought about it. What if he did have sex with this woman then never told anybody, or acted like it never happened, so that he could continue to pull from the pain of his virginity? He could not just pass up this once in a lifetime opportunity now.

*****

“Enoch! Oh! Just like that!”

Eugene deposited himself in the woman sitting on top of him. His heart was racing from the mere 15 seconds. The woman, who Eugene realized he had never learned the name of, laughed. Eugene, who was feeling many new feelings and could not decide which to show, was suddenly enraged. What was she laughing at? Was he just a joke to her? A game? Is that why she stole his precious virginity? His biggest selling point? As part of her sick joke? She was probably going to leave his apartment, and tell everyone how she deflowered this pathetic, miserable artist, who lied about his name, and lied about his sexuality, and lived a big fat lie! She was going to ruin everything! He could not let this happen. He grabbed a paint mixing scraper from his nearby canvas and stuck it deep into her neck. Both he and the scraper lingered inside of her. Blood rushed out of her throat, blood rushed into his penis.

She fell limp to the side. He stood erect with the bloody scraper and began to smear the red all about the rat and the cockroach.

“Oh they will love this one! They will just love it!”