Landis, Corrine
JOURNAL ENTRY 02

The days following Jonathan's exodus I spend like an apparition that haunts the home we once happily occupied. I can't imagine how my previous restlessness has justified my current state of endless despair. The guilt racks my bones like a medieval torture device, and I respond by further punishing myself and my body beneath Frank Parish, the man with whom I have destroyed my life.

I entertain several suicide considerations but find myself too cowardly to follow through. I try cutting but find the sex a much more productive way to remember my pain, revel in it, swim in it, swallow it. Outside my husband's apartment, the world is engulfed in the bizarre spectacle that started in Nevada. The animal they treat like a foreign dignitary is only miles away. I treat the apartment like a shell. If the world becomes a bright, sunny, wonderful place and this lizard stops global warming and world hunger, I'll be alone on my couch or under Frank's muscular, tan body.

Jonathan's cell phone was turned off the morning after he left. Later that day, his voicemail box was full. I call him a dozen times a day anyway. No one knows where he is. I even called his parents. I don't think they had any idea what had happened. They didn't know where he was or why I didn't know. His office calls every day. He hasn't been back to work. I want to just go get in my car and keep going until I find him. Cry at his feet and plead with him to somehow forgive me for this horrible thing that I've done. Somehow he might forgive me.

I would remind him of when we were seventeen, when he kissed me at Disneyland. I'd remind him of our wedding day, of our wedding night. I'd remind him of the nights we stayed up until daylight eating ice cream and watching sitcom reruns, laughing at everything even though there was nothing to laugh at.

Remembering all of this, formulating this plan, I can only think of myself as I am now: ruined. I willfully fired a powerful weapon at the precious head of the life I had built, and for the life of me I can't imagine why. What only days before felt like a shackle is now all I want in the entire world. But what I want and what I deserve are two very different things. I want Jonathan, but I deserve Frank.

One afternoon, Belial is back on TV, back in front of the Twin Towers. He says that we've all been slaves to a misplaced concept of humility and selflessness. He says that he won't wait another day for America to rediscover herself and take control of her destiny. Belial says that the people are receiving hurt when they should be giving it. Says that we wither and weep when we should rise and charge.

Lifting on long reptilian legs, his scaly lips peeling back over an endlessly toothy grin, Belial calls for change.

"The Trash Of God Center has opened its doors to all those who would seek the wisdom of her guidance!" he announces from my television screen.

"My people and I are prepared to give you the answers that the world has denied you. We are equipped to prepare you medically, psychiatrically, physically, and above all spiritually to become who you were meant to be. Men and women of authority and pride, no longer buckling under the treacherous weight of selflessness, say it with me, America! God is us! God bless America!"

Gradually, I find myself mouthing the words along with the screaming crowds on the television.