(Theo's Report) Susan Beckwith Febuary 9th 2010

"The sexual life of adult women is a “dark continent” for psychology."  - Sigmund Freud

Name: Susan Beckwih

Age: 17

Ethnicity: White/Caucasian

Location: Las Vegas, NV

Theo:
I come across a ton of people everyday and you stuck out since I met you.
You think, what's going on with that girl, where's her head?
You think, is she going to kill herself, does that bother me or not?
You think, why on earth would she tell me? And lastly, why does this bother me?
You rack your brain wondering why this girl racks your brain.

Susan:

"Where is my head? Well that question could be perceived in several different ways. So I guess that answer would depend on how i perceived it. My head? Its on my shoulders. Next, am I going to kill myself? Yes. Ive got nothing to live for. No goals or aspirations, no obvious skills or intelligence. Why waste my time or take up space that I don't deserve? Now, whether that bothers you or not is up to you to decide.

Theo:
*Rubs his palms*
*Cracks his knuckles*
Ok I get it, you think your head is on your shoulders. The neck bone is connected to the head bone or whatever. I wanna know where you left your mind.
Next, I'm not quite sure why I want to know or care if you kill yourself. I've just never heard anyone speak so fervently about their premeditated destruction.
Goals, aspirations, skills, intelligence, blah blah blah blah then you're dead. Ok.
I have some weird thing inside me that is attracted to the used up, torn up, and left behind.


Susan:

I would love to read your books before they are finished, hopefully they will be before I am.

Theo:
I think you should find your mind and get it back in your head before you blow it off.

Susan:

Well it's not just that I'm crazy, it's also what has happened to me in my life.

I cant sleep because I have night terrors. Not just nightmares but terrors. I cant sleep because I'm afraid, but I want to sleep because I'm afraid of what I see when I'm awake. I know these things aren't real, but they feel real. Real enough to scare the shit outta me at least. And then when I finally do sleep I have nightmares. Well, more like flashbacks. The things that happened to me when I was younger replay themselves in my dream. So in essence, night-time is hell for me whether I'm sleeping or wide awake. I hate feeling so drained.

Theo:
What are your flashbacks?
What are your night terrors?
What are your hallucinations?
What are you afraid of?
What happened to you?
Tell me in excess.

Susan:

I was raped everyday for almost two years by a man whose face or name I cant remember. I was seven when it started. Almost nine before it stopped. Those nights replay in my mind whenever I close my eyes, everything but his face. I was raped in July too. That's when the night terrors started. I see him and hear him everywhere, in my house even. I know he's nowhere near me in my logical brain but I still see him. I still hear him. I can still smell the alcohol on his breath sometimes. I'm scared to death of it happening again. Its the worst feeling in the world when I was not strong enough to push him off. And then I feel disgusting and I hate myself for not fighting harder. Even though I tried so hard I obviously didn't try hard enough or he wouldn't have overpowered me. So somehow it's all my fault.

Theo:
I know where you live. I'm coming to your house tomorrow around 2.

Susan:

Why? What do you have to tell me? Okay, that's fine.

Theo:
I want to know you, so I can write about you.



I did, I wanted to know everything that was in her head, but it's no longer in her head. She couldn't sleep that night. She drowned herself in a bottle of vodka and swallowed 12 lortabs. Then when she was still able to crawl, she went into the garage and loaded the gun.


There was no hope for her. I couldn't save her and she knew that.
Just sort of blew the writing experience when I drove past her street and saw the cops.
Poor Susan, your whole life fell on deaf ears.

Tiny Oranges

We often wonder if we’re loved enough by our peers or anyone around us. We ponder on this subject in many different forms. Some at work, some at home. Either way, we do crave it like passion that we hold more dearly than most would like to admit. Some might say that we shouldn’t demand this sort of respect, that it must be earned, but I disagree.

Think about the people that you would be inclined to give you this compassion. Who loves them? They also wonder if anyone loves them. They do, wither they’re married or have many friends. They step in front of the mirror and size up what they have, and a humble person wouldn’t have much to say for themselves. It’s about time we speak for them.

Sometimes I feel like I would be happy to be a poor writer, that wanting to be rich is a cliche. How my father thinks that because he brings home money, he's a good man. I often think that anything he has to say is garbage and should be tossed out the window like an old ham. Well, wanting to be rich is a cliche, and my father is a fool, but also, and I don't say this often, I am wrong. However my step-mother is the variable here. She makes it all make sense.

I was sitting in my room, reading a book and eating oranges. They are the small oranges, same taste, very appetizing, and yet obviously not near as filling. I ate several of these oranges and hence had quite a large pile of peels. While I was taking the pile of peels to the garbage, I thought about how many of them I had eaten, how my step-mom bought them not for me, not for herself, but for everyone.

The thought was abrupt and disputed by the idea that it doesn’t matter what she buys, my father gave her the money to buy them and it’s her role of the house anyway. It’s her job. Then I decided that before I went to bed, I was going to have a cigarette, much like I always do. Oh how I love to destroy myself. This is the place where I thought very vile like and selfishly.

Smoking my cigarette, I stood there thinking heavily like I always do; Always austere and clustered patterns of thoughts, arguing with each other in a very back-and-forth contradicting matter. I thought more about if becoming more organized in my day to day might make me less cluttered in my head, like they say in that cliche, but artists are prone to having cluttered heads; How artists paint such brilliant abstract work. How I want to be cluttered for art, and also how I want to be organized for more traditional values. How I want to be able to please others, and how I don’t want to please others at all.

Then, out there in the freezing cold, putting out my cigarette, I saw another orange. I thought to myself “Helll ya, another orange, and it’s cold. Thaaank you whoever put this delightful fruit in my path”. My step-mother, Linda put it there. I took the fruit and I put it in my pocket and realized something.... good. Linda bought these oranges because she knows that me and her kids adore them. They’re tiny and delicious, what’s not to love about them.

Then she wakes up everyday and cleans up after their orange peels, and every other mess anyone else has made. That’s her job? She might not have a hard job to do and she gets to work from home, but her job is to clean up after everyone. Who cleans up after Linda? She does.

I see orange peels left around in the kitchen and the living room. Should I clean these up? Nope. I’m an artist and that would be too organized for me; wouldn’t want to compromise my artiste. She can clean it up. That’s her job. She might get sick of these oranges and not buy them anymore, that’s her problem. My father might say that she's a good woman for cleaning up after him and it shows good character, she must feel good about how fucking great she is at cleaning up his house. Good thing she's around to clean up, nothing might get done. That's why he keeps her around.

“Come on” I shouted at myself in my head. “Quit being such a fucking loser. You’re being a bastard. You are.” So I cleaned up the kids’ orange peels. Not saying this in pride; I’m still pretty pissed at my hesitation. I’m just glad I learned something.

It’s when we stop thinking of ourselves and start thinking hard about the roles of others, that’s when we realize the most about ourselves. That’s when we figure out what just may help us out. To love, then be loved. So now I’ll go to bed and feel like I accomplished turning atleast one stone.
Funny how I turn cleaning up after ourselves into a big epiphany. I have to have an epiphany before I can do the smallest things.

A Valid Sense of Self

First off, I've decided right now to use the word "I" more carefully. "I" is a limiting word and I forget that most of what I think is what we all have going through our heads.

We're constantly looking for new chapters of our lives. Never mind, maybe it's just me and I can't speak for everyone; I'll go back to using "I". Last night I was up late and needed to think, so I took a couple mile walk down the.... wait hold on (((this is where I stop writing in my notebook cause it already hurts my hand and I hate my handwriting; it's menacing and discouraging.)))  There we go...

...Road. It had rained all day, so the roads were glazed black with the leftover gift of acid rain Las Vegas's atmosphere has to offer. To say the disgusting creatively baron least, the view was mesmerizing. 

The clouds were hued with the glow of the moon which made my spirit quite the peculiar follower. I stepped slowly toward the moon further and further, feasting my eyes on the glow of the blossomed glimmer of this spectacular picturesque scene.

The scents came in every direction from the wet sage brush and various landscaped greenery alongside my aimlessly gazed footsteps. The water was on each side of the road and reflected the revealed few stars let through the brave white and genuinely compelling clouds.

To again say the repulsively limiting least, I was staring at a temporary celestial moment that I wished I could live in. I turned off my music player because there was no such human creation that could match my ears with what my eyes were gorging themselves with.

To my left and to my right were streets that I no longer wished to travel down. These structured pathways were dark all the way to the dead end, which and only there, were lights which almost promised me parallel wonders, but nothing in this world could fill in my vacant holes like this. I remained on the wet glazed metallic road I was on. My companions would just have to come here. I wasn't going there. Not anymore.

Here I was to find a valid sense of self. Something human made could never fulfill me with this. Still, and here's the ugly, painful, placid, choleric, truth. I was not fit to remain on this road. I was still tempted to stare at the water which accumulated on the side of the road. A water that looked beautiful, but underneath was a filthy mud and a freezing temperature. This was the side of the road, not the road, but I felt the sidelines were to be tended. O the tragedy.

I stepped to the side of the road, into the very cold water which filled my shoes instantly. I stepped off the path and into the austere, harsh, and severe sobering of my paradise. My feet were too cold to remain there. Because of my curious faltering, I now had to walk home and leave the beautiful view behind.

Walking home, I saw that the water I longed to be a part of was flowing and emptying into the sewer. I'm not quite as angry as I was when I first decided to splash in what I already knew would be a bad idea. I'm so grateful that I am no longer tethered to the world of drugs and could feast my eyes and feel the natural beauty that God put before me.

We, no I, am no longer going to limit my oncoming chapters to my own imagination and am going to look to God to feel again and be saved. We, no you, are sadly but truly, most likely going to walk down other paths. I'm sorry that you can't see what I can see. I honestly and pitifully weep at this truth.

My feet are warm now, I think I'm going to watch the sun come up and let it cleanse me of my past and passed chapters which are cluttered with such distorted and false fables of my historical self.

Rough Marginal Outline

Camping
Small junk bed by the trailor
Too many people show up
Quarrel breaks out amongst foxtrot and some mexican guy with a street nickname.
The boys and I get rid of him and his friends.
I go to bed on the spring mattress by the fire and wake up to problems.
Then, walking pass me was the mexican, saw me to his left and shot me in the forehead.
Hours go by and I'm still in shock, knowing that I'm dead but not feeling a single sting.
My forehead starts healing.
Policeman comes into the scene at dusk and looks shocked.
I walk past the cop to grab a beer. He's staring at the mattress with all the blood and brains, my corpse.
Next thing I remember is being in the restaurant with everyone, but only a couple people could see me and one or two could only hear me.
I shook hands and started to write on the wall.
Then I remembered being with Laura and Carson was trying to help her grieve.
She was going into the room with him when I pulled her away from the doorway and she felt me.
She screamed "Get out of my house. You don't live here." To me, wondering which ghost I was.
Wither I was the ghost that haunted her as a child or me, the ghost that haunts today.