Chapter 8

Perspective (Part 2)

12/15/05

And I have a new objective: to bone the shit out of my housekeeper. I want to make her feel alive, but just for a moment.
Infinite.
Free.

I just want her to look at me looking at her, looking at me, and think—
If only someone my age could love me this way.

And I’ll love her, but in the wrong way. I’ll make her feel infinite, but covet a swift death. I’ll make her love me in a fake, story tale way.
Pretty Woman.

So this is my new victim, raped by time and age, vulnerable, because she doesn’t know what else to be.

Name: Rosa Marie Sanchez Rodriguez
Age: 37
Height: 5’1
Weight: 120
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Brown
Perfume of Choice: Lysol with bleach
Book of Choice: Pablo Neruda: 5 Decades, A selection.

Not like any of this matters anyway, but she was going to be my guinea pig. I was almost at my apex.

This is going to be an easy task; my housekeeper has been walking in on me masturbating for the last three years, so much so, that she doesn’t even get startled when she enters my room. She just lays my clothes on the bed, gives me my daily pills, and leaves the room. But every-so-often she will glance over my shoulders as I we complete our morning rituals. And this is reassuring because I know she wants it.
True Life: I had sex with my housekeeper.

Then, one day she comes in with my clothes and my daily pills, and I ask her to have a seat on my bed. She complies. So I push her down and straddle her. I draw lines with my fingertips across her body. And she smiles, but says nothing.
And I know I’m in.

And there I am, with my penis between her thighs, eyes closed, pretending she’s some sort of fugitive, as if fucking her is something illegal. And she puts a pillow over her face to silence her screams, but I quickly remove it because I want to see her face. And when she comes, she has a weird twitch in her right eye.
And I come.

And she makes me breakfast: steak and eggs and fresh squeezed orange juice.
She loves me that much.
My parent’s don’t even love me that much.
Sometimes, when I’m having sex with her, I feel as if I’m fucking a prostitute. My parents are paying her to have sex with me and then make me breakfast.
And I come.

And she makes me lunch: a turkey sandwich with Muenster, extra mayo, and no crust.
She loves me that much.
And sometimes, when I’m having sex with her, I imagine my parents walking in on us.
My mom yelling, “What would Jesus think?”
My dad yelling, “Son, you can’t just have sex with the maid; you have to be more discreet than that!”
And I come.

And she makes me dinner: Peking Duck.
She loves me that much.
My parents aren’t even at dinner.
My mom is upstairs watching reruns of Law & Order.
My dad is with his mistress of the month.
Like father, like son.

Then, one day I catch her stealing from my mother’s jewelry box—a pair of Tiffany earrings and a blue sapphire diamond necklace. She looks at me and silently tells me to just ignore it. Walk away.

Then I yell at her, “You can’t just steal from my parents! That’s not right!”
But she tells me to shut up and forget about it or else she’ll sue my parents for sexual harassment (in Spanish of course). She was using me as much as I was using her.
Revenge is a bitch.

And I’m thinking—
How do I regain control?

And there I am, having sex with another girl in my bed.
My housekeeper walks in with my clothes and daily pills and screams, “Ay Dios mío! Ay mi madre!”
And her daughter covers up. But I continue to thrust and ram and thrust and ram and thrust.
And she comes.
She’s got that same twitch in her eye.
And Rosa screams.
Then I come.

And Rosa runs downstairs to grab the telephone.
She starts yelling at the local police, “Ay Dios mío, mi hija esta violajando!”

And I sneak behind her with a cloth soaked in ammonia. And she passes out.
“Hello?”
And I grab the phone.
“Hello? Is everything alright?”
“Yes sir, this is Hayden Santiago, I live on 10 Beech St. My maid isn’t from this country and accidentally dialed the wrong number. She meant to dial her cousin in Mexico. I’m sorry for the miscommunication.”

In this type of neighborhood, if you say everything is all right, then everything is all right. No questions. No comments.
I wonder if he could smell the bullshit over the phone.
Thank God he does not speak Spanish.
“Ok son, have a good evening.”
I hang up the phone.

Now she’s comfortably asleep on her hardwood bed.
And I plot.
And her daughter enters the living room and screams, “Ay Dios mío! Ay mi madre!”

And I force her to help me put her mother in my trunk, because that seems like the right thing to do. Rosa’s body is dangling in my arms, limp and lifeless. I didn’t mean to foreshadow, but sometimes I just can’t control myself.
Control is like a cock—sometimes it’s hard.

We put her into my father’s black Mercedes, which was spacious and comfortable enough for any hostage.
I didn’t know what else to do; I had already taken the incentive in a syringe. So I card a line on the dashboard and prepare for my long, exhilarating night. I take a line of Addies.
Ginsu Sharp.

2am

And we drive along the New Jersey Turnpike at 95mph, the windows down, the music blasting. And I make her go down on me, threatening her with a knife I bought at the Salvation Army roughly three years ago during my vintage, non-conformist phase while her mom is asleep in the trunk.
Non-conformists are just conforming to non-conformity.

And “Stairway to Heaven” comes on, and I’m thinking—
Is life just a game of Chutes and Ladders?
Infinite.

And she cries the whole time, but I figure I can use the tears as lube. And her mom is now awake in the trunk.
And she’s screaming, “Dejame salir. Dejame.”

And her daughter is crying; her boo hoos add a nice touch to Robert Plants’ piercingly beautiful voice.
Background Music.
And her mom is screaming, and she’s crying, and I’m swerving across the highway, now doing 110 singing a duet with Robert Plant.
And I come.

And she cries, and wipes her mouth.
Beauty really does Come from within.

Then, I pull out a tape recorder from the glove compartment. I press the record button and start shouting into it, trying to speak over all the unnecessary commotion.

“My name is Hayden Santiago—” I begin, but the stupid bitch sitting in the passenger seat interrupts me. “Shut the fuck up, bitch!” And I continue to shout into the recorder, “My name is Hayden Santiago—” And I’m interrupted yet again by her senseless screams. “I said shut the fuck up! If you don’t, I’ll stab a hole in your throat and fuck your voice box!” I’m not sure if that’s possible, but apparently she thinks so because she doesn’t say a thing afterward. And I persist, “That is who I am, but not what I am. My desire to burn and destroy, rape and pillage anything beautiful is rooted so deep that I no longer see the world as abject, ugly, but rather measure everything along a spectrum—a wavelength of beauty.”

Then—in between sentences—I look through my rearview mirror, doing 110. And there are lights flashing—blue and red and blue and red. Now I know I’m fucked.

As the police quickly approach the car, I take my foot off of the gas.
And she’s crying, and her mom is yelling, and The Doors are playing, and I’m thinking—
“This is the end.”

And I’m thinking about my parents.
My mom yelling, “You’re going to hell.”
My dad yelling, “You got love stains on my leather seats.”
And I’m thinking about my mug shot.
Should I gel my hair or mousse it?
And I’m thinking about what I’d wear to my court hearing.
Armani? Yves?


2:25am

I quickly force my mind to come back to the present. I’m thinking about an excuse, an explanation. But at this moment, any bullshit I come up with doesn’t seem worthy of such a fucked up situation.

And I’m thinking and she’s crying and her mother's kicking and yelling and the lights are flashing, but the car ride is smooth.

And the two cop cars whiz right past my dad’s Mercedes, both doing about 130. And my apprehension subsides, just a victim to the moon They were racing. That is what State Troopers do at two am. They race on the turnpike at 130 mph.

And I’m laughing and she’s crying and her mom is kicking and yelling, and I am feeling—
Infinite.
We pull over to the side of the road near exit sixteen, and I hear people screaming in the distance. The Giants are playing. But I’m pretending as if those people are cheering for me. They’re all watching me. They’re all rooting for me.

And I get the shovel.
And the girl.
And a hole is dug.
And here we are, in the midst of a murder, knee-deep in New Jersey filth, the Meadowlands, panting, sweating, freezing.

2:45am

I open the trunk and Rosa attempts to attack me. She’s kicking and biting and yelling like a rabid dog. She loved me once, but love hurts…so I hit her with the shovel.

The kicking stops.
The yelling stops.
The cheering continues.
And a hole is filled.

And there are no witnesses, not even God.
And I’m thinking about perspective, and the daughter’s crying bloody murder, and the crowd is cheering for me, and the mom doesn’t say a word. And Mick Jagger is singing in the background—
“Fade to Black.”