DISCLAIMER: All events, characters, and statements described in this story are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living, dead, undead, fetal, comatose, or Jewish is purely coincidental. To be crystal clear: this story is a fiction, a creative work, verbal masturbation, and pure batshit poppycock.

Any resemblance the following bears to reality is completely chance-based, arbitrary, and unintended. Any claims within the story that attempt to repudiate this disclaimer are to be taken purely as aesthetic and creative license.

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Disregard that. Besides the names, this is all 100% real.

During my last semester of college, I lived in a house a mile from the campus of Arizona State “University.” We saw a lot of good times in that house, but by my last day there, there was a dead bird in the kitchen.

Nobody picked the dead bird up. That’s where it went.

But let me start at the beginning. It was January 2012. In my house lived four people: me, John, Brad, and Mark. Everything was awful and no one liked each other.

John: A Direct and Indirect Victim to My Bodily Fluids

John and I were doing fairly well because we were graduating college soon, and about to enter the real world. Months before, he pissed me off when I was drunk, and I spit in his hair. As peace talks were bringing us back together, he gave me permission to sleep with his ex-girlfriend, which I checked twice “you sure that’s cool, bruh?” and after his reassurance, I went for it, which turned out was super uncool of me.

I don’t know why he gave me permission twice. Maybe it was because he felt like saying “no” would be admitting he ever cared about his ex girlfriend, Marie. Yes, probably exactly that. That said, there’s no way around it, John was at least indirectly responsible for every reason I ended up sleeping with her, besides the one where I’m a terrible person who wanted to.

I don’t claim to be the hero here, I’m just making the point that I’m not a perfect villain.

And look, in my defense, she was cute and studying for the LSAT. She thought I was really funny (a lovely trait, in my book) and oh, one time MY girlfriend at the time, Amanda, had told me that I “could never get with a girl like Marie.”

Amanda doesn’t realize that infatuation is at the intersection of attraction and vengeance. Probably next to a gun store.

Normally, this would be no big deal as Amanda , my girlfriend at the time, spent lots of time telling me about things and people I couldn’t do.

I couldn’t, in her words:

• “be in an open relationship with [her].”
• “just have sex all day and never take [her] out anywhere or do anything that isn’t sex or looking at shit on [my] computer.”
• “consistently ignore [her] at parties, get blacked out, and then repeatedly expect [her] to drive [me] to Taco Bell (or whatever shitty place [I]want to eat at), and then have awful sex with [her] that [she] really didn’t enjoy because [my] breath smelled( probably like fire ball and mild sauce).”

She kept saying I was, “Self-centered.” It was just like, “OK, but how does that affect me?”

Anyway, John and Marie, then a couple, had booked a trip inviting me and Amanda along to hang out with them for a few days in Vegas. The plans were detailed down to the vehicle, “Marie’s dad has a Prius!” In 2011, Priuses were still something to get excited about, along with making fun of Ke$ha, eating Chipotle, and wondering what new store would occupy the old Blockbuster.

A few weeks before the Vegas trip, John got sick of Marie and broke up with her. So, he said Marie could go on the trip with me and Amanda, and Marie, cashing in on the free room, agreed to be our third wheel. We were cool with that because Marie had the Prius, an efficient car with reasonable storage options and hey, Amanda and I had been together 2 years, what could possibly go wrong? Just everything, it turned out.

I didn’t physically cheat on Amanda on the trip, just mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and if you believe in any other realm of human existence, that one too.

There was a moment when Marie and I went up to our separate rooms together from the pool while Amanda was still poolside. And for the second time ever, I masturbated out of sheer fear of what I might do. The first time was at a girl’s house in high school who kept touching me but wouldn’t let me touch her.

But look, nothing happened on the trip. I didn’t cheat on Amanda, but after the trip, we broke up, I was single, Marie was single, and the sexual tension resolved in an overall pretty satisfying, plot-driven sexual experience.

Since I had double permission, I told John the morning after it happened, literally having just driven from her house to mine. Turns out, that was super uncool. One lesson I took away from this: err on the side of not fucking your friend’s ex of three years. Just a lil’ pro-tip from Father Wisdom over here.

Hence, massive rift between us.

Brad: A Hawaii-Bound Ex-BFF

Meantime, Brad and I had suffered a serious falling out involving my gross mismanagement of our improv team. He had also slept with my lifelong crush. This, among other factors, had prompted him to drop out of college, and move to Hawaii to do volunteer-work on an organic farm AKA World Wide Opporunities on Organic Farms, or briefly referred to as “woofing.” I just described it as “moving to Hawaii to put it on Facebook.”

Brad was moving to Hawaii maybe because of the improv team stuff, maybe because he was a lost soul, and definitely because he was going to kill it on those fb likes.

I saw him moving as a cop-out to finishing college. Between my mean attitude, failure as a improv director, and probably some other stuff I forgot, we were not chill.

Hence, massive rift between us.

Mark: Crazy List Author

I don’t think Mark disliked me or anyone though. At least no more than he disliked all humanity. Mark smoked pot in his room while watching British comedy programs. To make pot-money, he was a chef for his parents’ catering business.

Mark’s social media presence was slim, and as far as I know, he was not one to write very many things down. Mark was the kind of guy who only said what needed to be said. Not speaking led to occasional meltdowns. For instance, one time Mark thought I was stealing from the house because of how I organized our bills. He kept screaming at me, and accusing me while refusing to hear anything I had to say, so I ripped my shirt off. This is actually the manliest thing I’ve ever done. Thanks Mark.

Anyway, the occasional tantrum was a small price to pay for Mark’s Crazy List.

Enter: Amber, Replacement Roommate, Hellish Cat Owner

Brad was moving to Hawaii so that he could pursue woofing and social media engagement. So, he had to find us a new roommate. He found Amber on Craiglist. He described her as “really chill” and “super cool.” Truthfully, Amber was extremely hot, but her taste and style were not congruent with the house’s hipster/bro aesthetic.

Really, she was reasonably chill, but “super cool” only to a small demographic. This only reinforced what me and John thought about Brad and his judgment, namely that it was wonky and placed an overemphases on shallow appearances, mostly demonstrated by his plans to move to a place with slim to no cultural significance, job prospects, or benefits — other than being highly-facebookable.

Anyway, Amber was one of those girls who wore a huge crucifix on a necklace, but dressed in all black and got wasted a lot. Which isn’t great for facebook, but she tore it up on Instagram.

No one ever asked her why she wore the symbol of Christianity in between her big breasts because no one had to. She obviously didn’t love God and wanted attention, or maybe it was mutual respect from the Gothics or whatever they’re called — I just call them people who didn’t go to college. She had lots of bad tattoos, some antique furniture, and painted her room pink as soon as she moved in.

In short, Amber did hair for a living.

I had no problem with Amber though. She was actually nice and I was open to any and all conversations that might naturally happen between us. She was physically hot enough that I got nervous around her, but not really attractive enough to warrant being disappointed in myself when every conversation went horribly. She didn’t care about anything I did or said, which was fine, I already hated myself for having done severe damage to probably the two closest relationships in my life, with Brad and John.

Oh, and one more thing about Amber, SHE HAD A CAT WITH A HUMAN FACE.

The Cat with a Human Face: A CAT WITH A GODDAMN HUMAN FUCKING FACE

The Cat With a Human Face was Amber’s “cat.” Or was it? No one really knew. TCWAHF was more of a shadow creature, one you knew existed only because of the damage it left behind. I saw this “animal” 2 or 3 times over the course of Amber living with us. I’m pretty sure its real name was “Lola,” but you’d only refer to it as that if you were telling someone about your living situation, and didn’t want to be open about living with a demon.

No photographs of this cat exist or probably could exist.

Was The Cat With a Human Face a spector that haunted my life? Some kind of God-sent being trying to tell me I was acting like an animal wearing a human face? Was its oddly large nose, bizarelly humanoid cheek-bone structure, and piercingly blue eyes an occasional yet poignant nagging that maybe, just maybe I was afraid to really look myself in the mirror, and act like a true human being?

Definitely probably no, but man, that cat really did look like a dude and it was fucked up to see.

TCWHF would attack Puss Puss, Mark’s cat, if given the chance. This was the beginning of tension between Mark and Amber. A tension that would slowly grow…

Mark’s Crazy List: The Title of This Story, But Not Necessarily The Point. Still It’s Not The Title For Nothing, Ya Know?

Mark hated Amber.

Maybe Mark LOVED Amber? Probably that too. Amber was pretty hot and Mark wasn’t the type to have stringent criteria for his significant others other than them having a working understanding of bongs and being cool with a dude who eats double meat sandwiches at 1AM.

In any case, things just got worse and worse. Mark said Amber had to go, and John and I couldn’t understand why. Then, he wouldn’t say anything for awhile, and then bring it up, WAY WAY madder. His complaints were consistently baseless, solve-it-among-yourselves type situations.

Meantime, Brad was in Hawaii and really, killing it on those likes. Turns out in Hawaii they have HUGE avocados, which can do some real numbers, esp. if you count comments too.

One day, I came home to an excited John. He said I had to read something, something he had intercepted between Mark and Amber. It was chicken-scratched on notepad paper.

Again, forget the goddamn disclaimer at the top, this is word-for-word 100% reality. It’s a transcription of a real note. I lack the capacity, anger, and profound hatred to write anything this passively-aggressive insane. It’s REAL.

There was no context given on the paper, but Mark had told John it was the reasons Amber had to move out and he was going to give it to her.

1. You once said you wouldn’t drink at one of our friend’s houses cause you’re 21 and drink in bars

2. Your overall passive aggressive tone

3. Your own fork and glasses

4. That you wont clean the floor when you’re that one that’s bothered

5. Said you cleaned the litter when I know you haven’t

6. Stop getting tattoos and invest in laser removal so you don’t have the permanent scars of when you wanted to be a suicide girl

7. How you got paint all over the bathroom and outside slab but have made no attempt to clean it

8. You need to be asleep early several nights a week, that’s just not the type of household we are

9. Your stereo subs are driving right into the frame of the house

10. The feng shui of your room is awesome, the bed is against the noisiest possible wall

11. Unfortunately the tension between the cats is causing mine to urinate on my clothing

12. Why was your grey box in the music room all week? We have a room for extra stuff

He was not allowed to give it to her. Ever.

I mean, everything you really need to know about Mark’s Crazy List (of complaints?!) is concisely demonstrated in #3, “Your own fork and glasses.”

How is that a bad thing? What is this, a list of things she owns?

Who knows how Amber would have reacted, probably with cold indifference, which would make Mark dismember her, best case scenario.

Deliciously hypocritically, #2, “your overall passive-aggressive tone,” precisely describes the list itself, besides the seminal #6, “ Stop getting tattoos and invest in laser removal so you don’t have the permanent scars of when you wanted to be a suicide girl”— which I’m considering getting tattooed.

In any case, by the time of Mark’s Crazy List, we had all decided to not re-sign the lease and call it quits on the house, but we’ll always have it as a reminder or something. Maybe just a thing. which brings us into our final chapter.

The Great Fire Sale AKA Selling All Your Shit For Cheap ‘Cause You’re Moving to New York

Everyone had left the house. John’s stuff was long cleared out. Mark was long gone. Brad came back from Hawaii hundreds of likes richer, but still could only afford to live with his mom. Amber had a few things left, and was gonna pick them up over the next few days. The lease was a week or two from ending. It was just me and the Cat With a Human Face, and a transcription of Matt’s Crazy List saved in my phone. Thank God.

I’d just gotten back to the house and having decided to move to New York in a few weeks, I needed to sell a lot of stuff fast. I took a picture of a bunch of crap I mostly technically owned and threw it on fb.

I made $140 that day selling trash.

Mark, as it turns out, was interested in some items and was coming over later to pick them up. Meantime, I was cashing in on a different prospect. I’d met a girl, Jacqueline, who texted me at 3PM saying “let’s drink.”

3PM drinking texts have an obvious subtext: Jacqueline wanted to hook up. Mark wanted to buy some of my products. It was a perfect little day. I ate a quesadilla and drove my van a few blocks to pick up Jacqueline. She said she was still getting ready, so, “Come on upstairs!”

When I arrived upstairs, Jacqueline was wearing a dress that was exactly the color of her very pale flesh —and know that I have no taste regarding clothing or fashion and almost never care what anyone wears —this, I can honestly say, was the most unattractive clothing-person combination ever. She asked me what I thought. I lied and was EXTREMELY GENEROUS in saying that I thought it looked “ok.”

She was kind of offended by that, but clearly still DTF.

We drove down the street to a liquor store. She bought a fifth of vodka and a huge can of pineapple juice. We got back to my house and were talking in the kitchen, when Jacqueline started to open the can of pineapple juice by stabbing it with a BBQ fork.

A huge-ass BBQ fork.

I tell her “oh, uhh, hey I wouldn’t do that.”

She says it’s fine and repeatedly stabbed the top of the can. She kept stabbing it, as my eyes bugged out.

Then, in one smooth movement, the fork hit the top of the can, shot over the edge, and she stabbed herself above her thumb on the back side of her hand.

Blood flew, actually flew, and landed all over the kitchen. Some blood landed near the dead bird on the floor.

Nobody picked the dead bird up. That’s where it went.

Jacqueline screamed as her blood poured all over our kitchen. I grabbed a dish towel and help soaked up the blood.

She started to calm down and said she wanted a cigarette. We smoked and she asked if I wanted some Adderall. Do I want something that will make me feel good among every awful thing that just happened? Yes. I went to the showroom (empty room where I’ve laid out all the crap for the fire sale) and did a couple of lines.

It dawned on me: I have zero interest in hooking up with Jacqueline. I could create this interest using alcohol, but now I’m flying on Addy. I’d have to down half the fifth to even get in that ballpark. Fuck.

Then, my phone rings. Mark’s outside. Mark. He’s here for the fire sale. Mark’s desperate. Mark can take Jacqueline off my hands. Brilliant.

I forced them to talk to each other by doing stuff on my phone the whole time. They hit if off IMMEDIATELY. Mark might’ve been crazy, or perhaps merely had anger problems, but at this time, in this moment, he was my customer and hero, and for that he was beautiful, maybe even divine. He was a divine person with a divine salsa stain on his divine khaki shorts.

One hour later, Mark had spent $80 and got a Nintendo DS (without a charger), a scale, a pipe, and Jacqueline gladly took him home.

I kick the shit out of Best Buy.

When him and Jacqueline left, I smoked a cigarette and went inside. I cleaned the blood off the floor and since I was down there, I threw the dead bird away. I started to make another quesadilla.

The Cat With a Human Face peeked into the kitchen, staring at me. It’d seen I moved its dead bird. Fuck.

I knew I had to leave there, even before the lease was over, even if it meant moving in with my parents and having to be home by 11PM every night (real). TCWHF had given me a look that I knew meant I had to go. Somewhere. Anywhere. To any place away from felines with human facial features, and so many fucked up memories of awful shit I’d done to people.

Or maybe I just had to leave because it just felt weird without that dead bird, really brought the room together.