Jon Bautz

The “D” Shift Boys

Jon Bautz

Two-twenty-six in the A.M., and I’ve just finished smoking a cigarette outside. After coming back in, the first thing I did was pour myself a glass of O.J., tip back about two shots of Nyquil, chased it with a couple Benadryl and then, just to speed the process along, two Sudafeds. Christ. If that isn’t crazy, I don’t know what is.

Of course, if you know anything, ever took any of them around-the-house drugs before, you would know a knockout cocktail when you heard it described. And that’s what I just whipped up, pretty as you please. I’m sure it’s just as effective as walking the two blocks to the neighborhood bar, finding the biggest, meanest redneck in the place and slipping your hand down the back of his trousers and tickling his butthole with your pinky finger. That’s sure to wind you up on the floor spinning down some shitty rabbit hole, probably with a broken jaw to boot.

As I’m sure you would agree, the second scenario is completely insane. It doesn’t mean it’s any crazier than the first though. In fact, it would probably be your safer bet if you just wanted to be unconscious for a while. Maybe you run the risk of getting stomped to death, but odds are somebody in the bar doesn’t want a dead queer bleeding out his AIDS-infected blood into the room, so you’d probably just get chucked outside, still limp and unconscious, to wake up and wander off dazed and aching.

When you take that cocktail though, it’s not exactly as if you shake the sleeping denizens of the house by their shoulders and lean over their bed and tell them what you’re up to. Of course not. You don’t slip into your roomie’s one bastion of privacy and clear your throat.

“Hey Bill. Bill . . . Billy The Kid!”

“Mmmphh . . .whaaaa?”

“I’m about to drink a whole fuckin’ bottle of Nyquil, okay?”

“Mmmmm . . .”

“Then I’m gonna pop a few Benadryl.”

“Ssssnooooorrkkk . . .mmmmppphhh . . .”

“After that, I’m gonna eat a fistful of Sudafeds. If that don’t get me down, I’m gonna take a shot of your Jack. Okay?”

“Whaaa? No. Mmmmppphhhh . . .drink Jimmy’s fuckin’ Crown ...Squoooonnkk.”

“Alright . . .take it easy buddy.”

“Uuuhhhmm . . .”

Of course you wouldn’t do such a thing. You just get in the cabinet, pull out the pills, wash ‘em down with the Nyquil, then try to find some way to kill time and distract yourself. That way it’s more like being hit with a blackjack from some slick mugger than like seeing the punch coming. That’s the way I prefer to perform this particular surgery anyway.

The problem is, when you have sleep issues like I do, that real insomnia, not just anxiety, by the time that particular thought rolls around in your head, you ain’t thinking straight. To be perfectly honest, you can’t even begin to pitch a straight idea across the plate, and forget about fast thinking.

Only, the stimulus comes quick, and you’re the sluggish batter, swinging too late, or too low, or too slow. But when you go to pitch one, it’s a fucking curveball. Maybe it’s one of those spitball knucklers they fazed out of the majors way back in the twenties. Problem with that is, you’re the catcher and the batter on that pitch too. Sometimes you knock it out of the park . . . shit happens sometimes and it’s inexplicable.

So, I take the knock-me-out combo and sit around. Of course I begin to think that I just did something completely bat-shit, but it’s too fucking late to change it now. Hell, it’s too late to be waking up. Or maybe it’s too early. I don’t know. All I know, is I went to bed at eleven-thirty, read for about an hour, fell out, and woke up fifty some minutes later, staring at the ceiling and praying that when I got up it would be six in the morning.

Fell out, I said. Hah! I love that term because that’s exactly how it is for me. I don’t drift gently off to sleep; comfortably aware that consciousness is swapping places with them damn demented boys on the “D” shift. Hell no! It’s either lie there, staring at the back of my eyelids, or up at the ceiling, or picking my book back up. Them are my choices. Then somewhere along the way, somehow, I fall out. It’s like one minute I’m standing next to the jump door of a small plane and the next I’m floating through the clouds. Sometimes I don’t float, I plummet, and it’s scary as hell. But at least I’m sleeping and that’s something.

Not that sleeping is all that fun these days. Not with those “D” shifters I have working for me. Them twisted fuckers I refer to as my unconscious. The ones that never really sleep like the A shifters do, but instead hang out in some shitty back alley dive in the scummy area of my brain while them decent up front boys do all the heavy lifting and real work.

I can picture them now. Just sitting around some dingy little bar with dirty floors and a shyster bartender that pours water in the drinks when the customers aren’t looking, spit-polishes the glasses too, I’ll bet. I can just picture them sitting around, coming up with new ideas on how to make sure I’m no more than two hours asleep before popping awake, either scared shitless or thinking about putting a bullet in my head.

Must be they don’t care too much for my company. I can remember when they used to send me on special dangerous assignments, or maybe flew in a couple of the first- rate whores from my cerebellum. But these days . . . who can say? Maybe I just scare them. I mean, if I’m consciously doing shit like mixing drugs when the “A” shift boys are supposed to be watching out for Numero Uno, then I guess that sense of self-preservation has to shift to the old unconscious. Must piss ’em off a bit having someone else’s workload shoveled off on ’em. Shit, it ain’t even work they’re supposed be trained for. Whatever.

I could be wrong. What with all the sleep I’m not getting, I don’t think too straight, sometimes. Maybe I’m giving the “D” shift too much time off. Could be they’re just restless and pissed off.

“Hey, asshole!” Yeah, I can imagine that. “Hey, you dumb prick! What the fuck are you doing? We’ve been working hard here making these dreams and shit, but you ain’t using any of them? Hey! You alive up there?”

I’m a shitty boss, I suppose. At least to the “D” shifters, I am. Maybe they’re just restless. And drugged-up to boot. Possibly, I keep waking up because they’re on strike and there’s nothing going on to hold me down there in Slumber Land. Could be they’re like those crazy assholes that stood outside the local steel mill several years back. Pissed off because they walked out on the job and nobody called them back. So what do they do? They stand around in front of the entrance gate and throw rocks and shit at the guard shack.

I can remember several instances very well where I did something the “A” shifters screamed at me not to do. They scrambled to emergency stations, sounded the alarms, pulled the sprinklers and everything they could think of to stop me from doing something crazy but it didn’t matter. Some of those “D” shifters, maybe, had come in unannounced, drunk and rowdy and looking to fuck shit up.

One night I was just out of the shower and shaving. I had my towel all wrapped around me, the radio was on and I was just rinsing the razor after getting my right cheek smooth. That’s when I looked up, razor in my hand and froze. It wasn’t for long, but I remember it was a distinct pause. Then there was this voice (no I don’t hear voices but you know what I mean . . . this thought) and I couldn’t stop it. I just stood there, staring like a simp at myself and getting pissed. More pissed. Way Pissed.

“You asshole.” Said that voice. “You no-good piece of shit. I hate you. I’d fuck you up if I wasn’t you.”

“What the fuck?” I said, right out loud. “This is crazy shit here.”

I tried to reason with myself, you know, talk it out like. But that didn’t work. All it did was bring that other voice back louder but it wasn’t saying anything. Just going ape shit with hate sounds, you know. Growlin’ and howlin’ like some crazy fuckin’ ape.

That’s when everything went all red and crazy for just a few seconds. I dropped the razor and upped with my fist and before I could stop myself (Before the “A” shifters could get things under control?) my fist was flying through the air and the mirror just exploded, I mean EXPLODED, and then I was bashing into those glass shelves behind that mirror.

SMASH! Tinkle, tinkle. All that glass came down, right in the sink, and then the pill bottles, my toothbrush, deodorant, my Crest, everything just went skittering and flying everywhere. I remember finding a comb in the toilet the next morning.

But anyway, when it was done, and it was done quick, I was just standing there looking at my fist like some virgin retard looking at a pussy. Blood was pumping out of a cut on the bottom of my wrist, my knuckles were all cut and bleeding, and there were a couple of glass slivers still sticking in there. I was speechless for a moment. All I could do was just gape and give the “A” shift time to get on damage control.

Of course I didn’t die. I just washed it up, put some gauze on my hand and used tooth floss and a sewing needle to stitch up my wrist. It was a real bitch too, what with me being right-handed and having to do the sewing with the left. God, it took forever. After that, I cleaned up the glass and went to sleep. Hah! I went right to sleep like a little baby and didn’t let that little occurrence affect me until I woke up the next day with my hand stuck to the sheet from all the blood.

And there was one more time. It was a bad one and a very scary one. It made the episode with the medicine cabinet seem like a memory of taking a picnic with my young lover of days bygone, followed up with a sweet natural slow screw in the grass under a maple or some shit. This is what happened.

It was a Thursday night, and I was watching a movie by myself, trying not to think about it being a Thursday. The reason I didn’t want to think about it being Thursday was because my wife had walked out on me a few weeks earlier, and our main issue revolved around Thursday nights. Those were the nights she would take off to this bar a few blocks away and fuck around with this hippie singer that drove up from Columbus to play.

I had myself convinced it wasn’t really going on like it was for a long time. I really did. I explained away the stains in her panties and the way she always smelled like shit when she came home and crawled into bed. I let the “A” boys explain it away, but the D boys, well they knew. Them fuckers can’t be lied to about shit like that. You know they’re the ones that give you that feeling in your gut that you try to ignore. But they knew, and they fucked with me about it, too. And it tore me up. Finally, one night I had called her on it, and she left. And that was that.

Anyways, it ate at me for a long time after she was gone. And just knowing that she was out there at that fucking bar every Thursday drove me nuts, because she wasn’t giving a shit anymore about what anyone thought, because it didn’t matter what anybody would come running and tell me at that point. We were done; she was free to chase after that motherfucker right out in plain sight. Well, you can see how I felt. I guess I still can’t think on it too much, a full year and a quarter later.

So, anyhow, there I was, just watching this dumb fucking movie, Kung-Pow, I think it was, and pretending it wasn’t Thursday. Them “A” shifters were doing a pretty good job keeping me preoccupied and sane. But they must have been throwing all they had at me because they sure as shit weren’t watching their own backs. If they had been, I’m sure there might have been some internal struggle, some conflict. But there wasn’t. The surprise was total and effective, and the outcome of the takeover was foregone.

One minute I was sitting there watching the movie, even laughing, so help me, and the next thing you know, I’m on my feet, pulling on some shoes.

After that, I walked into my bedroom, pulled open the underwear drawer, and dug out the old Nine Millimeter. I popped the clip, saw it was loaded, and stuffed it in my waistband. Then I grabbed a fistful of shells and pocketed them. I grabbed my jacket up from the tree by my front door and pulled it on, and next thing I was outside in the truck, driving down the road.

I never thought it out, never thought it through and had a plan, but I knew where to go. I pulled into the parking lot of the bar, way at the back, and just sat there. That’s when the “D” shifters started turning the old thought wheel. They weren’t used to it though, that was “A” shift’s job, the thought wheel. The “D” shifters only brought me stuff to look at, or made places for me to play in or, like I said, flew in the whores from the cerebellum.

Well, anyhow, I sat there in the truck for a good long time. It was one-thirty when I got there, and I knew the bar would be closing at two, so I just waited. I didn’t think much about Shit like this is wrong, this is fucked up, or there will be serious repercussions. I just thought that if I sat right where I was, the two of them (the old wifey-poo and that hippie motherfucker) were sure as shit to come walking out together after almost everyone else had left.

Sure I could walk into the bar and just prance right on up and blow that guy’s fucking brains out. Then I’m sure she would be nearby, and all I would have to do was turn and count to seven as I pulled the trigger, while pointing the gun at her. That would leave one bullet for—you guessed it—yours truly.

But shit could always get fucked up. You can never tell when there’s going to be a hero in a crowd, so I decided to wait for them to come waltzing out of the bar, just the two of them. in the parking lot. Just them and—of course,—yours truly.

So I sat there. I listened to the radio some. I smoked almost a whole pack of cigarettes in that half hour, one after the other, and just stared out the window toward the bar. At about five till, I pulled the piece out, slipped off the safety, and jacked one into the chamber. After that, I dropped the clip and thumbed another shell in. Nine shots. That ought to do the job. I jammed the clip home.

A few minutes after I had fed the last shell in, the parking lot pretty much emptied out and then the two of them came through the doors together, He was lugging some rack system, and she was carrying a guitar case. They were walking awful close together, talking, I suppose. Well, he pulls out his keys and pops a button, and up goes the back door of this SUV. He loads the rack, takes the guitar from her, and loads it too. Then they turn to head back in and I watch her slip an arm around his waist.

A few more cars left while they were inside, and I figure I’m sitting pretty visible and hoping she’s too fucking drunk to notice my truck. I slipped out, and sprinted to a stand of maples at the edge of the lot, and waited. They came out again with their hands empty, and I guessed he had gone back in for his payola with her in tow. I could hear them talking but only the sound of their voices. I couldn’t make out any words.

They walked over to his ride, and I could tell they were saying goodbye. I was breathing real fast. It was time. Definitely time. So I edged along the trees and worked my way toward them, trying to keep quiet, which isn’t too hard for a man that spent his boyhood in the woods.

When I was about thirty yards away, I had to either stay put to remain unseen or come out to shoot.

That’s when I watched her take that step that brought her sweet little body right up against his, and one of them hijacked “A” shifters screamed out for me to stop. Wait. See how it plays. Even he’s pissed off now, but demanding to know for sure whether there’s something going on before I cap everyone in the lot. The “D” shifters though, every last one of them was screaming, Fuck it! They wanted me to just head out there and start shooting.

“You seen them walking together like that?” The “D” shifters were screaming. “Why the fuck would they be like that if they ain’t fuckin’? What’s with all the extra cream she kept bringin’ home in her panties all them nights? Huh?” And I almost did say, Fuck it.

Now, I don’t know why, but I decided to wait. So there she was, body up against his, hands all awkward and I can see she wants to grab him, slip her arms around his waist. She lifted her face to him and closed her eyes, and I was done watching. I took one step out of the trees when he took a step back from her, and put his arms on her shoulder, and said something I couldn’t make out.

Well, she opened her eyes and gave him this hurt look for a second, then just turned and walked away. Went right to her car and drove off. He never did turn around and see me, just walked around to the front of that SUV and did just like she had, and I was standing there, pistol in hand, staring at an empty parking lot.

What the fuck? I would have expected them almost to have jumped into the back of his rig and start balling right on the spot. It looked to me like that’s what she had thought was gonna go down. But it hadn’t. One of the “A” shifters told me it wasn’t a good time to think on it and I guess that made sense to me. A cop car drove down the street but he couldn’t see me where I was. Still, it made me nervous, so I tucked the piece away and ran back to my truck.

On the way home, I ejected the shell from the chamber, popped the bullets from the clip, and tossed them out the window, one at a time, as I drove along.

When I parked my truck and went inside, I put the gun away, promised myself I was going to get rid of it the next day (a promise I kept), and cried like a baby. When I was all washed out, I drank bourbon until I passed out on the kitchen floor. I slept like a coma patient with no dreams, and I’m glad of it.

So what do I do? What can a person do when they got their shifts all jumbled up, and there’s no difference between what you dream and what you live? I suppose maybe I’m crazy, or, if not, then damn close to losing it. All I know is, I ain’t been right for a while now.

There was a day, way back when, that I seemed in control of my actions; a day when I couldn’t have talked myself into picking up my gat and driving out to ventilate someone I used to love. Hell, somebody I still love.

There’s been times I try to tell somebody about what it’s like, the way my mind is working these days, and it comes out sounding like a joke. I suppose it might be, even. Only thing, it ain’t too fucking funny if you ask me. To be downright honest, it scares the shit out of me. How am I supposed to know that one day I won’t be sitting around just minding my own business, watching the tube or just driving down the road or something, and all of a sudden them D shifters creep up and convince me life ain’t worth shit for living? The bitch of it is, I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Maybe I lied to myself too long about how I felt when the little lady walked out on me. Probably I did. And maybe I wish I could have kept going on with that lie. It would have been easier that way because then I wouldn’t have to take such a hard look at myself. Then, maybe, I wouldn’t have to feel like I failed in my marriage and in my life, and I could have just kept plugging away.

Maybe. Yeah, right.

And maybe I could have kept lying to myself right up until the day I died and been none the wiser and happy with myself. Only thing is, I ain’t happy. And I can’t really lie to myself. I wanted to. I still want to.

But them thoughts that’s supposed to stay down below, that’s supposed to be underneath what I’m aware of . . . those “D” shift boys . . . they wouldn’t let me alone. They wouldn’t just give me my peace and let me see things how I wanted and let it go at that. And it’s weird, but I don’t even think of them as part of me. I don’t think of that part of my mind as belonging to me. And something else, I hate ’em. Them fucking “D” shift boys, I tell you. Them sons of bitches.