Two weeks in the Katina (from 92 journal)

-One time at the gas station where I worked, I met a girl. The girl in front of me, standing in line is not the girl I met however she was sort of a regular in this gas station. The girl in front of me was a fat skin pocked fuzzy headed beast with brown raison teeth. It seemed like she rolled in everyday with that empty stare. I’d force a smile and feign interest in her redundant remarks about how cool it was to work here. She always purchased the same thing: a pack of Marlboro lights and two dollars in gas (always nickels, dimes and pennies). Today, I noticed something different about her: a red blotch on her neck, a hicky, no doubt, a mark of passion and ownership.

“Quite the rug burn,” I said.

“My boyfriend is such an animal.” She leaned her head in close and whispered,” all he wants to do is have sex— three, four, sometimes five times a day. He’s wearing me out.”

“Really?”

That someone would voluntarily have sex with this girl, I shuddered.

“Yeah, he’s crazy. You know my friend is looking for a boyfriend.”

The line behind her began to swell and grumble so I had to cut her off.

“Sure tell her to come in,” I said.

She took my comment more serious than I thought she would and scribbled down her friend’s phone number. I looked at the number written in big fat numbers and it said, call anytime. Apparently the boyfriend and her along with this single friend lived together. I had no real desire to call her anyway. I can only imagine what the friend looked like too.

The next morning at work, I answered the ringing phone. “Hello?”

“Can you tell me what time Jim gets in?”

“He’s right here.”

I heard muffled embarrassed laughter and whispers. Then the voice continued. “Hi I’m Katrina, Karen’s friend. She knows you from work.”

The beast had a name. “Oh hi. How you doing?” I asked.

I couldn’t really talk so I promised to call her later that night to meet her. Instead, I went to Maine for the week-end.

The following Monday at work, Chris the manager told me that Katrina had called him there a few times and now she wanted to meet him. Apparently she spied Chris through the window and thought he was cute. Oh well, no loss here.

Neither Katrina nor Chris seemed to be able to make up their minds. Chris confided to me that she was a whore but then tell her he wanted to meet her for sex. Meanwhile, Katrina was still calling me at work as well as Chris, though he was the manager, he also worked shifts at the register too. He was my age too, a short blond haired kid with neat straight hair. Personally I thought the whole situation was getting absurd and told Chris to have her.  “Take her. I don’t like these games. She’s all yours,” I said.

That night Chris showed up on my shift, drunk. He had plans to meet Katrina finally. Then, Katrina called and as I was about to hand the phone over to Chris, she invited both of us over to her apartment or maybe meaning whoever showed up first. I told Chris and he went home to return his father’s car. Fuck it, now I’m just going crazy to see who this fucking girl is so I tell her that I’ll be by after work. Then I sped along Main Street on my bicycle, a warm quiet night. I was a little nervous and excited and had no idea what to expect. I navigated through the apartment complex until I found her building. I walked to the front door, pressed the buzzer and the door buzzed open. I walked down the corridor, pushing my bike along as it left tire marks on the rug. I hopped on the elevator and found her room.

Katina opened the door. She was a small blond haired blue eyed girl, surprisingly cute. He followed her inside and left his bike just inside the door on its kickstand. They went into Karen’s bedroom. It was littered with clothes, magazines, dirty dishes with spaghetti remains, ash trays and puzzle pieces. In the middle of the room was a huge mattress on the floor.

Karen sat on the bed and her boyfriend, John sat beside her. Karen seemed to just ooze all over the mattress like Jabba the Hut. The boyfriend tinkered with a broken phone. Katrina had her back toward me and seemed to be making bodily gestures to Karen. Then Karen blurts out, “she likes you, Jim. I told you he was cute.” We left the bedroom.

I was relieved but embarrassed too. I studied Katina a little more critically now. Definitely cute, a modest pretty face like Meryl Streep. I would sleep with her sure.

Katina went on for what seemed like hours and I sort of yessed and uh-huh'd my way through the boredom of her life and problems. "I'm sorry, really. It’s just… I’ve got such a headache you know. I never get to relax. I’ve got to wait on Karen hand and foot. When I moved in here she was like ‘come live with me. You won’t have to pay rent.’ So I said sure. I needed space. My mom needed space so I moved in. A few weeks now. I just can’t relax. I’m sorry. I just started working at Burger King and she already has me paying the phone and fixing her car. It’s crazy.

“And John pisses me off. He’s always aggravating me and Karen. They’ve been going out for five years. He thinks that just because I’m trying to help out that I’m trying to steal her away from him. He doesn’t lift a finger to help either.

“I don’t know, Jim. I know how important first impressions are. I’m so aggravated. I can’t relax. My last boyfriend used to come over here and after a week, all he did was sit with Karen and play Nintendo and talk with her and it was like I wasn’t even there. All my boyfriend’s seem to end up liking her better than me and I don’t want that again. I’m sorry, Jim. I’m glad you came over.”

“Katina.”

“Be right there. Come on Jim. I feel a little bit better. I don’t have anyone to talk to. I’m glad you let me talk and get it out. I hope I’m not saying too much,” she said.

“Nope. Not at all,” I said.

As I followed her back into the bedroom, I looked at her legs, her ass and I was getting turned on. I would love to get those pants off.

John stood beside the closet that was crammed with junk and now he toyed with a broken lampshade. Karen talked on the phone and asked Katina to pass her the cup of coffee John had made her. It was one o’clock in the morning now. I sat on the corner of the bed and wondered if there was anything living under the sheets. Then Karen snapped: “Johnny! This coffee’s too strong. You know I don’t like my coffee this strong! I can’t believe you Johnny. Where’s my coffee? You always do this to me! You make it too strong. I don’t like it!”

“It’s all right,” said Katina. “He didn’t mean it. It was a mistake. John why don’t you dump out her coffee?”

John mumbled something into the broken lampshade.

“I want my coffee! This is grotesque. I can’t believe you. We don’t have too much left and you’re wasting it!”

“Then make some more,” said John.

“We only have a little left. You always do this Johnny.”

“We can buy some more when I get my check. Let me make a little more,” said Katina.

As she got up to make coffee, I noticed the picture on the wall above the bed of three cute kittens. John moved towards me, something on his mind.  “Look at this he said. An ashtray that spins. What do you think, Jim? A spinning ashtray.”

I inspected it. The frame was made from the broken wire of the lampshade and the bottom of it was an aluminum plate and a cup. It spun easy.

“I like it. A lazy ashtray,” I said.

“I love fixing things— making things from junk. Check this out. I found this unstrung guitar in the dumpster and put wire cable on them. And these are just rocks from the parking lot. I chiseled them down,” he said.

“Do you read much?” I asked.

“History. I like history and I like science. Sometimes when I get depressed I go into this world where we are not the only life form— but just another race. People from other planets. They have proof you know of alien visitors to earth and they keep coming back to study us. Not to hurt us but to learn from us. They want us to succeed as a race because we are a very unique race.”

Later that night, I was alone with Katina on the couch. It was a bare living-room except for one bureau against the wall and a coffee table. On the table was an unfinished puzzle of a unicorn in flight. Behind us, through the window we could see the parking lot.

“I always have to put up my shield,” she said. “I’ve been hurt so many times and I don’t want to get hurt again. I call it my bubble and it protects me. It doesn’t let anything bad into my world. I can live without hurt. It will take a long time before I let someone back inside my bubble— a long time.”

We began to kiss and fondle in the right places. She began to get caught up in the developing passion. As we groped one another she began to whisper, as if she were alone, “Bubble. Where are you bubble? Where are you? Don’t leave me.” I removed her pants easily and licked her pussy until she came. It shot out in a burst as if from a garden hose. I had never experienced anything like that before. Perhaps it was this bubble warning me to leave.

She called me the next night while I was working and asked me to come by. So I did. We hung out on the couch. She hugged me as we lay down in the dark. Then came the complaints again— Karen, John and ex-boyfriends. I only caught pieces of it. I had already been through this before. I just wanted to slip her panties off. I wanted to enter the bubble again.

However, the disturbance was unbelievable. In the middle of some heavy necking, the kitchen light would snap on, illuminating the couch. John exited Karen’s bedroom, his head newly shaved, dark eyebrows and face unshaven— truly looked like a psychopath. Katina would get up and check in on Karen in her dungeon. The clock read 2:30 am and I wondered if anyone slept around here. I lit a smoke and joined him in the kitchen where John was toasting two muffins for Karen. John started to clean the coffee pot.

“Isn’t this nice? I paid fifty bucks for it. You think it’s worth it, Jim?”

I looked at it. He could have bought one at Sears for twenty.

“It’s a little dirty,” said John.

The next night I went over, I asked Katina who paid for the apartment. How could they live there if it was only her meager Burger King salary coming in.

“The government,” she said.

“For both of them?”

“Yes. John was in an accident awhile back. His motorcycle slipped off the Kangamagus Highway and he crashed. He suffered some sort of brain damage. He can’t make it on his own. And Karen… well, I don’t really like to talk about it,” she said.

As I waited for Katina to return from the bathroom, John entertained me with his theories about junk and creativity. As he brought up his many ideas he laughed maniacally. He promised that sometime soon he would make a device that would make the phone ring louder. Soon he rose and walked back into Karen’s room, the dungeon. Then he returned shortly and asked very respectfully if BP needed help at the gas station.

“Yes. Badly,” I said.

“Can I get an application?”

“I’ll bring one by next time I come over.”

“Well… I haven’t worked for a long time. I don’t know how to fill one out. Do you think you could help me?”

The next night I went out with my friends and it was a party and we were drinking my favorite, Jim Beam. Of course I got pretty lit up and flabby tongued. I called Katina and she invited me over. She was the only one awake tonight and in the end I went over but was too drunk to appreciate the lack of chaos and complaining. I said some real sweet things to Katina but I soon fell asleep.

The next night she called and begged that I visit her at Burger King. She had to talk to me. So I waited at a corner table and ate a cheeseburger. Katina zoomed around the dining area, wiping tables, returning trays and apparently pretending she didn’t see me. I refused to look her in the eye and minded my own business. I had a sense that she was starting to like me more than I wanted or expected her to. I was in no place in life where I wanted a girlfriend. I just wanted to get laid, if that were even possible without the complications of a relationship. I did feel guilty when she confided to me how great it was to have someone to talk to. It just felt like she was moving too close, too fast. So I sat there and watched her work in her Burger King uniform. The uniform stripped her of her cuteness; she looked plain, perhaps unattractive. She looked sweaty hot. Her fingers were greasy and food swill dirtied her fingernails. Suddenly, she stopped, as if she were thinking the whole time she had been cleaning and now she had something to say.

“I’m going crazy. I think I like being here working more than I do at Karen’s. I’m so stressed out. Their damn cat meows all night because no one feeds him. So I have to because no one else will. I have to do everything. I can’t take it,” she said.

“Do something about it. Don’t let them boss you around,” I said.

“You don’t understand. They’re not all there, you know. I don’t have any place else to go. I can’t leave.”

“Threaten them. Pretend you will leave if things don’t change. I think they need you more than you need them.”

“I’ve got no place else to go. I’m going crazy. I can’t relax. I don’t sleep. They eat all the food I buy.”

I started to become disgusted with the situation really— them, her and myself. Getting laid, like this, just wasn’t worth it. It would be easier and less complicated to just jerk off. I told her I had to go and that I would see her later. When I looked her squarely in the eye, I noticed a broken pimple on the corner of her mouth. I kept my distance— I didn’t want a hug or a kiss like a boyfriend and girlfriend do. I hated lipstick anyway.

Later that night, I stopped by again. Why did I keep going over there? Was it just the sex? Some unrecognized loneliness in myself? Was it the peculiarity of this situation? So after a round of more complaining, the cat now fed, we fucked. I came in like twenty seconds and apologized. I told her I was distracted and that next time I would perform better for her.

I was there the next night, like clockwork. Katina’s whining was becoming more surreal and maddening. Instead of quiet long ramblings now they were coming in short but loud random outbursts. As I waited for this eruption to settle down, something weird happened. I had been sitting on the couch waiting for Katina to find Karen’s pills when Karen emerged from the dungeon. Up to this point, that is, since I had started to visit this dwelling, I had never seen Karen off her feet and she emerged from the dungeon like some Tolkien troll. It was almost as if the mattress was part of her beastly body, an extension spilling out at her sides, her useless legs captured in thick pool of formaldehyde beneath it. She slowly approached me, wearing underwear and t-shirt. She went on how she thought I was really cool and that I could crash here anytime and if I wanted to I could live there with them, rent-free. She planned all kinds of events we could all do together like some big happy family— and all I could wonder was that, in my amazement, was if Karen were good in bed.

I stayed away for two nights thinking of ways to remove myself from this situation. On the third night, I stopped by unannounced. On the floor beside the couch was a small roll-up mattress and a guitar. Katina explained that her ex-boyfriend was spending the night. He lived too far away to send him home so late. Besides, he was only there to help fix Karen’s car. Of course this caused an argument between us. She wanted me not Rob she said. I listened to her babble. Why didn’t I just leave? This was my out and it was guilt free. I felt a twang of jealousy. But I was not susceptible to lies. I was no idiot. Katina seemed nervous, more fidgety than usual and hinted that I should probably leave and call her tomorrow. No one was there— Karen, John and Rob were out cruising the streets of Randolph. I threatened to stay and wait for Rob.

“I don’t like being lied to,” I said.

“I don’t want a scene. I think you should go.”

I left. Fuck this whole silly schizo circus.

She tried calling me for two days but I ignored her phone calls. On the third night, I went out drinking with my friends, Canadian Mist. As usual I got trashed and as usual, I was at my most talkative when I was trashed so I called Katina. It was three in the morning so I knew someone had to be awake. Katina answered the phone. No I couldn’t come over. It was too late she said. Fuck that I said: no one sleeps in that fucking place.

“You’re with Rob aren’t you? You’re a fucking cunt you know that! You’re fucking him aren’t you. Fuck you. I don’t ever want to talk to you again.”

 
When I woke in the morning, heavy headed and hungover, I remembered what I had done and felt ashamed and sorry. I was an asshole.