Shut-Up

by David M. Howell ©2004
(From the collection of short stories: “Not In Your Life”)


My inner voice was upset. I thought I could say anything to myself, but it turns out, on the inside, I’m thin skinned. I’m not sure when my inner voice turned on me, but with all the contempt of a jilted lover, I lashed out at myself. Now, as I rode the El in silence, I was afraid to say anything to anyone fearing a reprisal from myself. Standing mute, I grasped the overhead rail to steady myself around the North Avenue curve. My eyes caught a glimpse of my thin arms.

“You need to workout,” I heard myself say. But I ignored me. I was always trying to get at myself. My ex-wife had constantly criticized me about everything including gaining a little weight. The inner voice was disappointed when we split up…it often agreed with her criticisms.

My inner voice and I argued constantly over the divorce. For every reason I had for moving on, I would counter with a shortcoming that furthered the tumult. This went on for several months after the divorce until in a crowded theater, the emotional volcano erupted.

“I’m through!” I shouted and stormed out.

Out in the lobby, I faced myself in a showdown.

“You can’t shut me off. I’m you! I’m your deepest, most inner self. You can’t ignore me…and you’re not gonna get rid of me like a bad marriage.” My inner voice planted its feet.

“Shut-up, shut-up?” I told myself not caring that people were beginning to stare. “I don’t need this now. Goddamn, you’re so insensitive.”

“Well suck it up, big boy. Just because you’re insecure doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to speak your mind,” the inner voice raised. “Fuck you. You could have done more to save the marriage. But no…now look at you, alone in a theater like a loser. And Madellyn would have liked this movie.”

“Stop it. I know I did everything I could… Madellyn left me…remember?” A mother pulled her young children away.

“Well, maybe if you’d listened to me for a change Madellyn would still be here. And we’d be enjoying this movie…” My inner voice crossed its arms and pouted.

About this time the theater manager came up to me and explained that I was disturbing the other moviegoers. Hell, I was disturbing myself.

I was trying to keep my voices down—even silence them—but it was always there, hiding just out of sight like a conscience.

I walked into the summer night’s air and was immediately engulfed by the traffic, crowds and commotion of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. Despite the cacophony, all I could hear was my inner voice berating me.

“Oh you’ll never date again…no one could ever like you…lose some weight…god you look hideous in that color.” It just never seemed to end. I walked home, dejected.

That was over a month ago and even though I had accepted my vocal inner voice, I was finding it exceedingly hard to live with. Now, on the train heading to Janie’s party and all I could do was remind myself that I have scrawny arms.

The night was cool for a July in Chicago, perfect for Janie’s Bastille Day Party. Ironically, she wasn’t French, it just seemed that decapitation was a good excuse for a party, at least to her way of thinking. Janie was a sales rep for one of the many vendors the ad agency I worked for used. But she always seemed to bring her work relationships to a personal level and we became almost instant friends. Even my inner voice liked her, though seemed a bit cooled by her boyfriend, Bogart. He was as unpredictable as Crispin Glover—his every movement was a convulsion of flaying arms and legs.

With all this self-doubt flaring up lately, I was reluctant to go out, but I sold myself on the need to have a decent conversation with some one, anyone other than myself. Besides, Janie had promised there’d be tons of babes at her party. Given her intimate knowledge of the Chicago advertising scene, I was confident there would be plenty of “attractive” people in attendance.

I reached the gray door of Janie’s three flat and buzzed 2S.

“Bonjour, welcome to Janie’s…” a static voice said. It wasn’t Janie, but she sounded cute. Already this evening was getting better.

“Hi, it’s David,” I said.

“Hello,” the inner voice chimed in.

“Great come on up.” The unlock buzzer jolted the doorknob.

I loved these old Chicago walkups. The stairs were worn and creaked, they usually had a musty smell to them and the hallway carpet was bristly like a wall-to-wall Brillo pad. The door at the top of the stairs had an old brass ‘2S’ that was nearly completely covered by layers of gray paint. The door was also ajar and I grabbed the wobbly, baseball size knob and pushed. I could hear the Kid Rock’s “I Wanna Be A Cowboy” from the street, but now, inside, it was as if I’d stepped into the concert. I was met at the door by a stunning woman every inch as tall as me with perfect complexion and very long, jet black hair that seemed to dance all on its own. She could have been, should have been a model. Every curve was geometrically perfect. Her deep, dark blue eyes grabbed me and held me like a mother to a babe. She extended the most perfect long, thin arm offering me her hand. I wanted more.

“I’m Xavier,” her perfect voice sang. It was the voice from the entry buzzer without the static or distance. It was everything I could do to keep myself from saying Hollander?

“Xavier Mordarician…I know, it’s Turkish…everybody asks.”

“Hi…I’m David…” I said taking her hand.

“…Janie’s friend.” my inner voice seemed to always need the last word.

“Yes, Janie told me about you…you’re a creative director at Ogilvy & Mather?”

“Yes...”

“…that’s right.” Again with the last word.

“Well, Janie asked me to baby sit you in case you got here before she got back,” Xavier said as she took my elbow and lead me into the room. “She and Bogart went to get some thing for the dip.”

This kind of thing just doesn’t happen to me. If this were a sock hop, I’d usually end up near the shoe pile trying to match the dancers with their foot wear—with relative accuracy. There was definitely chemistry here. It was as if she could read my thoughts…before my inner voice said them. There was a rhythm to our conversation, even the pauses seem comfortable and planned.

“And what do you do, Xavier?” I asked thrilled by her nearness.

“How do you know Janie?” My inner voice butted in. I wanted it out of the conversation.

“I work with her, I’m Lizard Scales new office manager.”

Lizard Scales was a music house that produced sound tracks for TV and radio commercials. I’d worked with them on several campaigns and liked their composer, Rick. Janie also made doing business with them fun.

“Janie tells me you’re single,” Xavier said handing me a salsa dipped chip.

“Yeah, I’m divorced…”

“…eight months ago…I can’t even remember her name,” the inner voice jokingly finished.

She laughed at my inner voice’s joke. I was losing her already and it wasn’t even to some other guy, it was to another voice.

I saw those blues eyes pierce me. If I could only shut me up. This was one encounter I did not want to blow. I began struggling to say things that were simple and not open-ended.

“Oh, I love this song,” she said. Someone had just put Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” on. “Wanna dance.”

“Uh…”

“…absolutely.”

Now wait a minute, you can’t dance to “Radar Love” but I give my inner voice a lot of credit, it…I jumped at the offer and here I was shakin’ and groovin’ on an old uneven hardwood floor with Xavier. It was then that I began to really notice her short black dress, one piece cut low to reveal abundant cleavage. She was as agile as a tightrope walker in her high-healed, open toed shoes. It was as if Xavier had attended some charm school where she mastered the graceful flow of impractical women’s footwear.

“You dance great!”

“Love your dress,” I heard my inner voice say.

“You’re very smooth, I’ll bet you could do a cart wheel…right here in the living room.” There was a mischievous sparkle in her eye.

“Oh, no…I…”

“…Certainly can.” Shut-up! My inner voice was going to embarrass me for sure.

I stopped dancing.

“No, I mean, I can, but doctors advise against it,” I said as damage control. “Too, dangerous. A lot of head injuries you know…people getting half way and then—BOOM—they hit their head and are out cold. For weeks…like a coma.”

I waited for me to say more. I think I actually caught my inner voice off guard.

“You know, Janie was right about you. You’re not like other guys…there’s something inside you.”

I smiled uncomfortably, she got that right.

Janie and Bogart returned with a plastic Dominick’s bag. It was characteristic Janie who, at the threshold lifted her shred-tee for a nano-second glimpse of her perfect breasts. She picked me out of the crowd as she pulled her shirt back down.

“David, darlink,” she said with a faux Natasha voice as she leaped the three giant steps from the door to hug me. The plastic grocery bag flew around my neck and something solid hit me hard on the right shoulder blade. That was gonna leave a mark.

“I see you’ve already met Xavier…isn’t she special?”

“You were right, Janie, he’s cute and funny.”

I was never much for compliments, no matter how sincere they always came off insincere.

“Good to see you, Janie.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” my inner voiced still needed to be heard.

Janie turned to Bogart, but he was already in the kitchen rolling a huge joint and holding a long-neck Bud.

“Boggie,” Janie yelled. “You promised me…where’s my beer?”

“Right here,” he said gesturing with the elbow of the hindered hand so as not to disturb the delicate rolling process.

“I’m so glad you came,” Janie said turning back to me. “Let me put this sour cream down and we’ll get drunk. Oh, did you meet Diane? In the bedroom? She’s doing temporary tattoos tonight.”

With that Janie was gone. Xavier pulled the strap of her dress down revealing the top of her right breast and a spiral sun tattoo that looked like a crop circle.

“If you got one on left side,” she said placing her hand over my left chest. “We’d match up when we…dance.” Her eyes just kept twinkling.

“Show me the way.”

“Now you’re talkin’,” my inner voice said to me.

Diane was just starting on a halo around a young woman’s navel when we walked in. She was an older artist with the bright red straps of her bra hanging out of her cut down black tee-shirt that must have had over 500 safety pins adorning it in neat premeditated rows. Her red dyed hair matched the straps except for gray strands ran through it like irregularly placed ribbons that seemed like artistically planned chaos. Diane couldn’t move her thin arms without sending up an alarm due to the near wrist to elbow beads and bracelets. Looking up to greet us as we creaked our way into the bedroom I noticed several eyebrow piercing, a nose ring and one entire ear festooned with hoops, dangling bobs and a monkey clinging to a vine that swung from her lobe. The woman had more metal than most Detroit cars today. A lone pin on her shirt red: SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT.

It struck me as I watched her that artists seem to pierced everything, dye their hair unnatural colors and dress like distressed highway billboards, yet insisted that the rest of us accept nature as it is and leave it alone.

Xavier took a seat at the end of the bed and I joined her. Together we watched as the temporary tattoo made its debut on a young flat tummy.

“What do you want to get?” Xavier asked excitedly as she picked up three-ring binder of selections.

“I don’t know…”

“…what do you think?” I heard me say jumping on my indecision.

“I think you should get a Celtic cross. It would be the perfect complement to my Druid Sun.”

“I don’t know…I’m really not religious…”

“If you like the cross, then that’s what it will be,” echoed from inside me cutting off my hesitation.

I stopped myself. “Wait, I said, I’m not sure…I don’t know what I want.”

“Okay, that’s fine we can look at others,” Xavier said not wanting to get in the middle of an argument.

“She likes the cross,” my inner voice tried to explain. “I think it’s cool…I think she’s cool…I say get the cross.”

“Shut-up, I just want to think about it is all,” I tried to reason with myself.

“I didn’t say anything,” Xavier said.

The artist just smiled. She was following my inner dialogue.

“No, Xavier…I’m sorry, I was thinking out loud,” I said softly trying to mend this awkward dialogue.

“Thinking out loud? Listen, it’s all this excuse making that’s gonna blow it for you with this babe.” My inner voice thrusted to my parry.

Now I was getting upset. There was no reason to bring Xavier into my inner conflict. Just then, Janie walked in.

“Hey Diane, gonna give David, here, a big skull and cross bones?” she said jokingly sitting down to make a sandwich of me.

Diane looked up from her one of the few works of art that would leave her. “I think a Ying and Yang would be perfect.”

Xavier sat, her palms out behind her on the old colorful quilt that Janie said was her grandmother’s, but really came from a rummage sale. Janie took the black binder from me.

“Ying and Yang are in the back,” Diane said not taking her eyes from the supple navel that was her canvas.

“You don’t strike me as a Ying kinda guy,” Janie said. I looked back at Xavier.

“What did you get?” I let my inner voice ask.

She pulled down her shoulder strap again revealing the tattoo as well as the edge of her areola.

I felt myself quiver. I heard my inner voice say: “Whoa.”

Janie was quick to notice. “You’re showing us your nipple, Xav.”

“Oh,” she said looking down but not attempting to cover up. She then pulled her strap back to her shoulder and looked mischievously at me.

“I didn’t see anything, really.”

“The hell we didn’t…”

That is it. I could see where this was going and it had to stop.

“I’m done with you,” I told myself. “That’s it…shut-up or I’m leaving.”

“Me shut-up…I’m out here flirting while you keep staring at her tits. Come on man, she digs you and you’re acting like a pubescent teen.” My inner voice was taking a stand.

Diane stopped. Janie looked up from the binder. Xavier’s eyes lost their sparkle.

“You are out of line. You can think what you want but you don’t have to say it…” I was staring out into space, but my focus was inward.

“What, you know what you want…just listen to yourself. But no, you have to keep putting yourself off. Making small talk instead of taking chances. Geeze, you’re never gonna get laid if you keep this up.”

I wasn’t sure what I meant, but I knew that if I kept talking to myself all I could hope for from this evening was a straight jacket. I wanted to get to know Xavier but I didn’t want to come on too strong. As if I was reading my own mind, my inner dialogue picked up again.

“You don’t want to come on too strong? Right now you’re not even in the right area code for the mildly feeble. Shit, you’re so boring I don’t even wanna talk to you.”

“Then shut-up!” I shouted.

The woman with the belly tattoo in progress excused herself. Diane looked at me stunned. Janie shook her head. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Xavier.

“Man, did you smoke some of Boggie’s weed? You’re totally out of control, dude,” Janie said shifting slightly to look into my eyes.

I broke down.

“I’m not smokin’ anything. I’ve been having this argument with my inner voice for months now. Nothing ever seems to be working out for me.”

“I think I need a beer,” Xavier said and got up and headed out of the bedroom.

“I could use one, too,” Diane said and followed Xavier from the room.

“Work kind of stressing you out?” Janie put her hand on my shoulder.

“I guess…that must be it.”

“No that’s not it…I’m a nervous whimp.”

Finally, I sat silently looking around the low-budget decorating. I mean she actually uses a lava lamp as a source of light. That and Italian Christmas light stapled to the crown molding. It was then that I realized the queen-size mattress and box spring sat directly on the floor.

“I really thought you and Xavier would get along. She just moved her from New York…she’s been absolutely great at the studio.” Janie was really trying, but I was afraid to say anything.

Finally, “I…I think she’s…”

“Oh come on,” the inner me blurted out. “You dig her. But if you’re gonna be such a wimp nothing’s gonna happen.”

“Okay, David, who are you talking to…me or…or you? This is too weird.” Janie got up to go.

“Wait, Janie…I’m sorry I don’t know what’s going on. Lately I’ve been having these conversations with myself. I used to think they were silent, you know, internal. But I guess they’re not…”

“Oh, she’s gonna think I’m nuts now.”

“See, see that wasn’t me…but it came from me…but that’s what I was thinking. You know, the stuff you’re not meant to say.”

Janie just looked at me. My inner voice continued:

“Who says you can’t say it? Maybe we’d all be better off if we just said what was on our mind instead of hiding inside our heads.”

“No,” Janie said. “You have to keep some things to yourself. That’s the editing process. If you don’t edit, you just spout crap…like you’re doing.”

“Oh great now she thinks I spout crap.” I put my hand over my mouth. I watched Janie as she walked to the door but before she could open it, the door swung open.

“I’ve got a lot of customers out here waiting for tattoos,” Diane said holding a can of beer. “Is your group therapy about over?”

Janie looked back at me. Diane stared in at me. Xavier was nowhere to be seen.

“Maybe I should go…” I waited for myself to chime in. Nothing came.

Diane pushed her way in and stood beside Janie. Interesting how both women were strongly artistic, yet Diane went out of her way to show it, while Janie relied on her virtual acceptance of just about everything—including her lifestyle which sometimes brought another woman to share her bed with Bogart. How was it that she could be intimate with more than one person at a time, but a person could not be more than one person at a time?

“I’m going to check on Boggie…I hope you don’t leave but you’ve got to straighten out your head.” Janie left the bedroom. Diane walked over to me and sat back down on her little artist stool. Our knees almost touched.

She pulled a Celtic cross from her file and gestured for me to open my bowling shirt. Her bony fingers felt like delicate tools as she applied the henna tattoo to my left chest.

“I know what’s going on,” She said. “I do.”

Something didn’t click just then.

“Your emotional distress looked for comfort and turned inward. Now, you’re blaming yourself for the distress.” She smiled at me. I couldn’t help imagining that Diane would be crashing here tonight fulfilling the Bogart, Janie triangle. But for some reason I didn’t say it. “You’ve let your inner voice out of its box and it wants to live as your real voice.”

“How do you know?”

“Yeah, what makes you the expert?” I shock my head at my own forwardness.

“Because I used to have two voices,” she said. Then added with a wink, “And sometimes I still do.”

“What did you do…” I said almost in unison with my inner voice.

The door opened and a young couple poked their heads in.

“Tattoo time?” he said as she giggled.

“You’re next, come on in,” Diane said before looking back at me with her deep black eyes. Yes, I mean black, she wore these black contact lenses on purpose. She refocused on finishing up my temporary cross.

“Ignore it…it’s like an inner child, it will eventually go out and play by itself. But be attentive to it, inner voices have a way of uncovering your soul.”

“Is that what you did?” I asked standing up to make room for the couple that eagerly wanted to adorn themselves.

“No…my inner voice is my critic. Like her or not, she knows good art.” Diane smiled. She’d finish the Celtic cross and looked me in the eye approving her work.

“I want a butterfly…what are you gonna get?” the young blonde asked.

“A heart with Debbie in it…” They cooed and knocked heads.

I slid ten dollars into her fedora tip basket. She reached out to my hand.

“It’s all part of life,” she said. “Listen to yourself…we all have critics…we just can’t let them live our lives. But sometimes they give us direction.”

I grabbed my second loose doorknob of the night and left Diane to her art. The living room had filled considerably both with people and dissonance. Someone had turned on a disco ball that was reflecting another set of Italian lights around the room like snowflakes. Xavier held a plastic cup of beer and a wedge of cheese. Three clean cut Porche-types fluttered around her like moths to a porch lamp. She causally looked away catching my eye.

She wants to be rescued, I told myself without uttering a word. I swallowed hard and tasted confidence. I looked at the perfect haircuts atop empty voices and realized that it wasn’t about looks, it was about self-assurance. It was the inner me that made me real. I walked up to Xavier. She watched me, the boys ignored me.

“Need a beer?” I asked seeing her filled glass.

“Yeah…yeah I do,” Xavier said with a smile. “Excuse me boys, I need to get fresh.”

She took my arm and we walked into the kitchen that was still filled with the sweet scent of Bogart’s joint.

“Thanks, they were so boring. You feeling better?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I just had to get some things straight in my head.”

She handed me a beer fresh from the pump. “Good, then we can start having some fun…I need someone who’s got a life inside ‘em.”

I pulled open my bar-issued, black bowling shirt from Southport Lanes to reveal the Celtic cross over my left breast. “What about on the outside?”

Xavier’s eyes flashed as a mischievous smile slowly curved across her face.

We danced, karaoked and laughed like the entire world was a comedy. It was early Sunday before the party thinned out. Xavier and I said goodbye to Janie, Bogart and Diane.

Outside, the pre-dawn air was cool and fresh without cigarette smoke. Xavier and I walked to the corner to grab a cab back to my place. As we passed a small patch of grass I did a cartwheel falling on my ass at the end. Her laughter, and shear delight of her eyes it will live with me forever. As will the tiny voice inside me that said, “nice job.”