A Million Little Pieces - James Frey [189]
Nineteen and twenty. Six pages. My first years at College. I cheated on a Girlfriend once twice three times got caught every time. Told her I would change it wouldn’t happen again. I knew it would. I did it to another Girl. To another. Lying became part of my life. I lied if I needed to lie to get something or get out of something. I cheated at School. I took money from my Parents and I spent it on drugs. I took more money and I bought more drugs. I terrorized a Kid named Rob because I heard him say something about her with the Arctic eyes. I vandalized his Car and his Room. I taunted him and threatened him and intimidated him. I made his life miserable. I never told him why I was doing it, I just did.
Twenty-one. Three pages. Drank smoked got arrested doled out a beating or two took a beating or two cheated lied deceived used women slept with prostitutes took more money wasted more money my best friends were drugs and alcohol those who tried to stop me were told to fuck off and leave me alone. I made a Girl snort lines off my dick. She was a cocaine Addict and I traded drugs for her body. She let me do whatever I wanted and I did too much too often. Drugs and her body. I held a gun to a man’s head. It was an unloaded gun but he didn’t know it was unloaded. He was on his knees begging for his life. I did it for a drug Dealer who wanted to test me and I needed his trust because I needed his drugs. The man had stolen from the Dealer I pulled the trigger of the unloaded gun the man pissed in his pants and pissed on the floor. The Dealer rubbed his face in it and I watched.
Twenty-two. Two pages. My arrest the arrest in Ohio. The arrest I will pay for with time in a cell. A Girl in Paris claimed I was the Father of her Child. I wasn’t. I hadn’t been able to stay erect with her I had never been hard inside of her. She was begging and crying for me to take responsibility for the Child, but I wasn’t the Father, so I threw her out of my Apartment. In a Bar two days later one of her Girlfriends came after me with a bottle and I floored her. When she got up I kicked her in the ass and told her if she came near me again I’d beat her silly. Another Girl I knew carried me back to her Apartment one night after she found me passed out in the Street. I vomited and pissed on her couch and on her floor. When I woke up I took a bottle of vodka and I walked out. I never saw her or heard from her again. I hit a man with a chair at a Bar in London. He had spilled a drink on my table and I hit him when his back was turned. I didn’t bother waiting around to survey the damage. I never bothered waiting around to survey the damage.
I finish writing. The coffee is gone and I have smoked a pack of cigarettes. I look at the stack of paper, count the pages, there are twenty-two of them. Twenty-two pages filled with my wrongs, my mistakes, my lapses in judgment and my bad decisions. Twenty-two pages filled with my anger, rage, addiction, self-hatred and Fury. Twenty-two pages documenting my disgraceful, embarrassing and pathetic life. Twenty-two pages.
I read the pages. Slowly and carefully I read them. As I do, I think about whether I am leaving anything out is there anything I have forgotten is there anything I’m scared to face or acknowledge, is there anything I am scared to admit. I want to come to terms with my past and leave it behind me is there anything I have forgotten left out is there anything that scares me. There is one thing. One thing that haunts me from page one to page twenty-two. I have never spoken of it. I have never told another Person what I did to that man, how violently out of control I was, how badly I hurt him. It haunts me.
I pick up the pen and I pick up my stack of yellow paper and I fold it in half. I place the stack in my pocket I pick up the pad and the pen and