Twins by:Michael Tucker, Ceramic mixed media, 2015.
Renton
by: Miguel Reyes
Bells and a neon sign that read Welcome greeted me when I walked through the door. There’s no hostess to beam a false smile and ask me “Smoking or non-smoking?” It’s the type of diner where the customers seat themselves wherever they’d like. This restaurant smells like a dirty wash cloth; I can taste the dish water in the air. The floors are sticky with ketchup and maple syrup. Bulbous dim lights above flicker when the local train speeds by, rattling the plates and eating utensils on the tables and bars. This is the kind of place people passing by on road trips stop at just to take a piss. It’s an almost empty restaurant in the middle of nowhere where everyone knows no one. The few people grubbing and drinking old, burned coffee pay no attention to me as I walk myself to a table in the back. No one knows who I am here; I should be safe for a good while.
I take my seat in a corner booth, the red leather squawks against my jeans. The tables themselves match the encrusted ugliness of the diner. The fake sugar packets are scattered across the crumbs, napkins ripped out of their holders, and there are coffee and creamer stains permanently blemished into the wood. The nastiness from the table nearly made the menu slip through my fingers. My stomach churns and gives me nausea. Deciding to stop and eat at this greasy spoon wasn’t a wise choice.
“No, it was not.” Renton, my other worst half says as he seats himself in front of me. “Not your wisest choice at all.”
“Stopping here was your idea.” I reminded him. “I could’ve kept on driving for a few more hours.”
“Yeah, but you’re hungry. Get yourself some pancakes since we’re here.” Renton snatches the menu from my greasy fingertips and says “What kind do they have anyway?”
“You mean you were hungry?”
“You, me, is there a difference anymore?” he drops his fist hard on the table and shouts, “Can we get some fucking service around here? We’ve been sitting here for two minutes! Some water would be nice!”
“Can you keep it down?”
Renton’s voice discharges immense pain deep in the crevices of my fragmented brain. His being is a nuisance to my very existence. Everything about him is borrowed. He isn’t true, he is a lie. He’s a copy of copies.
“Don’t lie, I know you love my voice.” He smiles a very toothy smile.
“Stay out of my—”
“What can I get for you today?” the robust waitress with prominent pit stains seeping into her yellow uniform, and with a tag on her breast that says her name is Linda interrupted me. She glares at me with crusty eyes and ample disinterest, pen and ink already touching her notepad.
“It’s about fucking time.” Renton said. “I’ll have a big stack of blueberry pancakes, eggs sunny side way up, bacon burned to a crisp and a glass of your finest orange juice.”
“I’ll just have plain pancakes, thanks.” I hand Linda the grease drenched menu.
“Coming right up.” Linda walks away without having written anything on her notepad.
“Where are we right now?” Renton asked.
“A shitty diner.”
“I meant on the road, asshole.”
A substantial sigh of pure exhaustion exhales, “I don’t know. The last road sign I remember seeing said Kansas, so maybe we’re in Kansas.”
“That’s kind of boring; the only things Kansas is known for are tornadoes, the Wizard of Oz, and the song Dust in the Wind”.
How I came to know Renton is beyond me. I don’t remember how or when we met. It’s as if he just appeared in my life. I don’t even know if I should call him a friend. He’s definitely not family. He isn’t of any importance to me, I’d reach across this table and choke him until he’s black and blue in the face if I could, and he knows that. Renton is no one to me, but he knows everything about me.
“Damn right I do.” He shuffles in his coat pocket for his pack of Kools and pulls a bent one out. “You were raised on eggs and ketchup,” Renton lights the cigarette as it hangs from the corner of his mouth. “Your dad getting his ass kicked by loan sharks for not paying his dues was normal for your family. Your mother would beat you for feeding your dog the vegetables you wouldn’t eat. You were also that kid who shit his pants that one time in kindergarten.”
“Here you go.” Linda sets down the plate of a towering stack of pancakes on the table alongside with the maple syrup. “Enjoy.” She said indifferently and walked away.
“Thanks, Linda.” Renton dragged from his cigarette. “You lost your sanity when you were thirteen. You grew up with dollar store toys, and you lived in a house where roaches crawled all over your food.”
“I know, I lived it all.” I pour the maple syrup on the leaning tower of pancakes.
Renton’s Cheshire grin is always an unpleasant sight. “Oh, don’t get all pouty now.”
The palm of my hand slams on the table, causing every single eye in the diner to turn and gawk at me. “Shut up.” I whisper. “I don’t need to hear anymore of me.”
“Stop being so fucking scared. Face yourself.” Renton demands. “Look at you. You’re sitting in a diner somewhere along the yellow brick road, miles away from home. You have no more money, no place to live; your car is getting ready to breakdown on you—what the fuck happened?”
“You happened.”
Renton’s laugh travels through the diner, but no one is distracted by it. “There you go again, always blaming everyone but yourself.”
“You are to blame! It’s because of you I can’t go home!”
Renton locks his fingers together on the table and leans forward to say “No one is keeping you here; you can go home whenever you want.”
“I’ll go to jail.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Yours!” I yelled. All eyes were on me again. They’re starting to get annoyed. One more outburst and I think I’ll be thrown out.
“You’re always playing the victim. You blamed your addiction to pain killers on your mother, your shitty grades on your professors, your shitty life on how your parents raised you. You want to know why your life has been so fucking deplorable, why you were never able to succeed in anything . . . because of you. You’re the problem. Whenever you’re pointing a finger at someone or something, there’s three pointing right back at you.”
It’s Renton’s fault. It’s his entire fault. It’s his fault I’m on the run. It’s his fault I can’t go back home. It’s Renton’s fault that I’m insane.
“You were insane before I even came in the picture!” He puts out his cigarette in the maple syrup. “You’re brain damaged. And stop blaming me for what you did; I only gave you a little push. You were scared, and you were already dead set on going through with it. You stole the gun from his locker and you proceeded from there.”
“Shut up, stay out of my head!” I’m going insane. Renton is making me go insane. He’s the little devil on both of my shoulders, spouting off nonsense and ramblings of a mentally disturbed person.
“No, you’re mentally disturbed, and what I’m saying isn’t nonsense, it’s the damn truth. You’re just too stubborn to even realize everything that’s happened to you is your fault.” He takes a nine millimeter out of his pocket and sets it in front of me. “This is the gun you used; this is the gun you’ve been using since that night.”
“It wasn’t me behind the gun that night. I was watching you. You held the gun and you pulled the trigger.” Remember, Renton is a lie. There is nothing true about him. He’s the devil, he’s the little voice in everyone’s head telling them they’re insignificant and should kill themselves.
“Yet, you were still there watching. Why didn’t you stop me? You could’ve if you were so inclined.” He grabs the gun from the table and checks to see if it’s loaded, cocks it and aims it between my eyes. “Want to try stopping me now?”
“What are you doing? Put that down. People will see!” I try to grab the gun from across the table, but Renton shoves me into my seat.
Renton lowers the gun from my face and aims it at his temple. “All it takes is one bullet to kill me and you. Go ahead, try and stop me.”
“You wouldn’t . . .”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he laughs. “I would, and you know it.”
The static image of a news anchor comes on the television hanging above the bar; everyone in the restaurant watches the breaking news bulletin, smoking and shoving pork sausages down their gullets.
“Looks like you’re famous.” Renton lowers the gun. “Your ugly mug is all over the news.”
He’s right, my picture hovers next to the news anchor as she reports about my crimes. Her deep southern accent and static from the television makes it difficult to hear what she’s saying, but I already know what’s being reported. I know what I did. I know what Renton did.
“The Police are on a manhunt for twenty-two year old Renton Parker, who’s a prime suspect in a series of mass murders in north Texas. The search has been continuing for three days and police are desperate to find Parker in fear of him killing again. Parker’s murders began in his own home when he murdered his own mother and stepfather, he then went on the run driving through north Texas shooting police officers and innocent bystanders in the crossfire. Police still do not know his motives. Parker is considered highly dangerous and should not be confronted. He is believed to have traveled north into Kansas by now, if anyone has any information on the whereabouts of this man, notify the police immediately.”
All eyes are on me again, the whispers of frightened hicks are loud enough for me to hear. I see a trucker reaching inside his coat—I hope he’s reaching for his wallet.
“You know for damn sure he’s not reaching for his wallet.” Renton slowly slides me the gun across the table. “Go ahead.”
I slide the gun back to Renton. “No.”
“You’re getting soft.” Renton grabs the gun. “Go ahead and blame me for this one.”
Prison or the electric chair isn’t an option for Renton. Even though I loathe everything about him, he enjoys me. He enjoys the trouble we get into. The pain and suffering he causes me tickles him pink. Renton is a sadistic monster, the irritation of existence. A harbinger of insanity and death. He’s the vilest part about me, and I can’t do anything to stop him. I’m not sure if I want to anymore.
I’m no longer seated, I’m standing with a gun in my hand, but I have no control of my own being anymore. Renton’s disappeared, but he’s very close. “Very fucking close.” Renton words seeping out of my mouth. “And now for the punchline,” the cold steel rises in the air, aiming at the trucker with his hand still in his coat. “Everybody dies.”
