~bother

Glassy Eyes

By Neil Morrow

His parents had named him Chainsaw, Chainsaw Geoff McHaggis. The name which had plagued him since birth, the name that somehow made people think that because he had the name “Chainsaw” that he must really like chainsaws as well. Throughout his early childhood his Birthdays and Christmas’ and Easters were riddled with a number of toy chainsaws as well as his first actual chainsaw at the age of 14. He lived in Nevada, a place where trees were rare and the opportunity to cut any down was even rarer.

His friends called him Geoff as he preferred. Mainly just kids who picked on him and substitute teachers called him Chainsaw, this was the biggest insult to him one could make. Some say his dad lost a large bet, some say his mom was a drunk, even more still insist it was there age as his parents had adopted him when they were 65. Still no one was quite sure how the name “Chainsaw” was chosen for the couple’s first born son. Either way Geoff hated “Chainsaw” and vowed to change his name on his 18th birthday as a sort of present to himself. He had a small bank account with money set aside for the transaction plus a safety deposit box at the bank waiting for him with the papers already filled out minus his signature and a date as well. He had arranged everything ahead of time to make things as simple as possible. He was actually looking forward to something for a change.

Other than his unfortunate name and his insatiable love for all things Japanese he was an average guy who did average things in an average sized town. The average sized town which he despised and for which he felt nothing but apathy towards. It could burn to the ground for all he had cared, it was nothingness. His SAT scores had guaranteed him a bit of freedom when choosing colleges as most that he applied to responded with some sort of academic scholarship and a warm letter of welcome. All of them were of course addressed to a one “Chainsaw McHaggis”. This made him sick with disgust as most mail did, because it was one of the few times he would have to acknowledge “Chainsaw” as his last name. Either way he was bound for California away from the void that was his current home to study Film and Philosophy, and in a strange way it would be his rebirth. He would arrive in California as “Geoff Joseph McHaggis”, a new person with nothing but hope and goodness in his future. Chainsaw would be all but dead, with only a faint memory of him in the abyss from which it had came.

His 18th had came and Joseph had lived his last day as “ Chainsaw” and his first as the new “Geoff”, a college bound man resting on the dawn of the rest a new life. Now there was nothing to stop him. He would finally be free, for in a month and he would already be attending college and all would be right with the world.

The day he got the news it rained. It was very cold for California that morning when he got the news. He had woke from his sleep drawing in a very abrupt frozen gasp as he sat up. The furnaces pilot light had gone out in the night and had left the whole apartment a freezing wooden coffin. Apparently some pipes had burst knocking out the power as well as the furnace for the entire place. This would set the feeling for the rest of his day.

He had gone to a friends to shower and warm up before returning home to collect his mail and ready himself for work . There it was. A letter addressed to one “Chainsaw McHaggis”. It was from the nothingness from which he came. It seemed it was calling him back. His parents had died in a fire. This was the news that would eventually kill him.

It seemed that his parents had died in the old house he was raised in. It was mostly wallpaper and old wood and was really only waiting to start a blaze. Apparently his parents were asleep during the fire and had never woken up. They were found burned to death in what would have been there own bed. The poor old bastards had died in there sleep leaving there only son with the $3,456 they had in savings, funeral costs, plus the debt which they had accumulated during the 80’s when they invested in bellbottoms. He would be paying for their mistakes for the rest of his life and they weren’t even his real parents. There death was horrible but the debt he was in now had consumed the little grief he had for their passing. As a matter of fact the death had almost no effect on him compared to the 1.5 million dollar hole his parents had punched in his chest with their death.

He had crawled to the basement, letter in hand, where it was strangely warm. He stumbled into his storage locker and wrapped himself in an old blanket and laid on the cold concrete floor letting his body grow numb with the cold. He had torn through all of his boxes to find anything comforting he could find. He had found the blanket he was now folded within in the same box as a strange symbol. He had found a chainsaw, the one thing that would remind him of his name that he hadn’t sold or destroyed.

Nothing seemed relevant now or even slightly important to him. The debt would have to be paid and by him somehow. He had just paid off his books and rent for the oncoming semester so he was living broke until his next paycheck. He barely had enough money as it was. If he dropped out he would have to declare bankruptcy and work full time. His life was thoroughly ruined. To him it seemed “Chainsaw” was alive still and that he was slowly pulling Geoff back home to despair, to nothingness.

In the few months he had spent as just Geoff, after he thought Chainsaw was all but dead, he had really tasted life for the first time. He had actual friends for the first time which he could really connect with. For once he had found human beings who he could carry on an intelligent conversation with. He even thought he was in love. Chainsaw’s revival meant that he would have to give all this up. He had tasted life and that he was now watching it all being taken away from him.

He stayed in the basement that night where it first started to warm up with the furnace being blasted all out to warm the rest of the apartment complex. He woke up angry in the heat. The night had poisoned him. He had already lost everything in his eyes, he was already nothingness, he was all but dead. This shock had put a strain on him that had broken him.

He stood, and in a less then sane tongue he screamed, ”CHAINSAWS ARE NOT PEOPLE!” as he slammed the contents of the storage locker from one end to the other.

“I WILL NOT GO QUIETLY CHAINSAW!”, he bellowed as he hastily grabbed the chainsaw from one of the boxes almost ripping the starter cord from it as he pulled it to a snarling start.

“YOUR MONKEY BOX WILL NOT HINDER MY SALAMI CHAINSAW! I WILL KNOCK YOUR COD PIECE FROM ITS PLACE! PAJAMA FUCK GEORGE BUSH JESUS!”

He ran to the first floor’s front doors, chainsaw still in hand locking them and barricading them shut. His glassy eyes were merely the holes from which a madman looked through his new mask as Geoff proceeded to set the first floor ablaze. The fire was cleansing, it would consume him before the night was over if someone had not killed him first.

As he started to rip through the first door of the second floor with the chainsaw. He stopped to notice the fire and spoke his last few words aside from the rage filled screams that would follow, “My, the red really doesn’t look good on that fire.”

That night his funeral was in those flames as another Eleanor Rigby, in his pyre he died as Geoff.