The Existential Crisis of Nicolas Cage (In His Own Words)

Kevin Catalano

What are you doing here?

Get in the car!

Which direction are we going?

Do you trust me?

There’s two different kinds of trust.

One of them’s me. The other’s not you.

You’re funny.

Let’s ride!

Why are you here? What do you want from me?

I saw you and you saw me. Don’t pretend you don’t know who I am, girly man.

You ruined my life.

We aren’t here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us.

Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die.

It’s like we’re on two different channels now.

Maybe if you drank bourbon with me, it would help. Maybe if you kissed me and I could taste the sting in your mouth it would help.

You and I share the same DNA. Is there anything more lonely than that?

I was the same man who was not good enough for you before, and I’m just not good enough for you now.

Do you ever get the feeling that there’s something… Powerful pressing down on you?

Maybe… maybe emotion becomes so intense your body just can’t contain it. Your mind and your feelings become too powerful, and your body weeps.

The past and the future is a joke to me now. I see that they’re nothing. I see they ain’t here. The only thing that’s here is you—and me.

If you drank bourbon with me naked. If you smelled of bourbon as you fucked me, it would help.

It would increase my esteem for you.

The way your head works is God’s own private mystery.

I’m the guy who made a deal with the devil.

How deep is hell?

Three hundred feet. Pretty neat, pretty neat.

If I can spend the rest of my life as a free man without a curse from Hell hanging over my head, yeah, I’ll take it.

Sometimes it’s a hard world for small things.

I remember once imagining what my life would be like, what I’d be like. I pictured having all these qualities, strong positive qualities that people could pick up on from across the room. But as time passed, few ever became any qualities that I actually had. And all the possibilities I faced and the sorts of people I could be, all of them got reduced every year to fewer and fewer. Until finally they got reduced to one, to who I am.

I’m sorry I let you down.

I just blurted it out, I’m sorry.

I’ll tell you right now, I’m in love with you. But be that as it may, I am not here to force my

twisted soul into your life.

I like you, too, but what’s the point in any of it? Fuck to this day. I mean, fuck to this day. It’s all

just gonna boil up and wash us away. Maybe you’ll still be here. Maybe you won’t.

You are what you love, not what loves you.

Keep going, man.

You all right?

I’m in a little trouble.

You’re doing fine.

I spent last Tuesday watching fibers on my carpet. And the whole time I was watching my carpet, I was worrying that I, I might vomit. And the whole time, I was thinking, “I’m a grown man. I should know what goes on in my head.” And the more I thought about it… the more I realized that I should just blow my brains out and end it all. But then I thought, well, if I thought more about blowing my brains out… I start worrying about what that was going to do to my goddamn carpet.

Have some coke on me.

Pull the car over.

What?

Pull it over!

Don’t you want to get high and get laid?

Fuck you right now.

Cool it man!

You ruined my life!

No one said survival was fun.

Just pull over.

I misbehaved. I have to be punished. But remember… Every time when you look in the mirror, you’ll see my face.

[To himself] He may have my soul, but he doesn’t have my spirit.

Kevin Catalano is the author of The Word Made Flesh (firthFORTH Books), a collection and short stories. His fiction has appeared in PANK, storySouth, Atticus Review, Gargoyle Magazine, FRiGG, and others. His stories have been anthologized in Press 53’s Surreal South ’13, Fiddleblack Annuals #1 and #2, and in Dark House Press’s Exigencies. In 2015, Kevin became assistant staff interviewer at Alternating Current. He teaches at Rutgers University, Newark, and lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children.