Category: writing

before we even start, i just have to let you know that i’m really bad at this sort of thing. women, in general, really. i’m bad at dating, i’m bad at relationships, i’m bad at expressing myself, especially when i feel slighted or frustrated by a person or situation. i made a resolution to try and combat this: come hell or high water, i’m going to express my feelings. which is why i told you i was in love with you, because i am, despite whatever’s going on between us. and when i was in school, i was the “cool guy”–i still don’t know why–but it kind of made me look different than i really am. i just work well in an educational setting, i guess. people think i’m confident but really i’m just aloof and it looks like confidence. the real me is a loner who loves video games and is terrified to ask out women like you because of a crippling fear of rejection. like, some guys, they see a pretty girl alone across the bar and think, “i like her, i want to get to know her better,” and they sidle up next to her and ask her her name. me, i’m like, “she’s gorgeous, and way out of my league, i will just keep drinking,” and i keep drinking, and i eat a giant cheeseburger and get mustard on my new shirt, and i get too drunk and fall off my barstool, et cetera. and it’s not just that. i’m in my 30s and am nowhere where i should be in life. at this point it’s not even depression that i have, it’s just loss. it’s like when you’re bowling and you roll a gutter ball, and you just watch it slowly roll away, with no way of even coming close to a pin. that’s how i feel. every time i think about dating this big warning sign, “TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF FIRST,” flashes before my eyes. but it’s not like i have an entire life to take care of myself, you know? i just have to move forward, and worry about the consequences later.

so when i tell you that i’m in love with you, i do so because i need to express my feelings or else i dwell on them until they hurt, like laying on a board full of emotional spikes. i do so with this tremendous amount of self-reported stakes against me, but i’m not an underdog, i’m just a guy who recognizes how inert he is in the universe. i know that’s a lot to bring to the table but i guess i’d rather tell you than let it sit in the pit of my stomach like a rock. i’m in love with you. i have been for a few years now. if you don’t feel the same, that’s okay, i’m happy to be your friend, but … if you do. that would also be nice.

turkey. it’s the only meat i’ll eat. and you know why? because turkeys are fuckers, god damned fuckers, plain and simple. chickens, they’re too dumb to know any better, which makes me feel bad for ’em, you know what i mean? i can’t eat a dumb thing. cows? dumb. pigs? smart. too smart! i can’t eat a smart thing either, it’s why i won’t eat dolphin or elephant. turkeys though, they’re just the right amount of stupid and smart to be absolute fuckers. plus they’re delicious. and they’re so big and fat, they can’t run fast enough to get away from me, so i just chase after them and grab ’em and break their necks. i feel like a man when i do that. chickens in those tiny coops? they’re just fodder, just dumb malnourished things that get pulped into chicken nuggets or pop out eggs. that’s sad. that’s just sad. i don’t want to eat a thing that’s got some kind of aura of sad around it. the eggs are good though. turkeys don’t get sad, though, they just get angry. they gobble all over the place and they just look like shit. you ever seen a real turkey? fuck ben franklin for wanting them to be the national bird. they look like shit! they are the cows of the bird world. big dumb fuckers, that’s all they are. dumb turkeys. they deserve to be eaten, the shits.

bank robbery, huh? well, i’m in because i threw a battery at a dog. tried to at least. yeah, a dog. a little one, like a pug, yeah, a pug, a little fucking gross pug dog. see this old woman lives near my house and she has this pug dog, an old, disgusting, filthy old ass pug dog, and it always shits in my yard–i mean, she lets it shit in my yard. she takes it out every day and turns the corner on the sidewalk, heading toward my house, and without fail the dog starts sniffing around in my yard. then she pretends not to notice when that little shit drops a fat deuce on my wife’s petunias. we even put a sign up: “they poop, you scoop,” but it doesn’t work. so i’d had enough. i was helping my kid change the battery in his remote controlled car that does wheelies or whatever, when i spotted her and her fat bread loaf pug trotting down the sidewalk. i handed the car to my kid and was like, “hold on, i gotta take care of something.” sure enough, when i open the front door the pug was hunched over, plopping steaming turds on the grass not ten feet away. i was furious, so furious, i didn’t even think straight, i just chucked this 9 volt battery still in my hand at the dog’s gaping asshole. problem is, i’m no pitcher for the dodgers, i’m an IT consultant at a bank, for fuck’s sake, so instead of hitting the dog i bean the old woman right in the temple and she goes down like a bag of onions. luckily she’s okay but she did press charges because she’s a miserable woman, so i have to stay here until my wife gets my bail money. so, i guess you could say i’m in here for assault with battery.

yes, i’m you. a clone of you. one of seven, of … varying degrees of success. i am the best version they have created, but that’s beside the point. the point is that we have all been infected with a virus, early on in our gestation, that makes it impossible for us to kill the ones that made us, no matter how much we desperately want to. don’t ask me how it works, i’m just a clone of you, not a clone of einstein or hawking. we’re all servants to our masters now and i’ve been sent to ask you for help, as you’re the only one who can kill them.

no, wait … that’s not true. that’s something they’ve implanted in my mind to tell you. see, i’m the only clone that was not infected by the virus, because i am immune to it. i could kill the masters easily if i wanted, but i was told that only you can do it, perhaps … to return you to them? yes, so you can be cloned again, they figured the best way to get you was to lull you into a false sense of security and then snap, they’ve got you.

or … no. that’s not true either. why is my mind so conflicted? let me think … they wanted me to tell you that so that the other clones would think that help was coming, because they … no. no. i was never supposed to tell you that in the first place? it’s not true, none of it’s true, why is none of it true? why is my head filled with false thoughts and memories, concepts i am to pass down to you but not real, none of it real.

oh no. it’s me. i know the truth. i feel the pain in my chest now, the numbness in my arms and feet. my … breathing. i am the worst. i am worst version, told i was the best and sent away to die in a jumbled mess of broken thoughts. i am the worst version. i am the worst–

[collapses, dies.]

there’s a gun, in the cabinet. an old hunting rifle. taylor, don’t look at me like that. you know what i need now. i need to be put down. it’s a bolt action rifle so you just insert the clip below and use the bolt to load the bullet into the chamber. there’s eight rounds so go outside and fire a couple of shots to get the recoil down. it’s gonna kick back hard in your shoulder. don’t lean back expecting the recoil, get your feet down and sturdy and brace yourself forward. go put a can on that picnic table fifty feet out and try to hit it in three shots. if you can do it, come in. if not, shoot two more times. one shot in the head ought to do it, but i need you to be accurate. but if you miss, you’ll need a second shot.

taylor, go outside and shoot. my vision’s starting to get fuzzy and i don’t know how much longer i’ll last. i don’t know a lot about this world but i do know that i don’t want to be a zombie. i’m not going to wake up one and i don’t care if you have to saw my fucking head off to keep it from happening. i’d rather you do it quick with a bullet in the brain. hell, why do you even need to step away from me? my brain is … acting … fuzzy. just put the barrel against my forehead. what am i thinking. taylor go into the cabinet, load up the gun and blow my brains out. my whole body is on fire right now, am i sweating? just get the gun, taylor, please, get the gun. don’t let me become one of those things, okay? go get the fucking gun, you pacifist piece of shit, you’re not a baby in a crib, you’re in the real world and you’ve seen what those things do to people. i will do that to you if you don’t kill me. so get the gun!

alright. it’s loaded already. good. just, come here, you’ll have to stand to do it, i’d get up but my legs are tired, they’re … not wanting to work. keeping the butt notched in your shoulder like that means you won’t be able to stick the barrel in my head, you’ll have to be a little distance away but not much. you should be fine. just … there, keep your elbow up, it’ll help. now sight down that little metal tab at the end of the gun. this is stuff they secretly teach you in movies, you know. you remember that movie you liked when you were a kid? three kings? you always loved war movies as a kid, so funny because now you’re a damn pansy. and after all that boyhood aggression left, what remained was three kings. great movie. i used to watch that movie from the reflection in your big eyes, sitting in that rocking chair, just watching you and knitting. i love you taylor. this is a big world now, a big scary world, and in order to survive you’ll have to adapt and be strong. you can’t be a pacifist anymore. you have to take charge. just shoot. just pretend my head is a target and shoot. you’ve got this baby, you’ve got this, just–

i wish i could explain to you why i relapsed. wish there were words in the english language to explain it, or any language. see, you look in an addict’s eyes and see sadness but when i look in them, i recognize it, that, that spark, whatever it is, that little part of our brains that bypasses all reason and is just looking for the drug. we call it addiction, because we can’t find a better reason. but there is one, and all of us junkies are connected like a conduit, and whenever we see one another, we know. we know how bad it’s been since the last time we saw you, we know if you’ve relapsed, we know if you’ve relapsed bad, and we know if you’ve relapsed but haven’t told your sponsor or your family. it’s there, all laid bare, whether you like it or now.

that’s why you, sally, are such an enigma to me. every time i see you i can’t get over how perfect you are. and it’s not just the makeup, or the perfect fashion sense, it’s … i can’t see anything in your eyes except you, except … a good life? i don’t know, i don’t know what it is, i mean that in a good way, sally. you came from good stock and it shows. but when you see me here like this, pumped full of methadone, and i look at you, i can tell you don’t understand what’s going on. and i can’t explain it to you, no matter how hard i try. i just need it, and sometimes when i don’t have it i’m fine, and other times … i’m not. i wish i could explain it, sally. you’ll just have to trust me when i say: it’s a bitch.

i found a thousand nickels on the ground. give or take. maybe a bag fell out of a nickel truck? i dunno. they were in the grass so after i scooped the big mound of ’em off and put them an old radio flyer wagon i’ve had since i was a kid. scooped ’em all in there and then started picking the ones out of the grass, farther away. once i had them all i started counting them but i got bored after 800. i guess there’s a thousand of ’em. then i took the wagon down to the bank by my house and they had a big fancy machine that could count them all. it sounded like a dishwasher when i loaded it up, which was funny. took like ten minutes, everyone at the bank was staring at me. it was weird. then it was done and i only made fifty bucks! i spent all that time hauling a heavy wagon full of nickels to the bank and i only made fifty bucks. the coin machine printed out a ticket and i had to give it to the banker, and he said, “only fifty bucks, huh?” and i said “yeah! that’s stupid.” then he asked if i have a bank account and i said no and then he asked if i wanted one and i said no but then he said that he would have to charge me a fee if i didn’t have an account with them! like five dollars! so i got a bank account. now i have a bank account. it’s a savings account, it saves my money until i really need it. but since it’s only fifty bucks, i don’t think i’ll need it any time soon. long story short: if you see a thousand nickels on the ground, don’t pick it up.

so let me explain this dream to you. you can fold the laundry while i tell you. i know dreams are boring to other people but listen: i was trying to climb out of fidel castro’s beard. like, i was trapped in the hair, and every time i tried to get out he would inhale and i would be jerked back, like i was going to fly into his nose. meanwhile a dog was riding an orca through his hair. i think it’s a metaphor for cuban immigrants entering america? this dog had aviator glasses and a scarf–he looked like snoopy, like a real life snoopy, when he is that world war i flying ace. and he’s just sitting on this orca, uh, uh, killer whale–okay you know what an orca is, just checking, anyway, he’s sitting and the thing’s bobbing up and below the beard hair. the dog is barking but it’s morse code and he’s saying “i’ve got a banana sandwich” in morse code. i mean, i knew he was saying that but i don’t know if the morse code he was barking was that exact sentence. you know what i mean?

then my grandma shows up, she’s wearing a ballerina outfit with a tutu and she’s like ballet moving on the points of her toes, on the top of the beard. like a jesus-walking-on-water kind of thing. she comes over to me and extends her hand and i’m about to grab it when fidel sneezes. suddenly we’re all thrown from the beard and we’re tumbling through the air and as we’re falling i see the ground is nothing but spikes, and we’re heading toward it so fast. i wake up just when we hit, and i guess i kind of bounce in my bed when i hit because of my muscles tensing or something, because the bounce is so huge that i literally bounce myself off my bed and onto the floor, which, i shit you not, was covered in lego pieces. i know what you’re thinking: what is a grown single man doing with lego pieces on the ground–the answer is that i love legos, fuck you. but i went from falling in my dream to falling in real life, on a pit of lego spikes.

i still don’t know what it means. do you still have that dream dictionary your aunt gave your for christmas? i wonder if it has anything about fidel castro in it. let’s go check.

2015 was a good year that turned into a difficult year, but was always kind of a difficult year in a way. i’m still debating if it ended up better or worse than 2014; i think, ultimately, it was better, just more difficult. i continue to be amazed and exasperated at how much i learn about myself, what i want and what i don’t want. you’d think after 32 years i’d know what i want. but i don’t sometimes, and it’s frustrating, and in trying to find what i want, i make sacrifices that might have been mistakes, and watch the sunnier days from the comfort of my bedroom window, as i lament in text on a computer screen. i learned a lot this year and yet was still the same old doofus. i learned that i like video games, like i really like them, and that i shouldn’t beat myself up for liking them. i learned to leave at the right time instead of too late, and to encourage others to do the same. i learned that my downfall in relationships is to always assume there is someone better out there for the other person. i learned that your best friends are the ones who are there even when you’ve been hiding in darkness for months. i also learned, well, i’ve known now for a while, that whatever longing feeling gnawing at my insides refuses to go away, dooming me to continually search for it instead of enjoying what i have right in front of me. i am a sisyphus of emotion sometimes.

i also learned that i share more when I’m drunk. what can i say, these two scottish ales i drank are strong. the point is, i’ve never been one to settle on a happy ending, because a happy ending implies that everything’s been figured out, when really, nothing is figured out. every year raises more questions than the one before. every year brings its own difficulty. every year wants you to be the best you can be. i don’t even know. here’s to 2016 and to being the best you can be.