I had a strange dream. Richard and I were going to meet Rachel for a movie, but she was late. Richard was driving around the parking lot waiting for her to show up, but as he was doing so he was getting very angry at all the people. This is not unlike him, as he sometime becomes agitated in public due to it being “too loud”, which I assume is a sort of social anxiety, or agoraphobia, or something. He just hates people. He got very upset, and left the theater parking lot. I told him I understood where he was coming from, and that I really hated “that faggy asian” that had slowly passed in front of the car earlier. I’d never say that, but I thought it was funny that I did. As we left, we got duped into going on to the interstate by weird roads. We took an exit to get back where we were going, but got turned around, and lost. At some point we ditched the car and started walking, and Richard became Reed. Reed was slowly going insane, and I thought I knew why. I kept thinking it was due to a principle I called time dilation, and I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen. I figured time dilation was affecting me, but not to the extent it was affecting Colin. He would fall asleep on the sidewalk, and at one point took some of the money I had in my hand, saying a nun had given it to him. He ran off, out of site, but then came back, and apologized, saying he knew something was wrong with him. I then tried to explain time dilation. I told him that the events of the recent past were being jumbled up, to affect our perception of the present. I later understood it this way: if you imagine time as concentric circles, the center circle would be the present, and all out lying circles would be the past, the future being omitted because it’s pretty much nonexistent. What was happening in our case, was that our center circles, the present, were growing so large that our outer circles were getting too close together, and becoming indistinguishable from one another. It became known to me at that point that it might have been due to a psychedelic drug. We tried to find our way home, but we couldn’t. None of the landmarks indicated what I expected, none of the streets went where I thought. It was odd.
Rand:
To love more than to anything else. When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person’s need of you. I don’t have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.
Yep. Maybe I’ll talk later about following one’s own self interest, and the bottom-up organization of the world, but for right now, there’s that.
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I just had an exceptionally strange dream. I was at my grandfathers house for some reason. He has recently died, and in the dream, continued in that fashion. I was inside looking at what all the folk who had purchased the house, and all his belongings, had done. It didn’t seem like much. I didn’t think there was much cause to worry about them coming by. I assumed no one yet lived there.
Then, suddenly, they did arrive. In one car was a very fat lady, a little girl, and some other people whose identities must not have been of importance, because my dream eye never focused that clearly on them. I went outside to tell them what I had been doing there; that I had no place to stay during the day, so I had been hanging out at what was now their house. They didn’t seem to mind.
As we walked back into the house I said hello to the little girl, who seemed very friendly. Once inside I followed the extremely fat lady into a bedroom, to tell her that I could either be on my way, or help them with whatever moving in needed to be done, cause I’m a cool guy like that. When she turned around, she was entering a state of undress, but seemed unfazed by the bemused, embarrassed glance of a hoboish stranger. She was not only extremely fat, but quite tall, and standing there, with her breasts exposed, she seemed very unpleasant to my eyes. She said that I could do whatever I wanted, and I left the room, her following, seemingly unaware that half her dress had fallen off.
I started to coil some wire, The dream never made it clear what the wire was for, but it was usb cable, it was mine, and I was taking it. I had apparently decided not to stay. As I was coiling wire around my arm, standing next to the front door, the little girl came over, and asked what I was doing. She looked incredulous, so after I told her my business, I asked for her name, to be friendly. I’m not sure I ever got it. Then without warning, which seems to be the dream’s way, another character showed up. He was young, perhaps a teenager, and made me very uncomfortable. I assumed he was a sibling of the young girl. He also asked what I was doing, but his tone was far more mocking. He sort of pushed me out doors with his body, not forcefully, but still menacingly. He was joined by some other guys, all supremely interested in what I was doing. I tried to tell them I was coiling my wire. They were having good fun antagonizing me, but only with words.
The whole time I was sizing the three or four of them up. I knew I couldn’t handle a fight with so many, in my grandfathers tiny, privacy fence-lined yard. They demanded money, because they wanted beer. I pulled what I had out of my pocket, declaring “two dimes”, an amount which seems extremely in character for me.
I was afraid of them, and tired of being in a terribly bad position, so I told them I could call my mother and get her to bring me money. They were obviously dumb, or the dream wanted to move the plot along, because they found that an acceptable answer. As they slowly released me from the corner they had backed me into, each one half shook my hand, filling it with change. I don’t know why. Maybe that was all their beer money? In any case, once I was free, they all started heading to a car, three or four guys, and girl from somewhere.
They were going to go to the convenience store down the road. They told me to get in the car, but I had no intention of being in such close quarters with them. I told them I’d walk. They must have really wanted beer, cause they allowed it. The leader, who had been the only one addressing me from the start (it seemed like he wore a ball cap in one of many annoying ways), told me that I better get there first. I found this to be one of those impossible bully demands that one gives out simply to have an excuse to beat someone up upon noncompliance. I am not experienced with the ways of the bully, but it seemed plausible.
As I walked down the road, they all climbed in their car. I began to run to the store, which was only eight or ten blocks. As I ran I began to get angry, and excited. I knew that once I got to the store, there being no other place to run to, I wouldn’t be in so much danger. I became very primal as I ran. They zoomed past me in their car. I thought of throwing all their change at them to provoke a fight right there, but they passed too quickly. Of course they beat me, and were unloading from their car. I ran at the guy in the ball cap as I entered the parking lot, throwing my fistful of change in his face. He deflected me, but as my back was headed toward the ground, I grabbed his arm, stuck my boot into his stomach, and flung him behind me. I quickly got up, and as other guys came at me, my adrenaline allowed me to block their blows. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to fight well, if they wanted to fight long, but luckily my frightening display scared them, and they ran off, leaving their car. I can’t say why.
It had inexplicably become night, but the scene was befitting darkness. The convenience store was now a seedy diner, and the lot was filled with unsavory types. I immediately thought to drive the car away, but that seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I turned and saw a man who appeared to be a mechanic, and asked if he wanted to buy the car. He must have seen the whole thing, cause he was ready with an offer of 40 dollars. Maybe it was the surreal nature of the dream, or maybe he was extremely savvy, knowing I needed cash quick, but either way his offer seemed low. I wasn’t in the mood to argue, I was in the mood to go, but I quickly countered anyway, saying “50″, and it was a deal. He then asked me for the title, and I told him I didn’t have it. I don’t know why he was trying to be aboveboard in his business practices, but perhaps he was an honest businessman looking to take advantage of a guy who had reason to fear for his life. It occurred to me to sell him the tires instead. After all, no one needs a title to resell tires. He thought that was a good deal. I told him he could have them as long as he removed them himself, and then went to find someone who could give me a ride.
I talked to a few seedy diner people, but no one seemed to be willing to unjam me from my tight spot. Suddenly I saw my mother. I don’t know how she had known to come look for me, but I was happy she had. I didn’t talk to her, but safe in the knowledge that she had seen me, I went looking for the guy who had bought the stolen tires. He was nowhere. Oh well, I thought, and went to my mothers car. I opened the door, but then I realized I had accidentally broken off my mother passenger side door handle some years back. A wave of foreboding washed over me, and I really didn’t want to get into the car. It seemed perfectly possible that she was some kind of impostor, possibly set up by those characters I had dispatched earlier.
I asked who she was, and she said “The only person who can take you away from here.” It still didn’t seem right. She then demanded I get into the car, calling me Elizabeth. I knew then it wasn’t my mama. I then awoke. The first thing I thought was that perhaps I had been a woman all along, in the dream, and proceeded to imagine how hot the female version of myself would be. I once told my friend that since I was extremely masculine, that my female version would have to be extremely feminine, and thus quite appealing. Maybe that’s why those guys were so antagonistic, but never tried to hurt me. Maybe they were coming on to me.
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My life doesn’t do things. It sits, and stares, and waits for the world to pass it by. Thus I will be working from a prompt today. It is: what was your first car
I’ve only ever had the one car, my first. It is a 1993 Mitsubishi Diamante. I like to say diamante with a deep, mysterious, Spanish sounding, inflection so as to pass myself off as cool, though I’m sure it has the opposite effect.
My mother bought my sister a car when she was however old with her tax refund, and so in my eighteenth year, she did the same for me. We searched for a day or two, hoping to find a car with a Japanese engine and transmission, and relatively low mileage, and the diamante was it. She paid 2000 for it. If my memory serves me, the guy she bought it from was real shady, but my memory rarely serves me.
My car has never been that great. Japanese engines and transmissions are awesome if you want your car to break down infrequently, but if it has already been driven into the ground, then a hobos income certainly won’t cover the cost of fixing it up. It’s broken right now, in need of an alternator, which costs double the price of an alternator made for an American car. I could either spend all the money I have to fix it, or irresponsibly destroy warrantied batteries by driving it without a functional alternator. One of those options enables me to afford liquor and drugs, thus my choice is clear.
I know I will eventually need to repair it, but that will most likely be the last straw for me. Having no money will force me to decide between staying, or picking up stakes, and hoboing. I’m leaning towards the former option more so than ever, cause I have prospects to see through.
Back to the original topic of discussion, I wish I had awesome stories about the diamante. I did wear the shocks out by being forced to drive Kevin, the heavy, homeless man, from work to his campsite many nights. Also, my ex girlfriend got menstrual blood all over the seats, so… that’s gross.
It has, on two occasions, struck something. Once, I followed a car out into the middle of an intersection while the light was red, realized my error, and put the car in reverse, only to find that the guy behind me wasn’t paying attention either. I hit him, but not hard, and for whatever reason he seemed to think it was his fault, though I suppose legally it would have been. The second time, my starter went out at my friends house, so after buying a new one, we decided to back it up to level ground to begin working on it. My friend got behind the wheel, put it in neutral, started rolling back, and side swiped a tree. Jerk.
I guess I like my car, despite the facts that when I try to accelerate quickly, the car only makes accelerating noises instead of actually going faster, and that it has an oil leak, and smokes while I idle, and that the only thing that sounds good over it’s terrible speakers is a George Thorogood tape I recorded from a vinyl record. Yes, despite all those things, and more, my car is okay by me.
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I suppose I should talk about what I have been doing, so prepare yourself for some mind melting narration.
As of late, just about the only thing I’ve been able to focus on is woman finding. It’s te only thing I can get passionate about. I suppose, to be truthful, I ought to say loneliness is the only thing I can get passionate about.
Through these efforts I have found out something interesting. I know how to talk to women. I’m actually quite good at it. I’d say my only failures with women is not giving up early enough. I convince women who I know I will probably have no lasting interest in to become infatuated with me. It has nothing to do with manipulation, I just have very little pretense, and the pretenses I do have I am upfront about. I’m open, and I have no secrets.
Now it should be kept in mind that I had long ago given up on finding a woman from within my state. I figured the odds were too great in favor of them all being too not my style for me to consider romantically. Thus the vast majority of my dealings with the farier sex have been internet mediated.
I spoke at length with a girl from Texas. She was good, liked me, but had no real substance. We usually fell back on sexual discourse when the conversation was lacking. She was certainly my style in other ways. Short, ample, curly hair. The only thing bad I can say about her looks would have to do with her being primarily descended from Africans. I have nothing at all against black people, I just don’t find their women to have the most appealing facial features. Generally speaking, they have much better bodies, which she proved. To make a stupid story short, I could have very happily been involved with her physically, but not much else. For that reason our “relationship” deteriorated.
Another girl whom I talked with at length was from Colorado. We wrote very long email messages to one another, and talked for many hours through instant, textual communication. The best part about her was the fact that she was a libertarian. We had a lot in common, but that fake relationship also deteriorated for one or both of two reasons. First she was 29, and while that isn’t much of an issue for me, it seemed to affect her on some level. Secondly, she sent me a picture of herself, a snapshot taken on her cell phone, in her bathroom mirror, with her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. Why she sent me that picture I’ll never know, but I thought it would be humorous to exactly replicate the picture with myself as the subject, and send that to her when she asked me for a picture. She thought I was making a fool of her or something, and got pretty angry. It was weird.
I next spoke with a girl from Canada. We met on an internet forum dedicated to our similar sexual interests, though the topic we discussed initially was the validity of marriage in modern society. She was an interesting one. We disagreed on most things. She was heavily into animal rights. She was studying to be a lawyer, and shunned all forms of idealism to instead embrace what she called realism, and work from “within the system”. That sort of thinking really got my goat, but besides it, she was and continues to be a neat person. She had a boyfriend, without which I’d probably still be having romantic words with her. She says I wooed her heavily, so I’m not lying about my lady talkin’ to skills.
I then started talking to a girl in Florida. Physically speaking she was as close to my ideal as I’ve ever met. Short, ample, dark hair, good features. Just all around good to look at. In all other ways, she was crazy. She was emotionally disturbed, and had lots of scars from cutting herself, and even while I was in communication with her, cut herself. She told me about her plan to, if she failed out of her current year of pharmacy school, get pregnant by a man, (me), and then continue school, while said man, (me), took care of the child. She also stored no cultural, or intellectual information in her brain at all, which meant there was nothing I could take to her about. I thought about staying in the game until I could be in her presence physically, if you get my drift, but I think I shall no longer have anything to do with her.
Next up was this 27 year old hipster from washington. I liked her a lot, because she accepted me completely; would have let me come and stay with her, and would have been cool with a non-traditional relationship, where I’d get to be a hobo. Unfortunately she was a hardcore socialist. That wasn’t at all a deal breaker, but it was unfortunate. I have nothing bad to say about her.
I’m now on what I hope to be the last in this particular list of girls. It’s safe to say I dig this one. She’s the best out of all the girls I’ve met. Everything about her exceeds the goodness of the rest of the people I know. Plus I’ve met her in real life. I’ll keep the specifics to myself, in case she decides to reads this.
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I never had a mother. Sure, a lady bore me, and birthed me, but I wouldn’t call her my mother, unless forced to be literal. I was born angry; a contrary child, who believed so fervently in his own freedom he never let a single person tell him what to do. I’d imagine it would be quite difficult for a mother to bond with such progeny. To further complicate matters, my birther has a family history of depression, of which she could not escape. I don’t particularly blame the woman for not nurturing me, or telling me she loved me unprovoked. She was never cut out to be a mother, and I being as disagreeable as I was only made it worse. My sister had a better time of it, she being comprised of sugar and spice, and everything nice, plus she was first. Then my pops died, and her hormones started kicking in, and she failed to escape our family history as well. Needless to say, I never had much of a family, and I really could have used one. But am I mad at my mama? Nope. She is a decent human being, who has always done right by me. She’s been responsible, and though I have lived my whole life poor, I never did without. I like my mama. If she was 35 years younger, and not laden with a lifetime of bad feelings, we’d be pals. And so today I bought her catfish, and told her loads of my dumb jokes, which she always laughs at, and hopefully made her happy.
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I have have had three jobs in my life. The first was as a wood worker in a cabinet shop. My friend’s dad owned the shop, and he got me the job. Mainly I sanded, but I also nailed boxes together from time to time. I am not an emotional person, but every once in a while I will be struck with strong urges. At that time I had a very strong urge to go roaming. I don’t know what brought it on, but it was a powerful urge, and I couldn’t ignore it. So after thirteen days working for my friends dad, at a fairly decent job that I was qualified for, which paid decently for what I was being asked to do, I quit.
I packed up my car with all of the clothes I cared to wear, and some other essentials, drove over to my friends house, and told my boss that I thought it was time I roamed. I gave him some trite story which included my wanting to work at a summer camp. It very easily could have been true, but it really wasn’t. I then drove to another friends house, and stayed for a few days, researching good routes to nowhere, hoping that friend might come with me. That plan fell to ruin after I bought an electric guitar, and lost the urge to roam. The guitar was incidental in my urge loss.
The next job I had was unloading trucks at a super Wal Mart from four in the afternoon to one in the morning. I was once again being paid relatively good money to do something I very easily could have continued to do. I really hated that job. I felt like an unimportant cog in an enormous machine.
When interviewing for the job, they asked me all sorts of ridiculous personal questions, like who the last person I had made angry was. I assume this was to determine if humiliation was something I was comfortable receiving in large quantities. Eventually I ceased going to work, as they had informed that anyone not showing up for more than three days would would be considered to have quit. They had no policy to contact missing employees in order to make sure they hadn’t had strokes, or been otherwise gravely incapacitated, which struck me as heartless, and further reason to not show up. Even if I had wanted to actually quit that job, I would have been at a loss for which higher up cog to talk to. I worked there for three or four days.
My last job was at an Ebay store. There I evaluated peoples trash to make certain it could turn a profit, and then wrote listings for them. If they sold, I would pack them up to be shipped. For the store’s trouble, nearly fifty percent of the profit was taken. They also had ridiculous policies in their contract which allowed for the theft of peoples property by employees, though it wasn’t worded in such a straight forward manner. I worked there for sixth months.
Many strange things went on there. I was hired by a man who looked uncannily like an ogre. His name was Adam. He had an extreme under bite, and annoying ticks and twitches which tended to make him look like he enjoyed hearing his brain roll around in his head. Whenever he would think about something he would stare into nothing, and oscillate his noodle, somewhat like a parrot. He seemed to me to be inhuman.
He had his wife working there, who looked twelve months pregnant. She was short, and had extremely large breasts. She seemed nice enough, but left before I ever knew her. Apparently her short stature gave her some trouble carrying my boss’s child. An eventuality I fear I may experience one day, due to my penchant for short women.
There was a man who had been hired maybe a month before I started working there named Ron. He was 62, and surly. I liked him a lot. One day as we were riding over to some ladies house, in order to evaluate her trash, I confided that I really didn’t like Adam. We hit it off from that point on. He was a Vietnam vet, and approved of my shiftless ways.
I don’t trust anyone. More precisely, I don’t trust other men, no matter how nice they are. It doesn’t affect how I act toward them, but it does have a strong influence on my imagination. Ron was genuinely nice. He bought me drinks, let me ride with him when he went to get his coffee, and worked with me in the store. Even so I couldn’t get the idea that he was interested in me in a “more than friends” way out of my head. I always imagined that he would come into the bathroom as I sat on the toilet with the intention of forcing himself on me. Seems strange that I would think that way, as I am a rather large, physically imposing fellow, and he had never done anything to show himself gay, or violent. None of those facts stopped me from unfolding my pocket knife, and keeping it handy as I used the toilet.
Ron’s wife had a stroke. From that point on he was understandably sullen. I came back after having been off a day, and he never showed up. I was told that he had snapped on a particularly annoying customer, and left, proclaiming “I quit!” as he went. My job became far more unbearable. For many weeks it was just me, Adam, and some crazy housewife/pill popper named something starting with an “S”. Sandy I think.
After a while Adam hired a girl. My relationship with her is another story, much more boring than this one. At the very least she did make the few more months I worked there slightly more interesting.
All the while a man whose name escapes me worked Saturdays. He worked a regular job in printing, but was slowly being made obsolete, and thus had to pick up an extra job to supplement his dwindling income. He was completely useless. He couldn’t operate a computer, and working one day a week meant he could never learn. I would have been perfectly happy to take his hours on Saturday, but making such a decision would have required logic on the part of those in charge of the store.
This man had a son, Kevin, who was homeless. He was homeless in another state, but wanted to move down to Alabama, presumably to leach off his family. His father asked if he could have a job in the store, and Adam stupidly obliged. Adam must have been short on hobbies, because he then made it his personal mission to reform Kevin’s life, which mainly amounted to lot’s of yelling and name calling.
Kevin was very fat. I am fat, but I can get away with euphemising my physical condition as “solidly built”, or “powerful”. At least I think I can. Kevin could not. He was twenty eight, had disheveled, receding hair, an annoying child like demeanor, and was averse to work. He vastly reduced the stores efficiency. Personally he was relatively decent, though the word “decent” may include moral connotations, which I am not applying.
Adam constantly criticized him for everything he did. Everything Kevin did was stupid, but he had completely failed at life, and gone unfazed, so I doubted simply informing him of his situation would ave changed his outlook.
I realize that my aspiration to be a hobo might seem contradictory to my criticism of Keven, but I draw a distinction between hoboing, and being Kevin. He had taken a road trip of several hundred miles, but had no valid drivers license, so he simply unscrewed another person’s plate, and attached it to his truck. Why he thought that was a solution to his problem, I could never figure. He had been arrested for that, and spent some time in prison. He told me on more than one occasion that he intended to never go back. He hated prison. But Kevin was not smart, so he continued to commit petty crimes. Kevin thought he had warrants out for his arrest in Virginia for stealing gas, but he couldn’t be sure.
Adam always harped on him about his spending habits. Whenever Kevin had a break, he would go to the adjacent Wal Mart, and return with copious amounts of junk food. He confided in me after I had several talks with him about budgeting, that he stole whatever he wanted from Wal Mart; had a fool proof method. I never bothered him about budgeting from then on.
Kevin had no place to live. He was homeless after all. His fathers wife would not allow Kevin to stay with them because Kevin played his music too loudly. That’s what Kevin told me she said. Adam actually fired Kevin’s dad for being a bad parent, which I found amusing, as there were far better reasons to fire Kevin’s dad. Kevin slept outside of the store a few times, which Adam disliked. I don’t know where He expected him to sleep, being new to the state, not allowed to stay with his father, and needing to show up for work everyday. Once again Adam had a brilliant solution. He bought Kevin a tent, and got him a camping space at a state park, some fifteen miles away. He picked him up, and dropped him off every day that he did not require me to.
Kevin was addicted to Adderall. He had a prescription because of his ADD, but took most of his pills the first few days after he received them, and spent the rest of the week jonesing. That is why Adam locked Kevins prescription drugs in the safe. I had the combination, so I was told to never allow Kevin access to his medication, under penalty of termination. Eventually Kevin did get in the safe, without my help, went on an Adderall bender, failed to come into work for a week, and was fired.
Other strange things happened at that job, but they are only mildly interesting. I was eventually fired myself for failing to work hard, or something. I actually talked my way out of the job by informing Adam of all the ways the store could have been run better. He had already made his mind up to replace the current employees with his friends, but I have a feeling had I kept my mouth shut, I would still be employed. Oh well.
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This past Sunday was a little bit different than usual. Richard asked me if I wanted to come paint balling with him. I really have nothing against paint balling, but it doesn’t sound inherently fun, especially because he plays with exactly who you might expect to really enjoy paint ball in rural Alabama. I didn’t decline his invitation straight away, as I had a night to think about it. As Sunday rolled around, I was all ready to tell him no, but then I realized that I actually do nothing at all in my life, and my plans that day were no different. I said yes.
We had a time finding our way, as Richard explained, the last time he had been to where we were going he had been drunk. Where we were going was some guy named Dean’s house. Dean apparently was friends with, or went to school with Justin, who was a coworker of Richard’s, and who, coincidentally, I went to middle school with.
Eventually we pulled up to a stereotypical redneck sort of house, with a very large garage attached in stereotypical redneck fashion. I asked if they ran some sort of business out of the house, and was told that they race cars for a living. Some woman, whose face I never saw, peered out of the door, and told Richard where everyone was: up on the hill. I did my best to look like someone she wouldn’t want to mess with, because it felt like the right thing to do.
I suppose Richard didn’t feel like getting his car stuck, cause after we wound through some mud paths, we came to a sort of clearing where lots of junk cars sat, and we parked. Dean probably owned a good many acres out there, and while I can’t say how long he’s had them, it seemed he’d spent a good chunk of time filling them up with all sorts of debris, broken down cars, and decaying out buildings. We walked the rest of the way up the hill, all the while I was sure someone was going to spray us with paint balls.
The place was littered with trucks of all sorts. Unsurprising as the main status symbol amongst rural male denizens of the south is a truck. No one was around, but the sound of marble sized paint bullets being propelled by compressed gas could be heard in the woods on the other side of the hill. We waited around for a few minutes, and soon swearing, and vulgarities, accompanied by young men made nearly invisible by camouflaged garments came leaking through the trees.
We were first met by an older man whose name was Tommy. I put him at around forty. Others came forward, and Richard greeted some; none greeted me. The game continued down in the woods, and those who had met us fiddled with paint ball guns, and made their lack of intelligence obvious, in various ways. Usually by pointing unloaded guns at each others crotches, and firing.
After a while Justin came out of the woods, and Richard retrieved a tank of compressed carbon dioxide from him, and attached it to his gun. A few more minutes passed, and soon a new game was under way. I had no gun, and was not very interested in playing, but was told to go down into the woods and ask for one. I went down, joined a group of 12 to 15 men and boys. To my surprise there was also a black man, and a girl down there. They had no gun to give me, and I was relieved. Before I made my way back up, Richard and I noticed another guy coming down into the woods apparently get fired at from atop the hill. He turned around and fired back.
I came back out of the woods, and lying on the ground was Tommy, shot in the face, being attended to by Quinton, the Black guy. On Tommy’s left hand was yellow paint mingled with blood. There was some talk about taking him to a doctor “to make sure his eye wasn’t put out”. I saw his face, and the injury, while right below his eye, looked fairly inconsequential. That never stopped him from complaining endlessly about it.
I stood up there with Tommy, who could not control his griping about his eye, and one or two guys who’d come out of the woods, adjust their guns, reload, ask Tommy about his eye, and then go away. I kept my mouth shut. At one point I was given a gun and a mask, and told to go into the woods. I took them both, walked up to a group on the outskirts of the playing field, said “want some help?”, and was told by one to put my gun on his truck when I was through with it. I said I would, took my mask off, put it, and the gun on the ground, and continued to stand around.
Eventually Tommy said the words I was waiting to hear; “want a beer”? I did. I drank my first Bud Light inside of three minutes. Things got better from there. Tommy’s face must’ve got to feeling better, I got drunker, and soon we were talking about how I didn’t play Dungeons and Dragons, or video games despite my long hair, and glasses, how organized religion was over rated, and how he had given Richard his nickname. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the nickname he was calling Richard by, was actually his real last name. I helped Tommy work his cell phone so he could call his daughter, who he described as “a little bitch”, and a “whore” if my memory is correct. I laughed at about every word that came from his mouth. He was truly ridiculous.
At times he was sure that if Tyler, the guy who had shot him in the face, came back out of the woods, he would cut him with his knife, or shoot him with his .45, or harm him in another way. At other times he was content that he had been shot justifiably, as pay back for when he shot Tyler with a .22 in the ass. Finally, when Tyler came out of the woods, Tommy demanded he come closer, and put his gun down. Tommy stood his ground, appeared intimidating, and when Tyler came close enough Tommy hugged him, and told him he loved him.
Tommy seemed to have a fascination with homo erotic imagery, which is not uncommon amongst rural southern males. At one time he explained to me how he enjoyed to harass the young newcomers, by making unwanted sexual advances; suggesting he would rape them in his truck. As he told me this he gently caressed my backside, to demonstrate how he would talk to the young ones. Whenever I would look him in the eye, unaffected by his foolishness, or poorly veiled homosexuality, he would burst into laughter and tell me that he “messed with every body”. I asked him if anyone ever took him up on his offers, but never got an answer.
Though I never saw Tommy drink more than a few sips of beer, and a swig of coke and Crown Royal, he seemed pretty drunk. I was on my sixth, or seventh beer, and felt pretty alright, so we decided to go down into the woods and stand in “jail” for the next game. We took a couple beers each, and walked down.
We stood in that jail, he yelling that he would shoot with his .45 anyone that shot him with a paint ball, me drinking, and smoking the probably Marlboro Light, he had given me. He told me he worked in home renovation, and I told him I did virtually nothing. Soon the game was over, and we all went back up. At one point he felt my beard, and I believe he suggested the if I were to suck his dick the hair on my chin would feel good on his balls, but it was hard to understand him. I traded him the phone he had given me, for a shot of his Crown Royal and Coke. Every one was surprised that I would do such a thing so flippantly, all erroneously believing I had given him my own phone; even Tommy had forgotten it wasn’t mine. I was surprised at how little alcohol was actually in the cocktail.
Richard and I eventually left. Would I have preferred to drink indoors with intelligent people? Yes, but I had a good time just the same.
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It was Sunday once again which meant it was time to meet with my good friend, and partner in up-to-no-goodery, Richard. He’s a good character, lean, soft spoken, I think prone to secret keeping, though I can’t be sure. We usually come together on Sundays to partake in various deviant activities. Before he became preoccupied with running fast, our Sunday activities relied heavily on recreational drug use. Now, we mostly burn things.
Things which, of course, have been designated safe and fun to burn, like wood I cut, boxes, and large parts of my yard. For the past few weeks I have made it my main daily activity to prepare for the Sunday burning. I started the trend coming off of some what of a depression, so it naturally became sort of ritualistic. I would wake, eat something or other for breakfast, mess around, eat some fish, cheese, bread, and beans for lunch, then go outside and chop down trees. Through doing this, it became obvious to me that doing anything is better than doing nothing.
Unfortunately we hit a bad few Sundays. It rained some and we really had a difficult go at setting things on fire. I remember one day as we were trying, it started to sleet on us. I believe we eventually resorted to trying to blow the nearly six foot tall pile of wood up with a good many bottle rockets, but to no avail.
Another day, having bad luck, sky steadily drizzling precipitation, we went and bought a gallon of gas, (which can thankfully regain it’s former place of glory as the play thing of social misfits, and near hobos, due to its recent price tumble) applied it, lit it, and though the fire was bright, it was also quick, and only the gas burned.
It wasn’t as problematic as I make it sound, as the whole exercise is meant to waste time. Technically speaking we became more successful when we couldn’t get anything to catch.
Most recently our fun was hindered when Richard’s mother required him to do something or other for her. We decided to not try for the ever enlarging pile of cut up trees, as we thought it might take too long to burn, and instead stuffed flammable things into a very tall, and not very wide box I had, and lit that. I had a pack of awfully bad tasting cigar like things which I needed to be rid of, and they created a very interesting yellow smoke as they burned. Really that was one of our better ideas.
After that, we had some more time on our hands, so we found some taller, dryer grass, and lit that, keeping an ever ready foot available to stomp, in case a swift wind came and agitated the flames. We had a discussion at that time about how irrational those who feared fire were. I can remember thinking of some analogy involving tigers I had designed to demonstrate the safety and control we employed in setting things on fire, but I can’t remember what it was.
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I went out to eat with my mama, my sister and her fiancée. We went to Ruby Tuesday. It probably doesn’t need saying, but I don’t eat out much. I don’t see much use in it. It costs lots of money, always more money than you thought it would, and I am invariably annoyed by whomever is waiting on me. It’s my fault not theirs.
My sister works at a Ruby Tuesday where she lives, maybe an hour away, so I’m not quite sure why she wanted to go to one. Before we left to meet them she called to say she would be about twenty minutes late. When we got there they were sitting at the bar drinking coffee. Later on I was confused by this. Did they want extra coffee drinking time before we got there? They also seemed rather surprised to see us, as if we had caught them. I thought maybe they were drinking alcohol which my mother wouldn’t have approved of; I would have liked to join them if they had been, but they just had mugs.
My sister hugged my mother. I’d hug my sister if she didn’t always look so uncomfortable to see me. I high fived her instead. I might have said hello to Mike, her fiancée, I don’t remember. The man at the the bar told us who would be waiting on us, said she was phenomenal. The greeter said it in fact would be Susan, or some other girls name, who would be waiting on us. The bar tender tried to correct himself, by saying “She is-” but was cut off by mother, “and she’s terrible”. Everyone laughed.
We were seated, ordered food, ate food, drank, and so on. I listened as people talked about their jobs, and their daily trials, and the many indignities they are subjected to. I said very little. When asked, I told stories about my cat, and the time he ate anti freeze, and I treated him with vodka. He’s fine now, if not somewhat crooked; not morally, but literally, and maybe morally.
Susan would not stop bringing me tea to drink. Even after she had supplied me with a to-go cup wth tea in it (missing a lid, which she apologized profusely for), she continued to pour drink into my glass. I idly drink things, so I ended up rather full of liquid.
We all decided to leave. I didn’t hug my sister again. I said goodbye.
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