Your Destiny is Death

I was the valedictorian of my high school. Of course.

It was early in my existence that I learned the value of a well placed bribe. Do you think the high school nurse used rectal thermometers on all her students?

When my days there were dwindling I felt it my duty to impart some of my wisdom on the lesser lights I had the misfortune of sharing the halls with lo those many years. (Subsequently I would come to the conclusion that such wisdom was wasted on chattel destined for ignominious death, but I was a naive youth in many ways.) In the spirit of generosity I endeavored to become the valedictorian, so as to be able to deliver the farewell address to the cretins who so stained my formative years. It was most magnanimous of me, though I did selfishly take pleasure in knowing that I was depriving the long winded girl who, by study and hard work, had achieved grades that rightfully would have given her the honor. Lesson learned babycakes, effort is largely wasted, and cash conquers all.

I strode to the podium somewhat erect, not my posture mind you, but my penis, as my favored organ had a habit of spontaneously arousing in those days, as I was wont to spend idle moments dreaming of girls tawny and loose. How little has changed come to think of it.

Luckily my robes concealed what would have been a distraction from my words, and after casting a withering and dismissive glance at the "educator" who introduced me, I spat a hello to the assembled and began my address:

"Though I know that the majority of those present today are ignorant slobs, looking forward to nothing more than this evenings repast of fried food and shit on TV, I shall deign to attempt to enlighten you, with the hopes that perhaps one or two of my fellow graduates here today will take a word or two of what I say, and with it, glean some measure of happiness in the years of torment and futility that are sure to follow this humble ceremony.

This grotesque assembly of "teachers" sitting behind me spent four years inculcating your mind with crap and rote nonsense, whereas I, in one sentence, will deliver more insight than they have been able to give you in ten thousand. I quote Sophocles,

"O ye deathward going tribes of men! What do your lives mean except that they go to nothingness?"

Clap your slobbering jaws up for a moment to ponder that! You may thank me with your words later, and for some of your more attractive ladies you may thank me with your bodies, but for now truly grasp what I have told you. Did I waste your time with platitudes about the beauty of existence? With drivel about seizing the day and being all you can be? You cannot! Do you think you are special? Engaging in this pathetic ceremony as so many have before you, destined to live a little life and die one day, largely forgotten, your only impact to squeeze out another wretched person who will emulate you and too waste their days with petty struggles.

Oh there is no doubt that one or two of you are thinking you are special. You condemn your fellow classmates to obscurity but believe that you are destined for greatness. And perhaps you are! Perhaps a future Napoleon or Beethoven sits here before us. And so what? Do not worms crawl over their bones now? Any praise you have for them now brings them no joy, for they cannot hear it.

I urge you to abandon any idea of going to college. It is a waste of time. Think not of religion. Dear god I cannot believe in this day there exist people who still cling to such a ridiculous charade. If you wish to seize something let it be the juicy morsel of fruit nearest you, whether it be a succulent pineapple slice, or the heaving bosom of the girl in your math class who would not favor you with a glance all these years, though you let her copy your homework that time...

It was then that the microphone was seized from me, in a act of wanton rudeness. I was ushered from the stage with force, despite my protestations as valedictorian, and I launched my square graduation hat in protest, and achieved a measure of satisfaction when I saw its point strike an especially odious administrator in the groin.

Looking back I see that my words were wasted, and I would have been better served had I simply burned the building down, or skipped the ceremony entirely, and spent the day with someone brown and warm and soft.

Respect the bread

One time I was throwing pieces of bread at this Venezuelan chick's open mouth. It was night. The sea was illumined by the moon. All was right with the world for those few moments. What could intrude on such a little time of happiness?

If someone had answered a fat Turkish asshole I would have thought it a funny answer, but that actually was the right one. There she was laughing, soft rolled up pieces of bread bouncing off of her pretty face. She seemed kind of insane in that moment, truly crazy I mean. As if she had abandoned all hope of ever being satisfied and longed to forget about everything and just allow my bread to bounce off of her face as she stared at the ocean and giggled.

It was one of the more tender moments of my life.

I tossed the bread lightly into the air. Perhaps it was kissed by an ocean breeze before it descended and bounced off her cheek, or nose, or landed in her long dark hair. I never could put it in her mouth. She giggled weirdly each time it hit her face, but never more so than when a little bread ball caught her in the eye.

"Oww!" she said, in English. I wondered what she would have said had she spoken Spanish for that second. She was laughing as she said "Oww", and put her fingers to her face. I think she was truly happy in that moment, getting gently pelted with bread balls.

Suddenly the fat Turkish asshole appeared. I don't know about the lives of most people, or what situations one might find oneself in, but I don't think there exists a time or a place where a fat Turkish asshole's presence is a good thing. Maybe a buggerer's convention in Ankara. Do they have those?

He feigns being a gentleman and asks if the Latin chick is hurt. She giggles bizarrely in response and stares at the moon with a goofy smile, as if her mind was a thousand miles away. I wonder if she was dreaming of nutella. She liked sweet things that Venezuelan girl.

Next the fat Turk, who undoubtedly smelled, picked up a bread ball and hurled it at me. "Respect the bread!" he yelled.

I laughed. Not freakishly like the Venezuelan girl, but heartily, like some king who sees a peasant get crushed by a runaway cartload of pumpkins.

"What?" I was truly fucking incredulous.

"What are you doing? You have to respect the bread! You can't throw bread around."

I think it's rare when a person can pinpoint exactly, through all their years of life, and all the hundreds of thousands of words they've listened to, the absolute stupidest fucking thing they've ever heard uttered.

"That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard." I said.

It was.

"You can't throw bread!" Asshole was getting angrier.

"Wait a minute, you just threw it."

"No I didn't."

But of course he had. Asshole was stupid as well as fat. "Yes you did. You just picked up a piece and threw it at me."

The Venezuelan girl had a contented far away glaze in her eyes. Was she on heroin?

I wondered.

The Turkish asshole was contrite for a moment. "Oh. I shouldn't have done that. That was a mistake. But look what you were doing with the bread...you're an asshole."

I didn't think he had a future as a lawyer. "She was throwing the bread too. Are you calling her an asshole?"

Fatty demurred. "No...she's not." He strained himself to concoct an excuse for his hypocrisy but his fatness failed him, and he simply changed the subject. "You were not raised right. You don't know you're supposed to respect the bread...blah blah blah fat Turkish things."

I really don't remember much of what he said after that. He was so greasy and stupid. I decided to tell him so as I was growing bored and the Venezuelan girl was in a stupor.

"Listen, you're really stupid. Seriously. You're a stupid person. I mean that. So you shouldn't talk. You really should just keep your mouth shut cause you're not very bright. You're saying some of the stupidest fucking things I've ever heard. Really. Stupid people like you should not talk."

For some reason he got upset at that. He mentioned the bible in some context but I wasn't really listening anymore. The girl from Uzbekistan showed up and started talking about the bible too. Whenever someone brings up the bible I usually drift off and start thinking about pussy.

The Venezuelan girl was funny. She looked good under that night sky, a palm frond tickling her shoulder. The sea breeze was blowing hair across her face and she was staring vacantly at a bread ball on the ground. I think she wanted to eat it.

Cream cream cream

You're most likely an idiot. Most people are you know, or don't know, cause you're stupid. Napoleon knew it. That is why he had no qualms about mowing your ancestors down with cannonballs. I don't care if your ancestors weren't from Europe, you're still most likely dumb.

Take the woman I saw in the mall today. She was laden with shopping bags, and she waddled from side to side, swaying to and fro, fat and happy with her purchases. A salesgirl stopped her in front of a cart and started to pitch some bullshit cream. I saw the woman's eyes widen as she listened to the pitch, widen in a way I didn't think possible unless someone were to wave a hamburger in front of her floppy face.

I took time out from ogling better looking broads to listen to the salesgirl. She scooped some cream and held it on her fingers, then gently pulled the fat woman's arm towards her, and started rubbing it into her elbow. Apparently it was some miracle cream from the banks of some faraway sea that would have a tremendous effect on this woman's elbows. The fat shopper was eating up the salesgirl's words as if they were chocolate covered candy drops. I could see the thoughts racing through her mind in her shining eyes. "I have always neglected my elbows haven't I?"

She was fat and in her 50s, and had probably churned out a kid or two. Who gave a fuck what her elbows looked like? Did she really think that elbow cream would have any positive influence on her life, or the lives of those around her? Would it improve her existence in the slightest?

I was shocked to see her buy the jar, and longed for something heavy to throw at her. As if that bullshit cream even worked. Even if it did, did she really expect anyone, anywhere, at any time, to offer any kind of complimentary words, "Hey Sue! Hmm is there something different about you? Did you have work done you rascal?"

"Well," she would demure, face aglow with pride.

"Did your...are your elbows different?"

"I got this cream..."

"I can fucking tell! Wow, those elbows look amazing! And here I thought you were old, fat and ugly, but now I see you have some dynamite fucking elbows."

"Only 65 bucks a jar."

"A bargain."

It reminds me of all those plutocrats like Cheney. They are old and close to death, but continue to employ honest graft to make millions more they'll never spend. To what end? I don't understand why they would waste their days, going from the golf course to the heart surgeon to the board room, engaging in shady deals so they can line their pockets with money they don't need, and then go home to their fat ugly wives. Is it worth it? At least develop a drug habit, or fuck an endless procession of young floozies, but to be so devoid of morality and to ceaselessly pursue wealth at the expense of justice just so you can wear the same blue suit as every other asshole you know and fuck a woman who is overweight, ugly, and indistinguishable from all the other wives of your fellow dumb-asses...it just doesn't make sense.

I can see why Cheney might have lashed out and shot a fellow asshole that time...he must have been so tired of his disgusting wife, and his closet full of dull suits. To think that he had worked his whole life, and amassed such a fortune, and been condemned as corrupt and immoral, all so he could occasionally hunt quail, or golf once in a while, and then go home to his unappealing spouse. I bet if he could do it over again he would be a truck driver, or a sanitation worker, or anything that wouldn't give him a succession of heart attacks and some dumpy broad that drives him to shoot his friend in the face.

No Fat Chicks in Heaven

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to hang out with Santa Claus. He must hate everybody. Looking down at us from the North Pole, a bunch of pathetic fools hoping he'll give them some toys once a year. I bet he has a great time the other 364 days a year. Just hanging out with his elves and fucking Mrs. Claus. Chillin with his reindeer. No one buggin him up there except maybe when a nuclear submarine floats by or some Norwegians get lost. I bet he just comes to deliver toys once a year so he can remind himself just how sad and stupid the bulk of humanity is, and maybe stare at some girls who sleep in the nude.

So I was thinking that when I saw the Salvation Army lady standing all by herself next to her bucket. She looked lonely so I went to talk to her, even though she wasn't dressed like Santa, and didn't even have a bell.

"Where's your Santa costume?" I asked.

She laughed. "Oh we don't do that anymore, but I do have the belly!"

I smiled. She was fat. "Yeah," I said.

She then stroked her chin, "I have a beard too. Ha ha!"

I looked closely, and sure as shit she had a downy white chin. Jesus fucking christ. I knew I should not have violated my rule of never conversing with any woman over 22.

She chuckled some more as I stood there astonished. "Got the beard and the belly!" She rubbed her belly in a happy circle. "I've had this belly for 40 years!"

I nodded at her. Why was she still talking to me?

"Ever since I had my daughter. Belly never went away after that. I exercised but my husband laughed at me, so I said, if you're going to laugh I'm not gonna exercise no more! Ha ha!"

I looked around for police or a passing psychiatrist. "That's tellin him."

"Ha ha! Yeah! A year later he left me."

"Oh."

"When I asked him why, he said, "you're fat"."

I noticed her bucket was empty. I wondered if she took all the money to buy booze. I would not have blamed her.

"Just me and my daughter now...and her asshole boyfriend."

"Oh."

"He calls me fat too. But I just tell him to go get a fucking job. He has a kid with my daughter you know. And she has a kid from another guy."

"Interesting."

"But not me, I'm through having kids and through with men."

"Yeah?"

"After I caught my last boyfriend sleeping with my sister, yeah. Ha ha! Real Jerry Springer moment huh?"

I wondered if I could kill her with one mighty blow from her bucket. She kept talking and my gaze went from her lips to her downy chin to her belly. I winced, and thought of Santa, probably looking at me and laughing, a hot little elf on his lap and some mutton in his beard. He was no fool that Santa.

It's a beautiful world

The thunder forced me to take the bus the other day, as I feared its comrade in destruction, lightning, would finally get its wish and strike me down. As the rain pelted the lumbering vehicle I sat and stared at my fellow passengers, who were the usual assortment of hideous humans I so despise. On this day in particular though, one fellow stood out. He seemed to me to be the ugliest person in the world. Of course I am referring to outer beauty, or lack thereof. On the inside he may have been beautiful, as if that mattered. No good deed he may have ever performed could make up for the hideousness that was his everything else.

I turned away from him in disgust, wishing a thunderbolt would blast open a bus window and vaporize him. Soon my eyes found the shaved head of another passenger, which was adorned with a tattoo of a hand grenade. I found him fascinating. He also had a tattoo of a fetus in a jar on his neck. Clearly he was an art lover. He was talking to himself and so I snapped out of my visual reverie to listen to his thoughts.

"Dick Cheney is the anti-christ, not me man."

It was then I realized that he was not talking to himself, but was in fact conversing with a little man holding a big cross, who returned his rebuke of Cheney with an accusation. "You are a sex demon!"

They both seemed to make good points. I was impressed. Usually the shouting matches on the bus are full or irrational nonsense, but these two gentlemen seemed to be well prepared to debate.

The guy with the skull grenade tattoo smiled wildly. "Listen Mr. Haiti Voodoo Priest. Cheney needs to go down man. If there was a Zapruder film of that asshole getting his brains blown apart I'd jerk off to it."

"Sex demon!"

Jacking off to assassination footage did seem to be evidence of a sex demon. I was going to say so when I noticed the ugliest man in the world begin to stir. It was his stop! I hoped his departure would lighten the mood, though I felt sorry for the raindrops that would soon have to alight on his disgusting form.

It must be tough to be a bus driver I thought. I would like to bar passengers for being so ugly. Even if he offered me a hundred dollars to ride I would close the door in his face, and then knowing I would probably be fired I would find the nearest pier and drive off of it. It is a good thing I did not become a bus driver.

These thoughts were interrupted when that fetus tattoo dude tapped me on the shoulder. "Hey man," he shook an opened bag of Doritos in my direction, "you want some bro?"

I longed for a knife. "I'd sooner eat a turd out of Hitler's ass."

He didn't seem to hear me.

"What?"

"Do you watch Top Chef chief?"

He seemed puzzled by my question.

"What are you talking about dude?"

"The only thing I want to eat on that show is Padma."

"Sex demon!" The voodoo priest with the big cross was shouting at us both now. "Two sex demons!"

I had a guava with me that I was planning on eating at the beach, but since the rain was not stopping and the beach was not to be I threw it at him. He tried to deflect it with his cross but I caught him right in his eye.

"Whoa." said tattoo guy.

The bus driver opened the doors and ordered me out, and though the bus was empty now save the tattoo dude and the voodoo priest, I knew that if there had been more people on board they would have cheered me. The raindrops seemed eager to wash over me, and I really did feel like a hero.

The Egg Came First, All Over the Face

I was 8 years old, holding a spoon with an egg on the end, standing on the grass and gazing at the sky wondering, is anybody ever right about anything? I spat onto the ground in disgust as I pondered yet another example of just how putrid and insipid the supposed knowledge of mankind was. Centuries of learning passed down over generations and there I stood, holding an egg and seething with contempt. As if the bible wasn't stupid enough, now I had oft used maxims to regard with scorn.

I looked at the winner, tossing his egg into the air in celebration as the race moderator placed the red ribbon of victory around his neck. How could this have happened? Just before the race began I called to mind the venerable aphorism, "Slow and steady wins the race", and of all races surely a race in which one must hold an egg on the edge of a small spoon would prove the soundness of that theory. And so when the order to commence was given I sauntered forth, slow and steady, mocking the competitors in front of me who foolishly dashed forward with eggs tottering.

Sure enough one by one they began to fall, eggs jolted by the frenzied rushes and reckless bounds, dropping from their precarious perches to the waiting grass below. I smiled as I ambled, wondering just how I would revel in the glory of my win, when to my dismay I noticed one boy far in front, with his egg seemingly secure. How could this be? Was he not flouting the wisdom of centuries?

It was with astonishment and revulsion that I saw him break the tape and exult, egg still atop his now glorious spoon, though he had been neither slow nor steady. My egg remained fixed atop my pathetic utensil, but my jaw dropped. The world had turned upside down and I stood there, immobile, and pondered this shattering blow to all I held dear. I looked down and saw a little caterpillar crawling over a green blade.

"Hey," I said to him. "Hurry up caterpillar. Slow and steady does not win the race. In fact it seems to be the precise opposite of what one needs. Speed wins." I gritted my teeth and clenched my spoon tighter.

I tilted my head to the sky and felt the sun on my face as I pondered this crushing defeat. Surely the necessity for speed is implied in the very name race itself! How could I have succumbed to such an obvious lie? Why would humankind conspire over the course of centuries to humiliate me so, looking so stupid, holding my egg, far from the finish line, a distant second?

Did the winner cheat? Did he hold his egg throughout the race with a wayward thumb? I took my egg and fired it at him, breaking into a broad smile when I saw it race through the air and strike true, cracking apart on his nose and splattering his face with yoke. It ran down his chin and dripped til it stained his ribbon of victory.

Soon they came. As they hauled me off the field with force I exulted. "Give me a bible to burn!"

In my haze of contemplation and fury I heard an adult admonish me. "You shouldn't have thrown that egg little boy! That's very poor sportsmanship! No one likes a sore loser!"

I looked at his face. I pinched my nose. He smelled.

"Aesop was a fraud," I murmured, and just when his eyes met mine with a quizzical expression I jabbed him in the throat with my spoon and ran into the woods, eschewing the useless slow and steady pace of losers, and embracing the unbridled speed of the champion.

My Den Mother Was a Communist

I was five when I lost my faith in man. I remember shuffling through the leaves, making them rustle and fly up into the brisk autumn air. I peeked inside my coat to see my cub scout shirt, but it made me sad, cause it was medal free.

I fingered the leaf in my hand. We were to press it at the den meeting, earn merit points or some such nonsense to get a merit badge, but I feared it would all be futile, as my communist den mother would not give out merit badges unless everyone in the group earned one.

Why was I tied to everyone? Was I not better? Was I not superior to the obese boy with the chronic wheeze? I was always shocked when he lived through each meeting. The other cubs would drink their soda and throw things at one another, while I would listen to the den mother drone on about her life in Georgia, not the hick redneck infested shithole down south Georgia, but the backward irradiated nothing in the former Soviet Union Georgia. She was happy to be in America now. She had lots of food. Her son was only mildly retarded. She got to be a den mother.

I watched the wheezy boy drink his cough syrup. It never worked. Why did he bother? He could not jump so we could earn no physical badges. I doubted he could even press a leaf. He was dragging our den down. She probably pretended to have us all advance at the same pace out of sympathy for him, but it was probably to protect her son, who was a spaz without the wheeze or the excuse of obesity.

One meeting when I was smoothing the edge of a Tomahawk I made she asked me what page of the cub scout handbook that was on.

I looked up at her slowly. "Communism doesn't work you know." I stuck my Tomahawk in my belt. "Mao was fat and stupid." I looked at the wheezy boy. "People are selfish and stupid."

She walked away from me and poured more soda for her stupid son.

The greater cub scout meetings were such a source of shame. All the other scouts from rival dens had uniforms adorned with medals and merit badges. Our troop may as well have been naked.

"How come you don't have any badges?" The other boys would ask.

I would grit my teeth. "Marx really didn't get it."

"Who's Marx? The fat kid?"

I stood in the pile of leaves and thumbed through my cub scout handbook. We were only on page 9, after months, it was ridiculous. I thumbed into the hundreds, past merit badges I knew I would never attain under her chains. Could there be a merit badge for murder? Could there be a merit badge for a coup d'etat? Was the cub scout founder so far-sighted as to see my plight, and reward the enterprising boy who overthrew his dawdling den mother and lead his troop to glory?

There was something about building a tent. And a compass. Then I hit the index and lost hope. I could hear the wheezy boy's gasping in the distance. I couldn't bear the thought of being at his funeral. My uniform so pathetic. I crumpled my leaf and cursed Lenin, dropping my book in the gutter and heading for home.