On Coping Mechanisms Before the Unknown.

I like shows like The Leftovers and Outer Range because they explore the different coping mechanisms humans adopt when faced with the unknown.

Anomalies in life represent cracks in our worldview, and this may only suggest our worldview is incomplete. On the other hand, it may suggest that, while our worldview may serve as a useful map or model, it has its limitations — or it may even suggest our fundamental assumptions are entirely incorrect.

When such weird shit happens, some people are quick to bury it. They don’t want to know the truth behind it — hell, it terrifies them just thinking about it. So they ignore that UFO sighting, that out-of-body experience, that telepathic experience, that past life memory, that apparition they saw, that precognitive dream.

Maybe they hyperfocus on mundane matters in their life, distract themselves with sex or drugs. They might take refuge in religious interpretations or attempt to dismiss it all by echoing the ridicule such subjects often recieve from popular scientists. In any case, they all appear to value comfort more than they value understanding, and for them comfort requires maintaining the status quo.

Then there are those that love the mystery, but not because they want to solve it, not because they have a burning desire to put the puzzle pieces together, but because they feel they need to maintain that mystery, that magic in life.

Fuck all that bullshit.

Others, they keep looking. They research, investigate, contemplate, and experiment when opportunities arise, determined to achieve greater understanding. They play with models, oscillating between belief and doubt, trying to distinguish between facts and bullshit, changing their views in accordance with subsequent data. They value understanding over comfort.

I truly wish this last reaction was more common.

Getting Over Old.

6/22/22

Everything lately seems to revolve around old age and death.

Last week, a guy I didn’t initially recognize came up to me while I was sweeping the parking lot at work. Only in the midst of our conversation did I come to realize he was part of a group of kids that used to frequent here back in the day. They would talk to me, and I’d do my best to keep them out of trouble. They were troubled kids from broken homes and it killed me seeing what their childhoods were doing to them.

Now in his twenties, he told me how he’d just gotten custody of his kids and was trying to get his life in order. He seemed authentically happy to see me and it was nice talking to him, but I couldn’t get over how quickly time had gone by, how much he had matured, and how fucking old I was.

Last weekend, on Saturday, I went to see my parents, who decided to celebrate Father’s Day, my sister, Linda’s birthday, and my nephew’s birthday all at once. It was hard to believe he was turning five. It made me think how I hated it when adults used to say to me as a kid, “You’re getting so big. I remember when you were knee high…”

Now I get it. Now I am that adult.

I was playing with the dogs outside, my mother and sisters were talking, and dad was running around with my nephew. Suddenly someone asked, “Are you all right?” I look up and from behind one of the cars I saw the legs of my father, who had tripped and fell. Mom and I helped him up, and he said he was okay, but the horror that filled me in those few moments was indescribable. Given the look on my mother’s face, she felt the same way.

My parents age and the fact that they won’t be around forever is entirely impossible to ignore anymore. I was quite happy when they picked me up on their way to get their new puppy, a fluffy German Shepherd that looked more akin to a baby bear. I sat in the back seat and held him all the way home. At some point that day, my parents referred to the little guy, who they named Tank, would be their “last puppy.” My heart sank. They’ve entirely made peace with their lives, it seems, and their approaching, inevitable end. The thought of losing either of them utterly terrifies me.

Sunday, a lot more happened to remind me how time is flying by. Within an hour of coming into work, I learn that the youngest child of a girl that used to work here — who was literally just as high as my knee the last I saw him — was now working with us.

Later, I was cleaning up lobby when I passed a girl. We both glanced at each other while passing before we both stopped, backed up, and met each others eyes again. It was Heidi, who worked here years ago. She used to be heavy into drugs, hard and soft, and with her sunken, racoon eyes back then, she looked it, but there was always something about her I found strangely attractive. She was always sweet to me, always seemed a rather happy person in general, and she always had sinister and sexy facial expressions. Behind her eyes there always seemed to be something dirty, something kinky hiding.

That part clearly hadn’t changed.

She had gone into rehab years back and gained a fuckload of weight, but she had lost quite a bit since then. Eyes no longer sunken, she looked healthy, clear-headed.

The first thing she says to me once we meet eyes the second time is, “You got old.”

It was so unexpected I burst out laughing, as did she, and we hugged. She had just gotten out of jail again, she told me, and had gotten a job at a hotel in Kent. It was her first day. In response to her calling me old and my hair having gone gray, I blamed working here all these years. She asked if I’d been here twenty years. She was close enough.

Later in the evening, I was doing something up by front drive thru when I saw another guy that used to be part of another group of kids that used to hang out here. They were skateboarders and I got to know them pretty well. This was the kid they used to call Tackle Box on account of all the piercings on his face.

Some time ago, that group started working somewhere where they were being taught to be welders and making good money and they always urged me to come work with them, to get the hell out of McDonald’s. We didn’t speak when I saw him at the drive thru window, but through glances it was like he was sad to see that, years later, I was still working here, rotting away in this shit fucking job, and I fear the look on my face clearly communicated, however nonverbal, how ashamed I was that this was the case.

It’s almost as if the universe is trying to communicate to me that I’m old and I’ve pretty much been running in place since my teens. Time is speeding up and before I know it I’ll be dead, so I should really work on finding my place in this shitstorm of a world. I need to get another job, maybe try to make some consistent cash over some creative pursuit on the side as well, and move closer to my parents. I’ve said this for years, of course, but I really need to get my ass in gear. I see my parents fairly frequently, but I’m still my distant self, and I know I’ll regret not being around as much once they’re gone.

Of An Automotive, Roadside BBQ & Warming Beer.

6/23/22

So I was rolling the truck along on that long, dark road that stretches from work to home when I saw lights up ahead. At least some of them were flashing and multicolored, too — the kind you don’t want to find reflecting on your dashboard or in your rearview mirror. And for a brief, passing moment, that’s all I figured it was: the coppers had pulled some poor ol’ schmuck over and now I was left to hope that those bright, distracting, flashing lights didn’t blind or distract me as I attempted to safely pass them both. There were also taillights, however, so some other car seemed reluctant to pass.

Then, as I made my way towards the cop lights, I saw, just beyond them, brilliant, orange flames violently licking the night sky. It was like a roadside bonfire. I couldn’t see the source, but it was undoubtedly an automotive barbecue — surely not the kind of barbecue anyone save for extreme pyromaniacs devoid of any respect for human life wants to be a part of, even as a mere witness.

Just as I approached, the one car in front of me struggled a bit, but ultimately managed to turn around, though in the midst of backing up the second time he almost clipped the ambulance flying by.

By this time, cars were lining up behind me, and I wondered if I, too, should turn around. Just then, out from the blazing fire up ahead came an epic explosion and rain of sparks, which is precisely when I decided, yeah, that’s a sign that I should really, really pull into the same driveway of the last car, turn around, and go back the way I came.

So I did just that.

After heading back towards work, seeing other vehicles follow suit in my rear view, it suddenly struck me that I knew no alternate route home. This is the same issue I face every time they block main street in the town where I work for a car show or some festival, the same shit I have to deal with every time I face a detour along some familiar route. I have absolutely no sense of direction and get horrifically lost.

So I did just that, too.

I mean, I didn’t get horrifically lost, and I discovered how you get to the campgrounds a friend at work was telling me about in the process, and I only took two turns and managed to find my way back to the long, dark road I started from, but I didn’t know where to go from there, so I went back to the gas station where I got my beer before leaving work to start off my weekend. I parked by the air pumps, grabbed my phone, and opened Google Maps.

Somehow, this didn’t help at all, and I just ended driving back towards the bonfire in the road.

Quit whining, I told myself as I made my anxious way. Quit bitching. So it’s the start of your weekend and you’re an eager beaver with respect to getting home. So your beer is getting warm in the passenger seat. Boo-fucking-hoo. This might be an irritating inconvenience for you, one that’s sort of summoning forth your persistent anxiety, but whoever was in that wreck is having a far, far, fucking far more harrowing evening than you, rest assured.

So buck up and shut up, motherfucker.

By the time I got there, there was a line of cars again, though this time I couldn’t see beyond the semi a car or two in front of me. I didn’t see any fire reaching out to the starry heavens, either, however, which might be a good sign, at least with respect to traffic flow.

So it proved to be.

I could see cars coming from the opposite direction, then they stopped driving by and I could see the semi turning into the oncoming lane. So I followed taillights through the blazing lights of police, the fire department, the ambulance — all of them, some of them, I couldn’t fucking tell. The lights were so blinding, the lingering smoke so obstructing on top of it, and the battlefield of splattered bug corpses so littered my windshield that it was difficult to see much of anything.

Looking to my right, I did see a white car, however, and one that had been beaten to hell. Not charred, however, so I’m not certain it was the source of the fire. I expected to see a semi, the way those flames were, and perhaps there was one, but I didn’t see it. Looking at that car, I winced as my heart sank in unison. My blood ran cold, and my stomach twisted in knots.

There’s just no way, I thought solemnly.

I find it difficult to believe anyone survived that. If it was the origin of the bonfire, the occupants were certainly in citical and considerably crispy condition at best. Anakin Skywalker at the end of Revenge of the Sith would have nothing, absolutely nothing on them.

Once home, I checked Google to see if there was any word on what happened, and I did so again the following day.

Nothing.

These themes that have been running through my experiences as of late — the themes of old age, the fragility of life, of death and how it could come at any moment for strangers, loved ones, myself — it doesn’t seem to be letting up.

When I first arrived, it had pretty much just happened. Had I not stopped for beer, I might have been part of the accident, for all I know. And if I hadn’t been a part of it but witnessed it happening, what, outside of calling 911, could I have done? Run into the fire as a suicidal hero? Chat with the neighbors as we watched people die? I would have felt even more fucking lost as to what to do then I was when that long-haired guy overdosed in our fast food bathroom recently. I would have been even more fucking useless.

I hope, whoever was involved, that they’re okay, but I can’t for the wasted life of me imagine any of them are.

Just Another Overdose.

6/20/22

I go to sweep the bathroom at work and, opening the door, I almost walk into manager Steve. He’s holding back laughter, and it’s not due to him nearly making me shit my pants, either. He scoots passed me to let his laughter go as I lean in the door, and quickly discern the origin of the giggles: some guy in the men’s room stall is moaning, grunting to a steady beat.

Steve suspects he’s humming while pooping, maybe even sleeping. Despite hearing no wet, meat-slapping sounds, my immediate assumption is that he’s masturbating, and instantly I’m irritated about what I might have to clean up after the presumed potty-jacker is done with his deed. So I go to sweep the rest of dining room, hoping the guy exits the shitter soon.

Spoiler alert: he does not.

Maybe ten minutes later, I go back into the restroom to find the moaning has ceased, and this disturbs me more than the initial moaning. The silence is penetrating. And that’s when I begin to suspect what my dumbass brain should have initially suspected on default.

I leave the restroom and walk a short distance, step outside the front doors and hail Steve, as I want someone there to share in my horror, whatever it is that might be awaiting me beyond that stall door.

A corpse, perhaps. Maybe a half-naked guy taking a post-masturbatory snooze with his strangled dong now held loosely in his hands.

We walk into the men’s room and I knock on the stall door, yelling, “Is anyone in there?” No answer. I ask it louder. No answer. Steve asks if he should call 911. I tell him I don’t know. I announce, yelling again, that I’m coming in as I unlock the door.

I push it open.

On the ground, lying on his side, is a tall, lanky guy, his long, brown hair tied back in a ponytail. His face is a deep red fading into purple.

“Yup,” I say. “Call 911.”

One of the girls behind the counter called 911, as it turns out, and whoever she is talking to on the other end is asking her if anyone is administering CPR. No one is, as no one knew how, and I have that overwhelming feeling that I should be fucking doing something but didn’t have the vaguest fucking clue as to what.

I’ve never had this feeling before: that given I work in a fast food restaurant in this fucking town, I should probably be trained in CPR.

Props to the cops. They reacted as my dumb, idealistic ass believed they should have — they promptly arrived, and in numbers (in the end there were four or five cruisers), and wasted no time bolting through the doors Steve and I held open for them and directly into the bathroom to do all they could to revive the overdosing numbskull turning purple as Grimace on the restroom floor.

The firefighters that arrived with the ambulance, on the other hand, immediately pissed my likely overly-judgmental ass off. They arrive some time after the cops, pull in to the lot comparatively slowly, take what seems like a goddamn eternity getting out of the vehicle with their equipment, and when they finally do so they both move in a slow, lethargic, almost reluctant manner.

I realize I’m being a judgmental asshole here — please keep that in mind. As much as I feel goddamn certain I know how a long, bad day at work is, I could never imagine the shit they have to deal with on a daily basis, particularly in a drug-addled, cesspool of a town such as this. After long enough, you’ve got to become desensitized, just as a psychological survival strategy. You have to get tired given the frequency of overdoses in your active area, and perhaps today was a rather straining fucking day, at least for the two of them.

Maybe they are grossly underpaid and under-laid: again, I deeply sympathize, as I know the state that breeds all too non-fucking well. But damn it, chug an expresso, take your job seriously and execute it to the best of your ability. Lives are on the line.

You could argue this guy lying on our floor tiles asked for it, that he was flirting with death by sticking that shit in his veins, but this isn’t some convenient, no-skill job you picked up because you’re a deadbeat like me who, despite being unfit for the world in which he was born had to find some way to pay the rent and food and so on. No, you trained for this. You specialize in this. Do what you chose to do with your life and do it the best you can.

The cops did it. You can do it.

Assholes.

Peering from some distance at the open door of the men’s room, I see more occupants than I have ever seen, and ever wish to see in there. I then proceed to go outside, light a smoke, and suck down passionately on the butt of my cancer stick, staring off into space, trying to mend together coherent, rational thoughts in the midst of the hyper-violent, emotional maelstrom wreaking havok within my dismal fucking soul.

I’m right where I often find myself — stuck between wanting to help, wanting to play a more meaningful role in the world around me, and wanting to distance myself from this endless chaos, run away and hide in peace, in nature, in two parts solitude and one part among family and close friends, feeding and brightening the dimming glow within and around me as I strive to find some deeper meaning in this ever-chaotic bullshit world we humans have — in our niavette if not in our irreversible idiocy — built for ourselves on this otherwise-beautiful biosphere.

Crouching down, smoking my smoke, I feel sad and angry. Hopeless yet defiant against that hopelessness. I feel disgusted with the world yet determined to ease and overcome this existential nausea.

Cigarette extinguished, I proceed to the door to find the man who had been dying on the floor seemingly miraculously on his feet again, though just barely, standing on the opposite side of the glass door, which I subsequently opened for him. The cops proceeded to guide the guy out, who was a little wary on his feet and seemed like he’d just been prematurely awakened from a deep sleep as he held some clear tube up his nose with one, unsteady hand.

In the parking lot, in the booths in the dining room, and yes, in the bathroom, this has happened before — countless times before. And I’ve often seen the aftermath of ODs, or at least heard of it, but I’ve never been party to the discovery, to the whole of the process. This is a new experience. This burst my goddamn cherry.

I’ve already had enough of it.

Another Ruined Break in Discount Gotham.

6/16/22

All I want to do on break is be alone and write, so I move the truck to a space in front of the building so I have some shade. I’m not there thirty seconds when I see a guy approaching. A big-bellied man in a red and blue, long-sleeve shirt, a blue hood over his head, and white Winter gloves.

In 80-plus fucking degree weather, mind you.

He wears a red Buckeye lanyard around his pasty white neck, where he’s hung his bright yellow sunglasses. He has a blue bookbag strapped to his back and two tote bags — one red, one blue — hanging around one arm.

It’s ‘Murica Man.

He asks for cigarette. I regretfully inform him I have a limited supply, which is technically true. Then he asks for a lighter because he had a half-smoked cigarette on him somewhere. I dumbly say sure and he spends the next eight minutes going through all his shit on the curb, holding an enduring coversation with himself as he does so. Loudly. And he references superheros more than once.

Finally, he finds it, approaches my driver side window, and I hand my lighter to him. As he unsuccessfully attempts to light his cigarette for the next five minutes, likely a challenge at least in part due to his fucking gloves, he tells me his name is Shawn something. He tells me this twice, just in case I ever “hear” of him. He tells me about how they discovered he has RH negative blood when he was a child, but he only started noticing changes a few months ago.

Eventually he gets bored talking at me and begins talking to the wall of the building.

So yeah. I guess I met a superhero today.
It makes me wonder if there are other wannabe-superheroes or supervillains in this shithole of a town — if this place could turn into a kind of discount Gotham.

Of Jabba the Hutt & McGruff the Crime Dog.

It’s roughly ten in the eve and I slip out the door for a smoke, having just gotten done mopping the dining room. I hear a noise in the parking lot. Looking up, over by the drive-thru I see a half-naked guy staring at the ground. Jabba the Hutt in human flesh. He’s kind of wobbling, unbalanced, undoubtedly fucked up on something.

I smoke faster.

By the time I get inside, Natalie, the manager, informs me that Jabba is reportedly making the woman who just pulled into drive-thru uncomfortable. I don’t see him out the window anymore, but one of the girls tell me he’s on the other side of the store.

I unlock the back drive-thru window and stick my head out. And standing in between cars, there he is: dirty man boobs, jiggly beer belly, and all. He’s wearing two different kind of shoes and has a cigarette butt burning passed the filter hanging out the side of his super-slug mouth.

“Hey man,” I ask him, “what are you doing?”

This seemed like a reasonable opener.

“I wanted some food,” he says, holding up his baggy, stained shorts with one hand.

“Well, the inside is closed and you need a car to go through drive-thru.”

On a side note, I hate that I’m forced to point this fact out so often. The very presence of the word “drive” in “drive-thru,” I feel, should make this a no-brainer, but alas…

“Can I talk to the manager?”

“She’s busy right now. Just give us a call.”

“I don’t have a phone.”

I shrug. “Sorry man.”

This, of course, is not the end of it. He keeps pressing to talk to the manager, so I ask him kindly to step aside, out of the line of cars, and I’d let her know. I close and lock the window, go back up to the active drive-thru window and give Natalie the run-down.

We look out the window and Jabba is now sitting on the curb, leaning, splaying his filthy tummy to the growing line of increasingly uncomfortable customers. She confesses to me that she hopes that if she only ignores him he’ll go away, but I just stare her dead in the eyes as I slowly shake my head from side to side for dramatic effect.

I’ve seen Return of the Jedi countless times since I was a kid. I know all to well that he is immune to our Jedi mind tricks.

A few cars pass and he approaches the window, evidently having grown impatient. Natalie approaches and I hang close by, trying to find out where the broom is so I have some object to use as a weapon, just in case shit goes south. I find one. He asks her for food, free food, and she apologizes, informing him that we can’t do that. She then politely asks him to back up so the next customer can pull up and slowly closes the window.

I’m sure this comes as a surprise, but he does not back up. He merely crouches down, picks up an old nugget off the ground, stands back up, pops it in his mouth without a moment’s hesitation, and starts chew-chew-chewing away at it like a cow to cud.

Natalie’s anger finally overcomes her uneasiness. She opens up the window again, and this time firmly says, “You’re in the way. If you don’t move, I’m going to have to call the cops.”

“Call them then!”

And with Jabba’s blessing, she does, and she asks me to lock the drive-thru window as she holds the land line to her ear. Broom close by, I latch and lock the window, avoiding eye contact with the angry, bloated slug-man as I do so. He backs up to let the next car pull up, but stares back at me from beyond the car, yelling shit at me that I couldn’t hear. The guy in the car looks nervous but understanding and says he’ll pull around the building for his food.

After that, Jabba seems to vanish. Once I see the three police cruisers pull in from the other side of the store, I feel it’s safe to take the trash out the stock room door, and so promptly do so.

Back in the dark corral that houses the dumpsters, I hear defiant though indecipherable yelling through shaky, rhythmic gurgling. I imagine this is him getting tazed. Once back inside, I learn I’m right. At some point he was evidently also lying flat on the ground. The cops tried to pick him up by his hands and feet, at which point he bit one of the officers.

Sometimes, McGruff, crime takes a bite out of you.

I mean, I guess it makes sense. He did say he was hungry, after all, and almost anything — even raw bacon — had to taste better than that fucking filthy ground-nugget.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate this town?

Two Moons Beneath the Arches.

6/3/11

I was greeted by my first surprise of the workday when I meandered out of the fast food joint for a cigarette while they were in the midst of a rush. I went to the blind spot over by the curb in the parking lot, free from all windows. They probably wouldn’t have cared that I was running outside for a puff, but as I said, they were busy, and I felt guilty about enjoying a peaceful moment of blackening my lungs as they were stuck running around trying to satisfy a relentless herd of indecisive, unsatisfiable, lard-thirsty humanimals.

Anyway, as I sat there puffing on my cancer stick, this car drives passed; a mother dressed all nice with her three children in the car with her. I smile. Too soon. She drives passed drive through and parks, car still running, back by the corral, where the dumpsters are. She gets out in a rush and looks around, this sneaky, suspicious, nervous look blossoming on her face that sent alarms off in my cranium. Whatever happens next might be interesting, I thought to myself, so I kept watching.

For some stupid reason I figured she was going to steal boxes out of one of the two cardboard-only dumpsters that are positioned right next to each other to the side of the corral, between the parking lot and the lot for the semi-trucks. Maybe she’s moving and needs the boxes. Maybe one of the kids whipped a rock at her car window, smashing the glass to miniscule, razor-edged shards and she needs to duct-tape cardboard over the frame so that the thigh-high sociopath doesn’t leap to his death on the freeway. Maybe she has a cardboard fetish and her bum boyfriend’s last home got all soggy during the rain a few days back and a misshapen, oversize spit-wad of a cave isn’t quite enough for her to get her rocks off. Whatever. Who knows. For whatever reason, that was my stupid theory: she wanted boxes. Why she would feel sneaky doing such a thing was beyond me, but that was the only thing I could imagine she was planning on doing.

That’s not what she did, of course.

Instead, she gets between the two dumpsters and wiggles her pants down passed her knees while simultaneously crouching down. She then proceeds to piddle a puddle on the parking lot concrete in fashionable, fire-hose fashion.

Her kids in the car, watching; cars lined up in drive-thru, certainly able to see; truckers in their trucks just behind her, eyes no doubt fixed on the full moon aimed in their direction. And she could have just as easily parked, went inside and used the damned bathroom. I just didn’t get it.

Strangely enough, my second surprise of the day also involved a woman’s super-duper pooper-pillows.

Just after nine o’clock, when the playroom in the restaurant always closes, I’m wiping down tables, hoping my act of cleaning the area will inspire the couple still lingering in there to grab their two toddlers, get their shit together and leave. For some reason, the mother (who, I might add, had a look and vibe about her that suggested she was once of sound mind and very attractive but had collapsed altogether under the stress and depression of premature parenthood and can now only find some transient solace in the very activity that got her into the damned mess in the first place) was intent on taking the kids into the playroom restroom and changing them into their pajamas before bringing them home.

I didn’t understand this at all. Especially since it required planning, unless she always kept a spare pair of jammies in her purse. But then again, women do appear to be able to fit a whole load of interesting things in their purses.

Regardless, as she bent over, the bottom of her yellow shirt lifted, the waist of her faded jeans descended, and between those lips of blue and yellow cloth pale mounds of pasty white flesh, like nipple-free breasts of the back-end, burst out from either side of the tightly-viced, poop-shooting schism. There they bathed in the florescent glow of the world beyond that oppressive, narrow limbo-land in which they had been imprisoned; that claustrophobic kingdom betwixt the flesh and the form-fitting hip-huggers. It wasn’t a shy two-cheek peek-a-boo, either; this was a bold, confident Hello. Like the Kool-Aid guy slamming through a wall and screaming “Oh yeah!” in a thunderous, reverberating, megaphone-like voice.

As I tried to pretend like I didn’t notice the full moon before me, I began thinking about those tattoos girls get on their lower back that everyone calls “tramp stamps” and how fitting it would be if plumbers began a trend of getting tattoos on their posteriors. Then I asked myself, What kind of tattoos might one get on one’s rumpus? An eyeball on each cheek? A spanking-suggestive hand-print of one’s significant other? Full-color jean ink all over the caboose, complete with tattooed pockets and Levi insignia so that someone might stare at their bear derriere unawares?

And then I began wondering what catchy name we might give for these tattoos. Plumber-bum bumper sticker, ass art, butt badge, gluteus graffiti, heinieglyph, ink-’round-the-stink? Asstoos? Tatooshies? Tats on the tuckus?

This kind of thing could really catch on, methinks.

On the Freedom of Expression as a Natural Right.

I always try to argue for the freedom of expression rather than the freedom of speech, and for two reasons. First, the freedom of expression is a broader term, in which the freedom of speech is included. Second, using the term freedom of expression, I’ve felt, is less likely to limit the argument to the first amendment — and here experience has appeared to have proven me dead wrong.

So why does this increasingly agitate me and deplete my sense of hope?

While the first amendment to the US Constitution is important, it is, after all, only a declaration that the government recognizes a right we already have, that we were born with, and does not constitute the act of “giving” us that right. If I argue for the freedom of expression online, for instance, there are sure to be people who will jump in and argue that Facebook or Twitter don’t fall under the first amendment, that they have a right to limit what can be displayed on their platforms, and so on — they argue law, societal game rules, in other words, not rights, and so few fail to see the distinction.

Laws are superficial. Rights go deeper. And let me be clear: I am arguing rights.

If there were no first amendment in the US Bill of Rights, would such individuals feel the same way about the freedom of speech in general as they evidently do with respect to it in the context of social media platforms — in other words, would they seem to have no value in it at all, and argue that its not a right because its not law?

It disturbs me to think this might be the case.

Of Broken Smoke Breaks & Acid Trips.

Out the front doors at work, crouched down with my back against the wall, I light a smoke. The street is quiet, the town is dark, and it just stopped raining. No one is likely to even see me, much less bother me. Now I can just enjoy my cigarette and commune with my thoughts for a few moments, uninterrupted.

“Havin’ fun,” I hear someone yell half a moment in, “sittin’ on the wet ground?”

Motherfucker.

Its some guy way down the sidewalk on the other end of the street. Some evidently eagle-eyed bastard. I tell him I’m just hiding. He laughs, tells me that if he worked here, he’d be hiding behind the counter inside, eating cheeseburgers.

He crosses the street as he continues talking with me. Like a moth to a porch light. Like a fly to a pile of shit that only wished to pollute its blackened lungs and collect its shitty thoughts in private for maybe ten minutes.

Now its story time, and I am the captive listener.

His father went to Cleveland to get his mother — rescue her, he makes it sound — who was doing coke with some guy at a bar. Before his father left, he had some LSD in the house, and allegedly in fear that his two sisters would take it while he was gone, he gave it to him, his son, and dropped him off downtown.

“If you can make it home without getting arrested,” he told him, “I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”

Top tier parenting, right there.

He tells me how he’s glad his father went to get his mother, because if he went, he’d hunt down and kill the guy that got his mother doing coke, and he can’t end up in jail, not now, as he just managed to get his kids back. I had the burning impulse to add that this probably made walking around town with a head full of acid an even worse idea than it already clearly was, but I let it go.

Different strokes for different folks, and all that rot.

On his way home, he went on to tell me, he planned on stopping by his “baby mama’s house” to “bang the shit out of her,” but apparently he collapsed when he saw the steps to her place turn to lava before his very eyes. And, I mean, I empathized with him quite easily here. I haven’t had sex in an excruciatingly long time, but if spontaneously manifesting liquid rock suddenly presented itself as a barrier between me and a desirable woman’s lovely lower lips, it would undoubtedly serve to dissuade me as well.

If the pathway to pussy is obstructed by lava, just go home and rub one out, you know?

Safety first.

On his way passed the bar, where a guy he didn’t know tried to fight him because he didn’t like the way he looked, he also saw a police cruiser — and saw it melt into the road, he told me.

I find myself silently confused, for while I have had limited (and safely-controlled) experiences with psychadelics, I’ve never before had the high caliber of hallucinations he was allegedly experiencing. When he goes on to explain how he’d done shrooms before, but never acid, and then explained that he had not only been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD but schizophrenia as well, things suddenly became a bit more clear.

I suggested that he be careful. Psychedelics have been known to trigger a latent psychosis, after all — even marajuana — and his psychosis evidently wasn’t so latent to begin with, so this might be the equivalent of throwing gasoline on an already-blazing fire. He then goes on to explain some disturbing behavior of his while on weed when he was younger that seemed to reinforce my point, but my point had clearly grown wings and flew right passed the poor guy, or so it seemed. Even after he tells me about a friend of his that went on his first acid trip and never came back. A friend that took a tab that ended up lasting a lifetime.

Finally, my smoke is down to the filter, so after I let him bum a smoke I tell him I had to be getting back to work, and that he should be careful. He assures me he will be and that he’s on his way home.

In both senses, I sincerely hope he makes it back safely from his trip.

Warm Greetings from the Denizens of Munchkinland.

5/10-11/22

I wake up feeling an awesome dread.

Its too intense to ignore completely, though easy enough to distract myself from as it stubbornly looms in the background of my thoughts. It seems attached to nothing specifically, though I figure it probably has something to do with the ever-lengthening list of shit I should get done but don’t have the motivation to do — either that or its anxiety holding me back. Its always difficult to discern which.

I knew I wouldn’t be good at this. Adulting, I mean. I was just explaining to my mother how I knew this from a young age.

It was before I turned ten, as we were still living at the old house. There was a hallway that stretched from the bedrooms and bathrooms to the kitchen, and along the wall of the hallway there were hooks for our coats and bookbags. Despite the fact that only Eve and I were going to school at the time, as Linda was still young, Linda got her own bookbag, loaded it with shit, and hug it beside our own.

She was always eager to grow up and the years that followed didn’t dampen that desire at all. She has proven she is adept at this. Eve wasn’t bad, either. But even then, as a young little shit, I stared at that bookbag and realized how different I was in that respect.

Since as far back as I can remember, I knew I would have a rough time of it, and my life since that point has shown how right I was. When I was a bit younger, adulthood was far down the road, so I could ignore it, but now it began to sink in: before I knew it, I would be on my own, and I had no idea what to do or how to go about doing it. Getting a job, getting a place to live, getting a car, driving a car, paying my bills, being a responsible human in modern society. It suddenly struck me how much I was fucked.

Now, as it turned out, I exceeded my expectations, though given I expected myself to be homeless or dead far before this point in my life, I suppose I didn’t set the bar very high. Still, I’m 43 and I feel I’ve been largely carried or hitched a ride on the coattails of others to get even this far. And its not like my ambitions are huge, either, at least not on the mundane side of things.

I still don’t think adults exist, but there are certainly those who put their all into the role and act it out quite well.

I am not one of those people.

Just one more way in which I feel out of place in a world I don’t belong.

Later in the day, as I’m sweeping the patio at work, sinking into the shitty mood I woke up in, I look up and see a small boy on the other side of the window, staring dead at me, smiling and waving. I wave back and can’t help but smile in return.

Later, I’m sort of enveloped by the mood again as I walk to the dollar store for cleaning supplies. As I’m standing outside, finishing my cigarette, I see a mother with her two young boys. I keep my distance, as I’m smoking, but one of them runs up to me within a few feet. He’s wearing a badge and a plastic fireman’s hat. He looks up at me, smiles, and waves.

I look at him, crack a smile, and wave back, but the mood’s got me, so I sort of stare at the ground as I take another drag. I can still feel his eyes, however. I look back up to find he’s still staring at me, almost like he’s trying to figure something out. He looks rather sad and concerned now, maybe a little hurt.

I feel kind of bad. Like he was trying to cheer me up and I infected him with my mood instead.

Sorry, kid.

Later, back at work. as I’m coming in the doors after having another smoke, there are two kids sitting at a table. As I walk past, one of the kids — a boy who is, at best, in his early teens — held out his hands for a high five. Without stopping, I obliged.

I think to myself how that high five from an older child was sort of a fitting end to the child synchronicity, but then it happens again the following day, and again it seems to be triggered by a bad mood.

I’m on break, in my truck, and get maybe a few lines into the book I’m reading before a kid I work with walks up to my driver side window. What proceeds immediately reminds me of a Bill Hicks bit I haven’t heard in ages.

“You read on break?” He says it with a voice and a scrunched-up face that seems to convey disgust. “Why?”

Not what I’m reading, mind you, but why I’m reading.

He follows this up by saying how he always wondered what I did on break. Rather than be satisfied with having finally solved the mystery and leaving me the fuck alone so I can continue enjoying my free time of thirty minutes, he continues babbling to me for the duration. Blind to my body language, minimalist verbal responses, or the dozens of other factors all pointing towards the clear message of: go the bloody fuck away.

At the end of my not-a-break, I clock in, firmly rooted in a bad fucking mood, and proceed to gather trash from around the store. Out in dining room, I notice there are two occupied tables. At the table in the middle of the dining room is an elderly couple, likely the grandparents of the hyperactive little girl at the table with them.

As I’m changing the trash in the far corner, I hear the kid start yelling in a manner that clearly conveys she’s desperate for the immediate attention of someone.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!”

Its like she’s stuck in a loop, delivering a rapid-fire greeting, and I look up as it continues and she’s hanging off her grandmother, looking right at me. I smile and wave, then she stops and giggles. Through the giggling, she explains to her grandmother, “He’s funny!”

I’m not at all sure why Munchkinland elected to send these three children via synchronicity in an attempt to lift my spirits, but I certainly appreciate the attempt.