Sorry to quote Young Joc, but it had to happen.
I think I am going to have to rename my blog “times I’ve cried while watching cable news.” As you may have gathered already, I cried today. Like most times I shed tears, there were several contributing factors. Sleep deprivation, nagging hangover, three hour marathon masturbation session, candy cane themed Christmas tree, but I think the thing that put me over was when the teenager walked into the mall in Omaha and killed nine people.
Jesus Christ. I guess it’s time to put the Virginia tech football jersey back in the closet and break out my conhuskers gear. When I heard about it is not when I cried. I cried when this little, plain woman in a Christmas sweater with a keychain lanyard around her neck told the story of what she saw. She works in one of the department stores and she was fitting a pregnant Mexican woman for a pair of shoes when the shooting began. To skip a few steps, she saved a barefoot pregnant immigrant from getting shot in the mall and she couldn’t stop crying. So I started.
What I want to do is be glib and flippant and make off color jokes, but for some reason the tragedy hasn’t settled in my sick pot belly of irony yet.
I hate cars. I’m over it, done. I hate that they crash and pollute and make places like phoenix and Atlanta impossible and labyrinthian, I hate the idea of paying 30 dollars to pour liquefied Iraqi orphans into the tank. To clarify : I don’s HATE cars, I mean I like Xzibit and Jay Leno’s cars, I just can’t comply with people who spend four hours a day eating buffalo snackers in their Hyundai. That’s just me.
I crashed a car the other day. Nobody was hurt (although that median won’t be talking any more shit), but it surely was terrifying. And annoying. And a reminder I did not need: I am seconds from death at all times. Go to the mall, get shot. Drive a car on prom night, get a steering wheel wrapped around your neck. It’s all so absurdly random that it’s pushing me further into “nothing means anything. I am the victim of a series of accidents called my life, as are we all”, and so forth.
And then the other night, two people were shot and killed on my girl’s block. Nosy and inquisitive as I am, I went up to the line and I saw that man’s brains on the floor and his sister was screaming and spitting in my face. The whole community of adorable, hard working Mexican expatriates was devastated.
I shuffled home and sat up all night talking to God.
So I came full circle from dark, dismissive nihilism back to divine purpose: there IS a reason. It’s God’s symphony. Our universe is a grand and beautiful performance and I am proud to witness it and oil its gears as I do as I wilt.
When I was 17, my girlfriend was shot in the head and died. She was beautiful and brilliant and honestly, hilarious. The police officer who mistakenly shot her never suffered any consequesnces. I’ve thought many times about abducting him and putting a bullet in his brain, but that’s absurd. It would strike a sour note in the symphony.
The day I saw that man’s brain on my girl’s sidewalk, I found out that an old friend of mine had also been shot and killed. His name was Robert Chatman and I was in juvenile hall and a group home with him for nearly three years. He was insane and unintentionally hilarious and also an idiot. He used to pretend that he was Chinese (though he was as black as the night is long) and make up Chinese words and scream them at people. My favorite was a word that went bachhheeeeyaaahhh!!, which I screamed at a french woman in her basement behind the Eiffel tower. He would also pretend that he was a car and “drive” around the house all day, screeching and shifting invisible gears and turning his invisible steering wheel and doing donuts and figure eights and such. He got out, became a tranny and then he was shot and killed.
I found this out from a thirteen year old boy with dust in his afro, who laughed and said, “that nigga got lit up. Clap! Clap! Buck! Buck” and so forth. I wanted to slap the nap off of that child, making light of my friend’s murder. But that., too, would disrupt the symphony. Instead, I let the guy go ahead of me in line at McDonalds today. And I told the woman with the red weave at the salvation army that she looked pretty. And I hung out with the guys at the comic book shop and told a few jokes. I drew a picture of a fat man eating alone. And then I came home and wrote.
I’m going back to God. I like the symphony. The death and carnage and tragedy are just as vital and gorgeous as the birds and girls and little kids.
So, yes. Smoke that roach. Draw a hopscotch on the sidewalk. Read the guiness book of world records. Watch sesame street. Hold hands with a girl. Tell gay couples to get married. Send a Christmas card. Go to a weird church some time. Hand out candy canes. Give a homeless guy a bottle of scotch. Call your grandfather. Get oddly colored shoelaces.
This is our symphony. It’s our job to do these things. There is a divine, beautiful energy keeping this leaky tub afloat. You are third chair violin on the deck of the titanic. And it’s gonna be great.
