My
friend Kris had killed herself, and left everything to her dog, “Sam.” A
bunch of lesbians are still fighting over the souvenirs like female oil
wrestlers. I walked off with her shoes into my not-so-BRIGHT AND CHEERY
welfare future. NOW, whether or not it was from walking in HER shoes, I’ll
NEVER know, but now I wanted to kill MYSELF, too.
It was
like the guy who had a hand transplant and later found out the donor had been
a strangler, but I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid because I just didn't care.
But if
you screw up a suicide and have no health insurance, you'd better BE ABLE to
finish what you started--Even if all you can do is blink twice.
So,
INSTEAD OF COMMITTING suicide, I’M GONNA sit here in this LIFE and hope that
that “food stamp sugar daddy” trollin' for colon over there will come on
over and offer to buy me a #4 Value Meal and at least promise me I can watch a
black+white TV suspended in the corner of some local bar.
I was
starting to see how the welfare office gets pretty CUT-THROAT like a barn yard.
“Hey!”
I wanted to run up to him and say now that the San Francisco Department of
Public Health had cleared the act of any danger, “Hey, I can give really
good two-hour long blow jobs like the next guy! Sure, I may not be able to
stay awake during most of it, but if you squeeze my face a lot, you won't even
notice.”
But I
wouldn't hold my breath that anybody---not even my sense of
entitlement---would be able to save me.
Maybe it
was the couple sleeping in the corner and the big puddles of drool that'd
already formed on their sweat jackets at 8 :45 a.m.
Or maybe
it was the GIRL giving birth in the other corner, and the wedding going on
near the water fountain.
Maybe it
was the flies laying eggs and raising darling little maggot children in the
dead body slumped on the floor under a bank of chairs, I don't know, but I had
a feeling that I'd be settling in here for quite a while.
This was
the set up and people had adapted, going ahead and living their ENTIRE lives
around these long and tedious welfare appointments no matter what.
While I
SHIFTED AROUND trying to find a position for the long haul, my spine ACTUALLY
started to melt and my CHEEKS started to droop and pool at the top of my own
HUUUUGE breasts and---THAT’S when I realized that I'd just settled into
something far more permanent than a new smell or a mere waste of time; a
change as sure as if it were puberty or menopause!
Everything,
EVERY THING, and I DO mean EVERY THING was drying up and beaching itself to
die! No longer was I facing a warm and moist future where ANYTHING could grow.
Even MOLD had no home here with me! I would’ve begged for even the tiniest
reminder of life that a damn good YEAST INFECTION could give, but alas, I was
BONE dry.
I sat
still, FEELING MY NEW JOWLS JIGGLE with each breath. My neighborhood would no
longer be big enough for that old screen door man, and ME. I WAS THE NEW SCARY
MONSTER NEIGHBOR!!!--
--Hey,
it looks like the pregnant GIRL just gave birth to AN EVEN LITTLER
girl--They’re like Russian nesting dolls over there!
SINCE
she’s a government-cheese child, they won't bring her up telling her how
UNIQUE and SPECIAL and ABOVE-AVERAGE she is, with BED-TIME STORIES ABOUT all
the POTENTIAL she's supposed to fulfill---
---GOOD!
BECAUSE the word "potential" becomes a boogeyman and it's got
everyone running around being UNIQUE, SPECIAL, and ABOVE-AVERAGE, trying to
fulfill all their POTENTIAL and publishing GLOSSY magazines with their first
names on them in the meantime.
IT’S
ALL A CROCK. Forget the hip, detached, and ironic way that my generation deals
with the heartbreak of actually caring. Now I'm too DISILLUSIONED to pretend
I'm bored and waiting for something interesting to happen. Something
interesting HAS happened : MY DOWNFALL. And I’m not alone.
Here WE
ARE again, standing for hours and hours, switching OUR weight back and forth
between OUR left and right feet, pounding at the even newer varicose veins
popping alive on top of the old ones, then reaching out beyond OUR toes like
ROOTS for the tiled floor, threatening to anchor US in this welfare FOREST
forever.
And this
time, as the blood pools in OUR ankles, we don’t believe WE ARE destined for
something better. "Better" has become a luxury. We’re doing GREAT
if we can keep the electricity from getting shut off.
This!
THIS is what WE get for being at the TAIL-END of the American middle class
experiment. Everyone else has cut in front and by the time WE get to the
teller, she flips over the “next window, please” sign and saunters away
without saying a word. If it weren’t for her woosh-wooshing thighs and
distracting panty lines, OH, WE’D give her what for!
I wrote
two new books. But I hate big publishers now, so these books are only for ME.
Secret books. However, I’ll share them with you.
So
please get out your programs, your “coloring books of despair” and JOIN
ME…
