Chang and I sit there knowing that we do look kind of nuts.
Rick says, “How many Oxies you got?”
“Sixty-two.”
“Sixty-two Oxies. How the fuck did you two end up with sixty-two Oxies?”
“We stole them,” Chang says with a tough badass voice.
“Nah, you two are part of the Russian Mafia or the Triad, aren’t you?”
“We might be,” I say.
“That’s what I thought. I really shouldn’t piss you two off now. Especially since I love Asian spas so much.”
The fat white man laughs again.
I want to kill the fat white man, but I don’t have a gun.
His drunken laughter and stupid-looking cornflower-blue jumpsuit pisses me off.
Rick says, “I’ll give you eight-hundred. I need to make a profit.”
I look at Chang. Chang nods okay.
We look at him playing video games and I say, “That’s cool.”
“All right.”
Rick gets up and goes to the bedroom.
He comes out with eight one-hundred dollar bills and hands them to us.
We hand him the pills and leave.
Chang and I are driving home after a hard day of drug dealing.
Chang says, “We only have nine-hundred dollars. Is that enough?”
“Well, I get paid tomorrow. That will be twelve-hundred. Do you have any money?”
“I got two-hundred.”
“Well, that’s fourteen-hundred. That’s a good amount.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“Then we call our families to send us train money home.”
“Cool,” Chang says.
19
I’m in bed.
Can’t sleep.
I can never sleep.
I sleep like five hours a day.
Thoughts keep racing.
Can’t relax.
It is too painful.
The weight feels like a thousand pounds are sitting on my body.
My chest aches.
I think I’m a failure.
I don’t know why.
Everything seems harsh and cruel around me.
People always seem to be getting worse.
Nobody ever seems happy.
There are no smiling faces in my world.
Sometimes something funny is said.
But no one walks around smiling.
No one ever seems like they truly care about anything.
No one seems like they matter to themselves.
They are driven by this desire to protect themselves.
To always remain unhappy.
Why does protection lead to unhappiness?
Who is trying to kill them that they need to protect themselves.
Why are they so afraid?
What are they so afraid of?
No one is going to stick them in prison for not owning a cellphone.
But they think someone will.
They act like a black SUV is going to pull up and men with huge machine guns will jump out and shoot them unless they own cellphones and respect the American Dream.
I’m fed up with this kind of behavior.
This environment is not conducive to happiness.
Everyone running around, stressing themselves out to be normal.
I don’t feel normal.
I don’t see how they do.
It confuses me, all this normalcy.
All this acceptance.
It seems like there should be more suicides.
Like there should be riots or small guerrilla wars.
But there’s nothing.
This country is against me and my kind.
They have chosen against freedom.
Humans really enjoy digital graphics and sexy people and athletes telling them what to do.
That is why I can’t sleep.
To be surrounded, engulfed, consumed by a world, having to operate in a world that depends on the marketing of steak and pork chops so I can wash dishes.
There are other things.
My mother never loved me and my father never speaks.
I grew up in a country thousands of miles away and I will probably never see it again.
I’m infatuated with a girl named Gina who won’t date me because I don’t attend a school of higher education and can’t afford Nikes.
Outnumbered.
Tomorrow will be my last day of work and then I’m heading out west.
There will be something out west that doesn’t suck.
Probably not.
I will find more hell.
But the hell will be prettier at least.
At least when I walk away from the commercial-loving assholes, I will be looking at a beautiful mountain instead of these damn abandoned steel mills.
20
I’m sitting outside work on a milk crate.
I don’t start for ten minutes.
The sky is a nice blue color and it is warm with a cool breeze.
I look at the building.
I look around the mall parking lot.
It all seems so horrible.
I’m just a man sitting here smoking a cigarette.
My life is meaningless as I sit here.
Jeremy walks up and says, “What are you doing?”
“Standing here, waiting to die.”
“Dude, that is awesome. Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
I personally don’t like to be asked questions.
“Do you believe in God?”
People ask me this all the time.
I find the question annoying.
“No,” I say.
“I didn’t think so.”
I look at him and say, “You believe?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Jeremy?”
“What?”
“If you actually believed in God, you wouldn’t need a second opinion. Believing in God isn’t like cancer treatment.”
“What?”
“Not too long ago, everyone believed in God, and no one asked that question. Everyone just believed. Now everyone asks that question. What do you think is next?”
“I don’t know.”
“No one even thinking about God.”
“Dude, I don’t know about you, but like, I believe in God, because if I don’t, I feel really scared.”
“I do believe that.”
I’m standing in the office getting my paycheck.
Beth comes in and asks the manager, “Can I use the phone to call my baby?”
Her baby is like four.
Beth sits down and dials the number.
Someone answers, and Beth says, “Put Judy on.”
Judy is her daughter.
Beth says, “Hey baby, did you ride your bike today? Oh you did? That’s good. I love you too, honey. I just wanted to make sure you’re having fun and you got to go outside and play.”
I listen to her talk to her daughter.
It reminds me that my mother never called me and asked me questions like that.
Then it makes me hate the world.
Then to hate Judy.
But then I feel happy for a second.
At least someone is nice to their kid.
Beth seems like a good mom.
I’m not sure what that means.
But calling your daughter and telling her you love her is nice.
The world doesn’t seem so dark for a few minutes.
I’m sitting outside smoking on a milk crate with Chris, the lousy dumb bartender, and Linda, the lesbian hostess.
Chris is your average man to the extreme. He looks average, he smells average, everything he does is average. Never more, never less.
Linda is cute with strong muscles. She smokes a lot of weed and complains a lot. She likes to tell me how she has gotten in physical altercations with her girlfriends.
Chris says, “Women are fucked up. They don’t think straight. They’re too emotional. It blocks out their judgment.”