24
I was walking around Old Town, trying to find another place where to settle down. I was just looking for a watering hole, nothing snooty.
As I walked, I couldn’t help but wonder about what the people in the stand-up place had thought of me… Probably that I was mentally ill. Hell, I had thought that myself once. I had even tried antidepressants, but their effect was minimal and when I suddenly stopped taking them I felt lower than I had ever felt before. Besides, antidepressants were just another drug. Like alcohol. The difference was, I preferred alcohol.
I had also tried therapy a few times. As I recalled, the last time I did, it went something like this:
“So what brings you here?”
“Pressure from my parents. There’s nothing really wrong with me. Unless wrong means seeing too clearly.”
“And what is it that you see ‘too clearly’?”
“The illusions that surround us.”
“Would you care to elaborate on that?”
“Well… people believe what their parents tell them, what their schools tell them, what their jobs tell them, what their governments tell them. They think that they should get married, have children, have a career, be patriotic, and so on. But why? Where do these presumptions come from? Nowhere. People have merely been doing all this for a long time and each generation is just blindly imitating the last one, thinking it’s all terribly meaningful. Whereas the truth is that there is no real progress or meaning or purpose in this world. It’s a meaningless chaos. Yet they want you to believe that it is meaningful, that people in high positions know what they’re doing, that the world has direction. When all of that is bullshit. And almost no one seems to realize this.”
“Oh, you’re far from the only person to think that way. We’ve all been young once.”
“Yeah, sure. That old defense. Everyone has their doubts about the world when they’re young, but when they mature they stop rebelling against society and embrace its ‘infinite wisdom’. Well, I’m afraid that’s bullshit. You know what really happens? People just give up. Because it’s easier that way. You get along with others. You’re more successful. You’re happier. More content. At least as long as you can believe in your own bullshit. But once you’ve already given up, that’s it. You’re dead. You’ve been reeled in, like a fish. The next thing you know, you have a career, you’re married, you have children, you have a house, a mortgage, a car, you have barbeques with your friends during the weekends, all that shit.”
“Well, what’s wrong with all that? These things give one’s life meaning.”
“Yeah. They do. If you can believe in all that. But it’s not real. It’s theater. It’s a bunch of actors, performing a pre-written play called ‘Being a Normal Human Being’.”
“What you’re saying sounds very nihilistic.”
“No shit.”
“But belief in things is important. Without it, there’s no reason to do anything.”
“Exactly. There isn’t. And there’s no basis for believing in anything either, especially that some particular way of behaving is ‘sane’ and if you’re not like that—if you don’t want a family for instance, or a house, or children, or even to exist at all—well, then you must be insane. That’s what society tells you. And that’s what your profession reinforces. You’re the protectors of society’s illusions.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
But he wasn’t sorry. Not one bit. In fact, he was probably glad to have gotten rid of me. Because for psychotherapy to work, it required belief in it. And I had none.
Mental illness, as Thomas Szasz had revealed, was only a myth that had been used to stigmatize and control people for hundreds of years. Just like religion. Indeed, didn’t a secular person ultimately go to the psychiatrist for the same reason as a religious person went to the priest? As for me, I preferred to go to the bottle instead.
I stopped walking. I had found the place I was looking for.
25
The bar was called The Calavera and it had a large sugar skull on its sign. It was underground and shadowy, just the kind I preferred.
I went in and ordered a beer. As the bartender was pouring it, I noticed a digital jukebox on the wall to the left of me. I dug a coin out of my pocket and inserted it into the slot. The song I chose was “Wake up in the Gutter” by Those Poor Bastards.
I then found a table in the darkest corner and sat down. Holding a napkin against my busted eyebrow and sipping on the beer, I looked around. The bar had a Mexican Day of the Dead kind of theme with lots of images of skeletons and sugar skulls everywhere. It seemed like a fitting place for me since I felt like a dead man walking.
Even though I knew that the Mexicans weren’t actually so morbid. What they believed in was that after you died you continued on as a spirit traveling to the Land of the Dead. Whereas in truth when you were dead you were dead, that’s it. There was nothing after death. The person you used to be ceased to exist. Because the person you used to be was only a neurochemical illusion. Oh, it felt real, to be sure. But in truth, there was no self. There was no consciousness. And there was no soul. Neuroscience had shown that these were all illusions. Yet that didn’t stop people from saying stupid shit like, “Nobody really knows what comes after death.” When in fact everybody knew. They just didn’t have the balls to admit it.
I was just about finished with my beer when I noticed that a big husky guy had been staring at me for a while. Next to him sat a horse-faced woman, probably his girlfriend. He seemed quite drunk. Why he was staring at me, I didn’t know, but I stared right back, motioning, “What?” with my face. Perhaps he hadn’t agreed with my somber choice of music. Or perhaps he just didn’t like my face.
I soon needed another beer, so I went to the counter and waited for the bartender to notice me. I was the only person in the line.
The big guy who had been staring at me came and stood behind me.
“Move,” he said menacingly.
I turned around. “Excuse me?”
“Move.”
“But I’m the only person in the line.”
“Move.”
“But I was here before you.”
“You wanna take this outside?” he asked in a threatening tone of voice.
I let out a long sigh. “You know, you really picked the worst possible person to ask this question from, tough guy.”
“Huh?”
I spoke slowly so that he would understand me. “I mean yes, I want to take this outside. In fact, I’d be absolutely delighted to.”
“All right,” he grunted, and began walking towards the exit.
I followed him. As I did, I grabbed the can of pepper spray I carried in the inside pocket of my jacket and palmed it in my right hand. I was no fool. The guy was at least twice my weight. He could probably knock me out with a single punch.
We walked up the steps of the bar outside to the street, which was relatively empty. We then stood in the middle of the narrow cobblestone street as though we were characters in the video game Street Fighter.
“Well?” I said to him. It seemed that he wasn’t quite all there, probably on account of the copious amounts of alcohol he had been consuming.
He took a step towards me and lifted his arm to take a swing at me. Before he was able to deliver the blow, however, I started spraying the pepper spray in his face. I took a step back, still spraying. It took about two thirds of the bottle before he came to a stop. Suddenly, he put his hands against his eyes and started screaming.
Then his girlfriend came out of the bar and began yelling at me. “What are you doing!?” she shrieked, going to his aid.