“What am I doing? I’m teaching him a lesson that’s all. He attacked me.”
She looked sternly at the can of pepper spray in my hand. “And that gives you the right to pepper spray him in the face?”
“It does, in fact.”
“But he’s a boxer,” she said. “And he’s drunk.” She helped the boxer sit down on the pavement. He was crying like a little girl.
“In what universe is that an excuse? Listen, if you don’t want this to happen again in the future, I would advise keeping this mongoloid on a leash.”
I lit a cigarette and started walking away. I’d had enough of Old Town.
26
I was walking through a pedestrian tunnel when I was stopped by a man with some books under his arm. He asked me whether he could talk to me for a bit.
“All right,” I said, giving him the benefit of the doubt. “What do you want to talk about?”
“God.”
I sighed. “Then I’m afraid you have the wrong person.”
“You don’t believe in God?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe in God; it’s that God doesn’t exist.”
“Oh really? And how do you then explain how we got here?”
“Evolution.”
He chuckled in a mocking kind of way, as though I had said something really stupid.
“It’s a pretty well-established fact,” I said.
“Okay. If you believe in evolution so much, then tell me just one thing. Where are the fossils?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“There are thousands of fossils.”
“Name me one.”
“Name you one?”
“Yes, name me one.”
Great, I thought. Another fucking mongoloid. “Well,” I began, “there was a recent one found in Australia from which Homo sapiens evolved called Australopithecus. It’s essentially halfway between a monkey and a human. And they found an almost complete skeleton. So in fact there are fossils, and this is just one of many.”
“Ah, that’s just a monkey,” he said.
“It’s not ‘just a monkey’. It’s a being between a monkey and a human, although even that is an oversimplification since evolution has many branches. A monkey can evolve into various different beings. An old and idiotic misunderstanding of evolution is that humans evolved from monkeys. Whereas in truth there are various genuses of primates, only one of which led to human beings.”
“Listen, I know things. I have a university degree. I’m an electrical engineer.”
“So? What does that have to do with evolution?”
“I’m just saying I know how things work.”
“Maybe about electricity, but you clearly don’t know how evolution works. Maybe you should read some books about it?”
“Or maybe you should read some of the books I have here?” he said, lifting his eyebrows. He showed me the books; it was a bunch of religious shit with bad cover art.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m too old for fairy tales.”
“Ah, but maybe your evolution is a fairy tale?”
“Unfortunately for you, evolution has been proven to be true by lots and lots of evidence. Whereas there isn’t a single shred of evidence for your beliefs.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“No, it is you, my friend, who doesn’t know what he’s saying. God does not exist and we’re all alone in the universe. All alone. And that’s a fact.”
“I know in my heart that God exists. I don’t need any evidence for that, my friend.”
“So we’re gonna go that route, huh? Okay. Let’s say he does exist. Let’s say God exists and he created this world. But have you looked at the world around you? It’s a fucking nightmare. War, rape, torture, murder, disease, corruption, insanity. If God created all these things, then he must be a psychopath, simple as that. Or if, as you people like to say, he gave humans free will—which is scientifically impossible—and then sat back and watched us torture and kill each other in record numbers, he clearly doesn’t give a fuck about us. So if God exists—which he doesn’t—he not only doesn’t love you but in all likelihood he fucking hates you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go and get drunk. So long.”
I began walking away.
“You’re gonna burn in hell, my friend,” he said after me.
“We’re already in hell,” I said and continued walking.
27
At first I had thought of going to some bar outside of Old Town, but then I changed my mind. What I really needed was to get away from bars. If only for a while. However, I didn’t want to go home and there were no friends to visit.
I could thus think of only one place left to go. My old home. Where my mother and half-sister lived. As well as my stepfather, although you could barely call him that since for the entire time that I had known him he had only ever shown utter disinterest towards me. Just like my father.
My relationship with my mother and sister wasn’t much better. In fact, the only thing constant when it came to my family seemed to be the total lack of interest and understanding they had shown towards me. I might as well have grown up amongst fucking robots. It was clear that they had been glad when I finally left home in order to be miserable elsewhere. I had definitely overstayed my welcome.
There was a bus stop in front of a nearby supermarket where a bus would take me to the suburbs where they lived. I walked to the bus stop and inspected the timetables. It was about ten minutes until the next bus. I lit a Marlboro Red.
After I had waited for a couple of minutes, an old man walked up to me. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “I’m not gonna ask you for money. I’ll just point out the drugs that I need in the pharmacy.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I said.
“Got the shakes, you see.” He showed me his hands, which were slightly trembling. “Get dizzy spells now and then. Need medicine for that.”
“Okay. But why are you asking me?”
“Got no money.”
“Can’t you get government help for that?”
“Bah,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “The government don’t help.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Wait,” he said, staggering a bit and putting his hand on my shoulder as if for support. “Got one of them dizzy spells again.”
I took a step back. “Well I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. You must have expected that trying to have random strangers on the street buy you medicine isn’t gonna go so well.”
His expression suddenly turned sour. “So much for loving your neighbor!” He spat. “In truth it’s every man for his fuckin’ self, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” I said matter-of-factly. “Because you’re not my neighbor, no one is. We’re all strangers, you see. And we all have our problems. Including me.”
“Yeah…” he said bitterly, his voice trailing off.
The bus soon arrived and I stepped on. I observed the old man as the bus started moving. Perhaps those “dizzy spells” had been an act. Or perhaps not. There was no way to tell. But say it hadn’t been. So what? There were millions of people suffering and dying at any moment on this wonderful little globe of ours. More than twenty thousand people alone died of hunger each day, most of them children. Merely a side effect of being born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Did the people who made the children ever think about these things? Would they have had any children if they did? And hell, you didn’t have to be hungry to suffer. If my mother had known beforehand how miserable I would end up becoming, would she still have decided to have me? Would she have been so cruel?