I spoke with my Uncle Ben yesterday. He was so stiff with me that I had to hold a mirror under his nose to see if he was breathing. Whatever. Zero love lost. It all boils down to this: I have my windshield court date in two weeks. I’m cool with it, I have no fears. I will do my time on the community service chain gang and become a real man of the people. Next thing you know, I’m Harry Truman, baby, making the highway a reality. The deception of Uncle Ben shall activate the course of his own destruction as he is crushed under the weight of my political machine.
I’ve had so many conversations with responsible elders regarding the new chapter of my action-packed life that it makes my head spin. The problem with many of these dependable people is that their lives are so void of risk, it’s a wonder they get laid at all. I don’t want that. I don’t want a sexless existence void of passion. My dry mother wants me to take on a mailroom position at my uncle’s law firm. Yeah, like THAT’S gonna fucking happen. I’ll take my own life before I submit to Uncle Ben’s plan to “whip that punk into shape”. My dad has a harebrain scheme concocted where I become an air traffic controller. Brilliant. He mentioned it to me and I said wha…? I turned to Google and typed it in, and was immediately presented with numerous lists of the most stressful jobs in the country, all with air traffic controller in the top ten. One site put it right behind ‘miner’. Fucking perfect. My dad threw his hands in the air, exasperated. “Well, you’re not just gonna get your life handed to you, Pendel! You’re gonna have to work someday, damnit!” I said fine, I’ll jump right in and defuse BOMBS for a freaking living. Would that make you happy? “I’m sure whatever idea you come up with will be better,” he said, in dickishly sarcastic overtones. Of course Mr. Hanson and Dr. Duchenheimer are still laboring under the delusions that college is still within my reach, if only I would reach out my sullied hand and grasp the cleansing light of knowledge…wrap it desperately in a lover’s embrace…
It’s simply not going to happen. Two years of Clark State Community College rubbing elbows with even bigger assholes than the freaks in my summer school classes; working the night shift at some pestilential hole-in-the-ground; another couple of years (or more) studying my pretty fingers to the bone at some rock-bottom, no-name little college until I earn that coveted BA. And then what? The rest of my life offered up for sacrifice at the alter of shady capitalism, my blood spilling into the coffers of nameless giants; giants with torsos thick with muscle rent from solid granite and kept strong with dreams wringed cruelly from the hearts of lesser men; featureless faces towering above me in the clouds, blanketed in mist, anonymous forever as they casually roar and shake the ground with thoughtless steps as heavy as mountains. I won’t fucking have it. I’d never last anyway. I doubt very highly that many in middle management—heavily scarred from merciless battles in the daily pit—would tolerate being told to go fuck themselves on a daily basis. Besides, none of those little college bitches are ready for a dick like mine. Pendel ‘The Hammer’ Haight.
Dear old dad stopped by the room the other day to say that he spoke with Benny the Hun’s father “man-to-man.” My old man is painfully archaic at times, but he is growing on me. For whatever reason, he stays in my corner, slitting open my blind eyes whenever they swell too shut to see. So anywho’s, he tells Benny’s dad that he’s terribly sorry for the pain I’ve caused everyone in their household, and he knows how horribly embarrassing it must have been for them to have to have such violence target their family in their own church parking lot. It’s so bizarre to me how everyone links church and embarrassment. Seems to me there is very little shelter to be found in this house of cards we call God—but I’m not gonna digress. Dad also tells the guy exactly WHY I did what I did, what Benny said to Clare and the insults endured by both of his children at the hands of Henderson. My dad tells the guy that if charges are pressed, he’s gonna be forced to talk about that, and he also tells the guy that Clare just hasn’t been the same after such insidious slander (Clare is WAAAAAY past it), and he’d love to avoid pressing charges for verbal assault (is there even such a thing?), but that Mr. Henderson was gonna have to meet him halfway. Amazingly, this flimsy dam of reasoning is holding for the moment. If I pay for the hospital bills arising from the broken nose (YES!) and cover the loss of the crappy sandal ($85!), the Henderson’s will most likely not press charges. Also, they apologized to Clare, and Benny the Hun’s got to attend a few weekdays of pew cleaning to make up for his sins.
I would, of course, have rather gotten off scott-free, but I guess this will do.
In other news, Sugarbear seems dead-set on living with me and Benji as soon as I get out of my summer classes. His dad has a house we can rent on the cheap in the shadier section of town, and Sugarbear has promised infinite fun in the form of weed and acid until we all mature or the house burns down, whatever comes first. This news, at least, pleased my father. I didn’t tell him about the drugs—I’ll probably keep that to myself. Sugarbear’s gonna stick close and attend Wittenberg University. Not a bad place to go for such a fuckup, really. Bear’s dad is an alumnus, and so Bear didn’t have to break his back getting in. Whatever. Take what you can, burn the rest.
More to come soon. Any suggestions on what an anti-social and overly-aggressive young man can do for a living would be most welcome at this point. I don’t know why I never thought about such matters before. I think I’m so pessimistic about anything that the future has in store that I’d rather lower the blast shields and keep my head down, barreling through the world without much thought, claiming to be ignorant of any trampled in my wake. But I felt them under my feet, and I stomped harder as they passed under.
Maybe landscaping?
Hell Is For Children 
Landscaping sounds cool. But maybe Alaskan crab fishing. It sounds weird, but it’s physically demanding, dangerous, and doesn’t require much social contact. You don’t even work for half the year(it is half?). Just a suggestion. But I advise you to keep of the drugs.
How about writing, you delusional douche? It’s staring you in the face. My jaw dropped to the floor reading what you had to say about capitalism. Your ability to write is amazing.
God I hate you, and love you at the same time.
Dude….You’re gettin’ off easy. Oh, and forget about college – most people that go end up doing something totally different than their degree qualifies them for, and you end up paying for something that wasn’t worth your time (the myth is that everyone’s going and you need to – which is complete &%&%$&*&@@$). Well, I guess you could go, but, you probably wouldn’t find it beneficial.
You should make your own island/country. That way, you can rule the universe (yet not really), live in a castle with nobody to bother you, and you can go around slaughtering those that piss you off, saying that it’s for diplomatic reasons.
Just a thought.
Don’t dismiss college. Look at where our nation is now; fucked by a lack of education, we’re all growing up to be repeat consumers. Just destroying the world while we wallow in other nation’s resources.
Education is NECESSARY. Just not for -some- people.
Havok, I’m sure you’d need to go to college to learn the skills of managing a whole island country. Also, how would he/they survive? And as ruler of a island nation, EVERYBODY would bother him.
Capitalism makes us think we don’t need education to live. Education makes us think we don’t need Capitalism to live. Sadly, American children are raised with Capitalism running their lives. Even education costs money!! Yet there are some who become educated. A country built on anti-Capitalist principals would thrive.
The world needs ditch diggers too, moose.
so be a ditch digger you bum.
Ha. Nice. Maybe I should, J-Moke. Maybe I should.
Look, I was a miserable cunt when I was your age too – didn’t swing at anyone with your alacrity but there were times I should have. It’s the hormones, dude. It’s not the big bad world that’s burning you up, it’s your insides that are doing that.
So let’s get to the advice: Go to college. Most people don’t have the opportunity to do this and it sounds like you do. No, it won’t be easy. I had a fuck of a time. But it will give you a direction and an outlet for at least some of your energy, and if you don’t have one that energy ends up working against you. Idol hands are the devil’s workshop (and I know how much you love religion).
You say that people who don’t take risks are lame and don’t get laid. Follow that advice yourself and take the risk of going to college. Risk flunking out and hating it (and you will, at least at times). There’s all sorts of chicks in those places, you know. There are opportunities at your stage of life that will never come again.
If you’re going to do dope, LSD and weed are the ones. Just don’t touch all that methamthetamine shit, unless you really want to ruin your life.
You’ve obviously got a decent brain, so use it. Apply to college and don’t listen to the gloom and doom scenarios you’re painting for yourself about it.
ditchdiggers, ftw!