Struggling for second place

“I have found God, and he is insufficient.” -Henry Miller

Henry, I feel the same way. Earth is just a giant waiting room and I’d feel better as a ball of energy than a meatsack human being. This body is nothing but trouble, a festering cesspool for the ego to roll around in.

The mind is a crumpled paper airplane in a hurricane, but the ego thinks it’s a fighter jet.  The capacity for self-delusion is bottomless.  The mind is its own worst enemy; why it throws fear at itself I understand, it’s a survival mechanism. But why does the mind attack itself with doubt?

Life was brutal for the caveman but far simpler: at any given moment he was either alive and afraid or unaware and eaten. Attempts at poetry or deep thought were ended by saber-toothed tigers.  Now there’s nothing to stop bad poetry.

Sorry God, but I’m ready to go back. I won’t learn anything else here, life is all reruns now. I’m too lazy to meditate, I’d rather sleep.

I’m having trouble remembering why I didn’t commit to suicide when I was an atheist.  If it was all meaningless, why didn’t I end it?  The Satanist proclaims pleasure the greatest virtue.  I couldn’t extract pleasure out of anything except being an observer and surfing over others’ hypocrisy.  Obviously I survived.  But lived?

I was alone then, before then, and now.

My pal Hal swears if he won the lottery he’d build an underground house and never leave it.  Everything would be ordered and brought to his door.  I don’t blame him.  “Hell is other people,” is the greatest line ever written.  Everyone else with a pen or keyboard only struggles for second place while the moon shits cold fire and the women sleep with other men.

First Time in a Hookah Bar

It wasn’t smoky. A young girl behind the counter with fine tits, thick lips and a shiny forehead greeted me. I told her I’d never been, but my money was green, and how does it work?

While she explained the process the pot-bellied hippie who owned the place (I’d seen him on the bar’s website) stared unhappily. I took it personally. There’s a communist nigger in the White House and his business was hopping, so why the long face to go with the long, gray beard?

I motioned to an empty table behind me, dropped the $$$ and the little girl brought out the hookah. It looked like Aladdin’s bong. I was nervous because I thought I’d have to set it up myself, water and charcoal and shit. But they did it all. The rules
were that the hook could only be moved around by the staff. Break it and you’re out 50 bucks.

The girl hooked up the hookah pipe. She’d recommended the “Purple Haze” flavor for me. I took a hard drag on the hose. Purple Haze tasted like moth balls floating in Grape Kool-Aid at Grandmother’s house.

Thursday was Trivia Night. A loud, young, obnoxious prick on a stage nook was reading off questions and the crowd was shouting out. They were having a good time.

With dawning horror I realized that except for the pot-bellied hippie owner, I was the oldest one in the place. I was sitting by myself at a large blocky table that could seat four. Comfortable looking couches flanked the table but there were people nearby, young people, and I wasn’t about to move. Youth surrounded me: baby faces and cell phones and a few girls with short-shorts that looked painted on their cute little bobble-asses.

I decided it was all a Lie, I was really 25 and these were middle school kids. In another 5 years they would all be elementary school kids. When you’re very old every person under 40 must look like a child.

I took serious drags on the hookah, savoring the taste of Grandmother’s mothball cunt. I had nothing else to do. When I was young I was a young loner, I would always be one. My youth had been wasted. I would always be afraid of people.

I made that hookah water DANCE with my long serious drags. The flavor grew on me, a little. Flavorful smoke alternately blasted in a narrow cone and squirted out of my tired lips.The hookah menu had almost 40 flavors to try and golly gee, I’d keep coming back almost 40 times this year and try them all!—I lied to myself. I wondered if I would ever go back. No one I knew smoked.

The trivia portion ended. Loud rock music now blared on the PA. One of the songs was Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’. The young people seemed to like it, singing along in places, but they didn’t understand it; they mocked it as cheesy and it was, but it was beautiful to me and marked a certain time in my life and I didn’t like hearing it mocked.

I was sad and felt sorry for myself. I’m always alone in crowds; that other people might also feel alone didn’t matter because you can’t be alone together.

The Purple Haze was making me slightly giddy, almost high, except it was an illusion. It was likely my high blood pressure kicking on, making the body’s race towards death an easier downhill coast instead of the slogging speed of inevitability.

I wanted to kill the hippie for not welcoming me to his hookah bar. Times are tight and he probably needed all the business he could get…I didn’t want him to kiss my ass but just say hello, say, “Welcome” to a potential new customer.

The bar was getting ready to close. Laser lights danced on the walls. The young pussy hugged and kissed the young cocks goodbye. They were all happy, if only for this moment. I knew they were afraid and got picked on by the world and needed to band together.

I left alone, the same way I entered.

No one I know smokes.

Not even me.