A Bearable Tightness of Being

NOTE: Due to a house flood, there is no new post from Stephen this week.
However, not to be outdone by that Frey guy, we have posted Stephen's
memoirs (so far) for those that have missed them and for those that are
looking for help from someone who shouldn't be offering any whatsoever.


The following is TRUE.

I pedaled down the street on my blue Schwinn Varsity. I basically
steered the bike with my left hand since my right was holding a baseball
bat. I was covered in dirt and a little blood since it had been a fairly
brutal practice. Five of my teammates were taken off the field via
stretcher because they had been shot by from the wods that surrounded
the field by some lunatic blind hunters.

I came up to a four way stop. I didn't see any traffic coming so I
decided to go through the intersection without stopping. The bat
slipped.
Into the front wheel it fell causing the bike to suddenly stop causing
me to fly headfirst off the bike.

I can only blame this on my parents. They never let me watch tv unless
it was something important like "The Wizard of Oz" or "The DIrty Dozen".
I was sent to bed at 5 pm and was forced to listen to the radio until
5:15 when my father came into my room and pulled down the iron curtains,
shut off the vents and closed the 18 inch thick titanium door.

I was forced to lie in bed smelling my own farts and sweat until the
door was opened at 6 am. Because of this I started to rebel and the
first step was letting the bat slip from my hands into the bike spokes.
When I landed on the soft grass next to the street I knew I had finally
made my point.

I didn't rebel again until a few months later when I got very sick. I
came home from my job at the model airplane glue factory and found
nobody there except for my sister who told me that there was a party
down the street. I took some Contact and went down to the party and
someone gave me a glass of whiskey. I drank it since I was flying high
from the Contact and then went to a friend's place a mile or so away.

I had a beer and smoked about a pound of marijuana when the
Contact/whiskey kicked in and I found myself climbing up a telephone
pole. I finally came to my senses about 3/4 off the way up and got
scared. I screamed for help but everyone else was drunk and stoned and
thought it was funny until the police came.

They ordered me to come down and I finally got up the nerve to slide
down the pole. When I finally hit the ground, I found a sliver in my
hand about 3 inches long and I pulled it out with my teeth, right before
the police beat my with their nightsticks until I crumbled to the
ground. They threw me in the back seat of the patrol car and took me to
jail.

I was booked and was thrown into a holding tank. When a policeman
brought me dinner, I pretended to be asleep while he shook me awake and
then I karate kicked him in the face. As he fell, I escaped from the
cell and started kicking the shit out of the other policemen in the
building. When I was done I had beaten up over 60 cops and they had to
call in the National Guard to put a stop my rampage.

When they finally calmed me down, they hog tied me and then shackled,
chained and roped me so that escape was impossible and then put me in a
bus and took me to the state penitentiary where I spent the next five
months in solitary confinement with the most vicious convicts ever seen.

When I was finally released, I went home and my brother decided to throw
an apple at me so I hit him and then he ripped my baseball shirt. This
made me mad and I started whaling the shit out of him.

He finally punched me a couple times in the face which made me cry
because it hurt a lot. Then he kicked me in the nuts causing my left
testicle to somehow end up in my upper left thigh.

When I finally stopped crying I showed my brother what had happened and
we both decided that the best thing to do would be to operate.

I felt that it was time to mature and told him I didn't want any
anesthesia or any pain killers. Instead I had him give me some Nerf
footballs. One went into my mouth so I wouldn't bite off my tongue, one
went into my ass so that I wouldn't squidge out some poo and the other 2
were held in each hand so I could feel like I was back in the womb.

He then cut into my upper thigh with a bread knife he found in the
kitchen and continued cutting in a crooked line until he reached my ball
sack. Then he reached into my upper thigh with both hands and rooted
around until he found the nut. He began moving the testicle with his
hands until it was close enough to the sack and then he flicked it back
into place with one of his forefingers.

We both smiled when he was done because we knew we had finally conquered
our demons. We had grown up and were now ready to face life with clear
minds and winning perspectives.

The cut was closed with some model glue I had taken home from work. My
parents came home just after we finished and they introduced us to the
Japanese guests they were entertaining. At this point, the
Contact/whiskey mixture finally caught up with me and I vomited all over
the floor and the shoes of the guests.

The next day I was sent to rehab.

I suppose getting sent to rehab at such a young age would be
frightening, but I found that it really wasn't. My roommate, a 35 year
old ex-rodeo clown addicted to smoking dried cow shit, was my mentor and
he made sure I didn't go through any homesick pangs by becoming my
father and mother, even going as far as whipping me with a belt when I
messed up or breast feeding me when I became cranky and hungry.

The dorm was filled with people with all sorts of addictions from all
walks of life. From the alcoholic movie star to the ditch weed addicted
yuppie and from the female sexaholic to the steroid abusing sports hero,
we were one big happy family all with one goal in mind: cleansing our
bodies of the evil toxins.

Within 24 hours of my admittance, the Contact had cleared my system and
when asked if I felt that I had combated my addiction to the drug I
assured them that I had and I was discharged.

During the car ride home, my parents and I cried a lot as we opened up
to each other like we never had before. When we got home we had a group
hug and then I did something that pissed my dad off and he layed into me
with his belt and then sent me to my room without any dinner.

Later that night my mother came in wearing a sheer, see-through teddy
and offered me her breast for some nourishment which I declined. I told
her that I was now a grown boy and could hunt for my own nourishment.
She started crying and ran from the room which got me to wondering how
she could be my real mother when she was only 18 years old, but that
thought was soon lost after my father came in and whipped me again with
his belt.

The next day while in the shower I discovered a few sprouts of hair
around my groin area and I felt an urge that I had never felt before.
Scared, I ran downstairs to ask my dad what was going on but he had
already left for work. My mom was cleaning up the kitchen and asked me
what the problem was but when I saw that she was only wearing a bikini
and the urge became stronger, I knew that I had some major issues.

I ran back to my room and dressed and then left for work. All day long
as I collected the carts in the parking lot I wondered what the stirring
in my groin was. Luckily, some guys I knew showed up during my shift and
wanted to know if I wanted to smoke some cigars on the roof of
Marshall's after the store closed. Figuring that I would be able to
finally get some answers to my burning question, I agreed.

When 10 o'clock came, I punched out and walked to Marshall's, which was
located at the other end of the strip mall, where I found my four
friends. We hung around until the last customer left the store and then
went around to the back of the strip mall and climbed the ladder located
behind the book store.

When we got to Marshall's, we noticed an 18 wheeler parked behind the
store and decided that this would be our escape route, if needed.

We would simply jump from the roof of Marshall's to the trailer then
jump to the covered dumpster next to the trailer and then climb down the
dumpster and disappear into the night.

As we smoked the plastic tipped Swisher Sweets I had ripped off from
work and discussed politics and world events, I wondered when the best
time would be for me to ask my burning question. When the talk finally
turned to the upcoming school year I opened my mouth to speak but
couldn't get out the first word because of the voice coming from the
bullhorn:

"YOU UP ON THE ROOF! STAND UP AND COME TO THE EDGE SO WE CAN SEE YOU!"

We got up and ran to the edge of the roof expecting to use our escape
route, but when we saw the four police cars below, we decided that
escape was futile. The cop on the bullhorn ordered us to stand still and
I raised my arms expecting this to be the next command.

I guess it wasn't going to be the next command since they decided to
open fire on me and me alone. After being struck 53 times, they decided
they had made their point with me being the example and my friends were
allowed to climb down from the roof. (Later I would find out that they
thought the cigar in my hand was a gun because it "sure looked like one
in the moonlight".)

Off to the hospital I went.

Since I was underage, the doctor had to wait to operate until my parents
arrived at the hospital. Once there instead of giving the go-ahead to
remove the 50+ bullets embedded willy-nilly in my body, they decided to
question me about my state of mind as the hot lead was entering my soft
flesh.

Mom assumed that I caused the shooting because I "was most probably
drunk" while my dad disagreed with her reasoning since he felt I was
"obviously whacked out on that 'merryjuney' or whatever that stuff is
called".

When I finally convinced them that I was only smoking a Swisher Sweet,
they gave the doctor the go-ahead to remove the foreign metal object
from my body. When they were given the release allowing the use of
anesthetic my mom denied me a blissful sleep since the last time I had
been put under at the dentist's office I freaked out when I woke up
because I had fallen down a rabbit hole and met all sorts of freaky
characters like talking playing cards and opium smoking caterpillars
which gave me nightmares for years and my parents didn't want to go
through that hell again.

So for the second time in my life I was operated on without any help
from sleep inducing narcotics/gas. As soon as they cut a slit in my
torso from my neck to my groin and started yanking out my innards in
order to get to the bullets easier I went to my happy place which just
happened to be down that rabbit hole where I met up with the talking
cards and smoking caterpillar again except this time we had a meaty
discussion on the merits of zippers vs. buttons.

When I came back to reality my parents let me know that no charges had
been filed and they apologized for not believing that I had only been
smoking a cigar on top of the building. To make up for not believing me,
they told me they had a suprise for me when I was released from the
hospital.

Less than 24 hours after surgery the doctor released me from the
hospital after marvelling about my remarkable recuperative powers which
I attributed to the miraculous healing powers of Bactine. My parents
were summoned from their daily cocktail party and they, begrudgingly,
came to pick me up.

Even through their alcohol induced haze my parents still remembered they
had a surprise for me. I was so caught up in their happiness that before
I lay down in the back of the station wagon I let them blindfold me and
put a plastic bag over my head because I didn't want to ruin their
surprise by using my sight, smell, taste or breath.

When the surprise destination was reached I was pulled from the back of
the wagon and led to a chair. When the bag and blindfold were removed I
found tat I was sitting in a barber chair with an old man holding
electric clippers standing in front of me.

"This will teach you to respect authority," my dad said as the barber
turned on the clippers. "Your long hair is causing your brain to
malfunction by adding too much weight to your scalp."

"Yep," my mom said as she let out a tiny belch.

With that said, the barber began cutting off my blonde locks as my dad
made any escape impossible by holding me down in the chair with a
reverse chokehold.

When the barber was done I found myself with a very unsporty looking
crew cut. I started screaming and kept screaming as we left the barber
shop and then I screamed some more on the drive home. When we pulled
into the driveway I stopped screaming but started screaming again when
my brother and sister started laughing when they saw my new haircut. I
screamed all the way to my room and stopped screaming when I closed the
door but started screaming again when I saw myself in the mirror.

After a while it dawned on me that my hair would grow back so I stopped
screaming and lay down on the bed and listened to side one of Pink
Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" through headphones until I passed out.

A few minutes later I woke up screaming because I remembered that I had
to go back to school the next day with my new 'do.

When I woke up the next morning with my almost-bald head, I had a tough
decision to make. Either I could go to school and get laughed at since
kids are so cruel at that age or I could run away from home and live on
the streets until I was discovered and whisked off to Hollywood where I
would star in a series of lucrative porn movies until I could no longer
perform satisfactorily in front of the cameras then I would finally head
back home and prove to everyone that I really was a somebody.

As I pondered my options over my morning bowl of Special K while also
hoping that the school would miraculously blow up due to some boiler
room accident or something, I finally figured what my most realistic
plan of action would be.

I said goodbye to my mother and headed out the door with a couple
textbooks. I gave the appearance of heading to school but, when my house
was out of sight, I doubled back and found a comfortable spot in the
woods located across the street from my home.

I lay down and tried to figure how I could spend the next 7 hours of my
day. When I couldn't come up with something fun to do I drifted off to
sleep.

I was awakened by some loud voices and found myself surrounded by some
hooligans in leather jackets. The asked me what I was doing and I
explained that I was cutting school since I didn't want the other kids
to see me with short hair and they agreed that I had done the right
thing.

We talked about politics and world events and other adult-type stuff.
After a few hours the talk started dying down and I was scared they
would leave me all alone until Bobo, the leader of the gang, pulled out
a grocery bag from inside his jacket.

"Hey, you want to try something really cool?" he asked.

"Sure," I replied. "What you got?"

"Paint," he said as he pulled a can of spray paint from the bag.

"Paint?" I asked.

"Paint," he answered.

They showed me how to inhale the paint using a simple paper sack and
soon we were rolling around the ground giggling and retching. The beauty
about the whole thing was that I could actually feel brain cells dying
in my head and it was the best feeling I had ever experienced.

Suddenly, one of the hooligans started convulsing and the fun times
stopped until he fell face down in a pile of leaves. When he didn't move
for a few minutes we figured he was dead and continued inhaling the
paint so that we could laugh and carouse some more.

All was going well until Bobo asked me a question about some of the
trees in the woods when, as I described the differences between oaks and
elms, I suddenly passed out.

When I woke up I noticed that it was almost dark out and that I was
missing my jeans. I buried the dead hooligan, gathered up my books and
headed home.

As I headed up to my room my mother spotted me and asked why there was
gold paint all over my face. I mumbled something about trying out for
the school mascot which seemed to satisfy her query, or so I thought.

"Did they take your pants too........OH MY GOD! What's that on your
underpants!? Is that BLOOD???"

What to tell her? Many answers filtered through my brain and I didn't
have much time to analyze each and every one of them since she was
heading towards me brandishing a rather large wooden spoon so I blurted
out,

"I was ass fucked by a biker gang, ma!"

Which, in hindsight, was definitely the wrong answer since she replied:

"Young man, just wait till your father gets home!"

TO BE CONTINUED.