I was slumped in the lobby of Marcell's building, bitter, alone and drunk. His dad split for the weekend and we did the only logical thing in our pimple brains: Throw a party. We invited these two girls from our high school that we had crushes on and the situation was seemingly perfect...Marcell liked the one I didn't like and I liked the one he didn't. There was no way we could get caught in each others crosshairs, no chance of any cock-blocking friendly fire. The night arrived and there we were drinking and smoking pot, Korn having a tantrum in the stereo speakers.
Nadia and myself were talking, just filling up time the way two people do when tolerating the friend of the person you're interested in. Have to tolerate them though, make a good impression so inroads can be paved towards the real goal. We got to wondering where Marcell and MY girl, Julia were. I decided to investigate. I sauntered over to Marcell's closed bedroom as Nadia watched from across the room, and opened it. Sometimes when you open a door the sight behind it just sucks the air right of you. At this particular sight my heart felt like a chisel was being pounded into it. Of course, there was Marcell and Julia, laying underneath the covers, post coital. Marcell looked at me with the expression of a guilty dog who just ate Mom's birthday cake. One of the parties may have uttered a terse 'sorry', I don't really know. I flew off the handle in a drunken rage. Those damn rages! And booze compliments them so very well. There may have been a bottle smashed in the hallway, there may have been yelling AND screaming on my part, the cops may have been called. I was not Taylor Nezbit, Esquire, I was an out of control ape, like the ones in Congo, or like that narco-addled chimp who ripped apart that ladies face. Luckily for Julia, I didn't rip apart her face. See, I don't believe in violence against women. If you look around, however, it appears to be real.
I stormed out into the hall of the 16th floor. A scrawny, pimple faced monster.
Party's over!
You're fucking my girl! You're fucking my girl! I screamed to no one in particular, just the closed doors and unimaginably unmemorable walls. Even though I hadn't so much as accidentally brushed up against Julia's shoulder, she was my girl. The closest I ever got to her skin was during lunch one day at my house. We laid down beside each other in my bed, both stiff as a board, our bodies, as they lie planking together, two individual's who seemingly deciding to plank right beside each other in the middle of the day, in the same spot. Skin was not caressed, tongues were not flicked, and my boner, rising like a mushroom in fast forward to the heavens, well his prayers went unasnwered.
Someone popped their head into the staircase and said the cops were coming, that I should split...and fast. Well, eff that, I'm on the verge of cutting my wrists with the protractor set in my backpack, I'm ready to break on through to the other side, man. I may as well greet the new recruits in the lobby. NOTHING MATTERS. I went down the stairs to the 15th floor, one below the party and caught the elevator. In the lobby, I sat my slouchy ass and crooked spine into a seat and waited for the impending showdown with the law.
Just on time--Cops are never early when you need them and always late when you do. "You Taylor?" Cop #1 said. Surely, the two boys in blue had a little chuckle upon entering the building and eyeing the spaghetti frame before them. Tonight, on this call at least, there is no fear of never seeing the family again, no chance of being felled by some hip gangsta wannabe's bullet. No, tonight is safely tucked in the bed of the routine Harmless Saturday Night Drunks. Now I've joined that exclusive club.
"Who the fuck wants to know?"
Wrong answer.
Cop #1 picked me up and pasted me against the wall--felt like a dirty hit by Phaenuef, except these boards had no give. He swung my left arm up behind my back like a crank and kept applying pressure until it felt like my twig was about to snap. The only muscles in my arm were those borne of aggressive masturbating and consequently were no match for this beastly man-cop. I yelled out in pain and he relinquished a bit, secure in the knowledge of my breaking point. This is what humans do to each other all the time, whether it's in the bedroom or the lobby: apply pain to the breaking point.
They place me in the back seat of the squad car. My hands were cuffed and angled to the right while my back was angled left. It was actually quite comfy.
We peeled out onto Steeles and I knew exactly where we were headed--north one kilometre to the big police station in Brampton adjacent to all the courthouses--the main station. I've driven by there hundreds of times, and always a parking lot full of empty cop cars, waiting patiently for some chump without sideburns to dole out street justice.
On the way to the cop shop I mentioned that I might have some drugs in my A-hole. What a dopey fucking brat, huh? Cop #1 looked me in the eyes through the rearview and poured me a burning shot of comeuppance: "Okay, kid, when we get to the station we're gonna check you out real good." What have I done! I basically told this hairy armed vet to finger fuck me.
So there we are in the station. I'm being processed: My shoelaces are removed and temporarily confiscated. Will some cop lace them up for me when I leave, or am I going to have to do it, I wondered. I am shamed yet undaunted, this is simply how the night turned out I tell myself. There's no other prisoners around, I seem to be alone as I'm guided towards a wall and told to "Spread 'em." My hands are splayed against the cold concrete. "Take down your pants," the faceless voice said. I unhooked my belt and exposed my tight little ass and pale scrawny legs. I resumed assuming the position. "Umm...You're not gonna, like, rape me or anything are you?"
"No, I'm checking you for contraband," Cop #1 said as the rubber glove snapped against his left wrist.
I was too drunk to be terrified, but I certainly was alarmed. "Be gentle...I'm a virgin."
He took a few steps toward me, hesitated a second, then leaned in close so I could feel his breathing against my neck, and whispered in my ear: "Pull your pants up, kid." It was like a bad episode of Scared Straight.
Cop #1 took me to the cell where I languished alone and depressed as I sobered up and the reality of my situation unfurled itself before me. Julia, my crush, not only likes Marcell, but had sex with him too. Plus I acted like a total douchebag, throwing a tantrum like a five year old. If only they didn't take out my laces...
Apparently squirrels enjoy chasing each other through graveyards. When I'm standing at my bedroom window watching the world go by, as I often am, I find myself transfixed by two squirrels chasing each other. The leader weaves through the tombstones like the hockey drills I did as a kid, except the coach used pylons, not tombstones. Up a tree, across a branch, jump to another tree and scale that sturdy oak down, and run through the tombstones again. At some points the chaser was close enough to get its nose tickled by the fluffy tail of its tormentor. When I first observed this behaviour, I thought the squirrel being chased was running for his life until I finally realized that, oh in fact, they're just playing. Come on Nezbit! Squirrels aren't cannibals! You dope! Get a grip!
Unless...
They were stranded in the Andes after a plane crash. Then maybe they would be cannibals.
Maybe the MLSE could create a league where squirrels are pinned against each other. A duel to the death! They get jerseys and they move into penthouse suites and mansions in every major city. It's a new sport for the people, like lingerie football. The home town squirrel would get pimped out, matching colours, bobbleheads for your car, billboards around town with the said hometown squirrel shoving Booster Juice in your face. To separate these squirrels from the ordinary, they're claws and teeth would be replaced tiny surgically implanted daggers, and upon finishing his work, the team dentist leans back, cocks his head, a smile crossing his face, and says..." I'd rather get bit by a great white." The team doctor continue over the years to load him up with steroids and later, when he retires after an illustrious career, after many kills (home runs?), when the hall of fame comes a-knockin, there will be an asterik by his name in the books. But who cares what the books say, why they're just words, words, words! Glory is for the living punk. Better to snort coke off the stilleto heel of your favourite stripper and shoot juice, and smoke crack, and crack homers while you're living than when you're dead. Don't think they're are any ball parks in the heaven sports fans.
I noticed recently, like some barely perceptible ache, that I have a bromance crush on the actor Ryan Gosling. I mean, can this guy do anything wrong? I'm praying he doesn't loose his hair. He's from London, ON, if you don't know, and he's a great actor. Blue Valentine? Half Nelson? Have you seen those movies? Did I mention RG dresses absolutely fabulously, and he's smart and funny (mutually exclusive?), and he breaks up street fights between random strangers, and he can make your heart melt without a microwave. Got a permanent twinkle in his eye, that kid. He'll go places--if he hasn't gone to them already. The kind of man that brings his mother to the red carpet instead of his hard body girlfriend. Hubba-fucking-hubba. I only like him for his acting...no really (please believe me). It's not like I'd let Mr. G slap on a rubber glove and probe my nether regions for contraband. No way, Jose.
And now to international politics: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney? America--really? Is this the best you can do? Really? These GOP pricks are so manufactured and souless and unoriginal and banal and uncharasmatic--should I continue? Square jawed automatons who are inexorably intolerant, xenophobic to their vapid cores, hailing from the country of meth-addled-mega-church-preachers--"when I'm out in the bush I hunt queers, I mean deers, *cough*cough*, and I support the troops, even got me a bumper sticker that says so. Can I get a Hell Yeah?"
American culture has always fascinated me. Being Canadian, I am physically close to it's volcanic core and thus, I'm gently warmed by it's magma glow, yet I'm so far away--I could never be American. I don't fill up at a Texaco and I don't have any greenbacks to fritter away. America: It's the best and the worst of both worlds all at the same time. Take a look at all those movies and t.v. shows you like, all those bands, all those books you read. Let's face it: Most of them are goddamn yankees. You ever watch Cops? Great show. Each half hour episode of Cops consists of three ten minute slice of life vignettes, as if ten minutes is a sufficient amount of time to distill the gist. These are the engines of America, the proletariat, the salt of the earth. The kind of people who belong in a Raymond Carver story. These are the people who should be the reality t.v. celebrities of America. My favourite city has got to be Amarillo, Texas. Ama-fucking-Rillo: The Apocalypse is coming any minute. This is God's country, with short fat cops named Caleb Finsterwald who's gone to six and half barbeques in the past month alone. Just look at the shape of America--a rectangle drawn in a blackout drunk.
And now to national politics. It's Oct 6th. Apparently there is some kind of vote today of which I was only recently aware of. Yeah, yeah, I hear the snickers of the intellectuals out there, the upper crust, the uber-hipsters, the elite, the straight shooters, the righteous. This fucking idiot Nezbit doesn't even know there's an election? To that I say, who are these jerkoffs that I should go out of my way and vote for instead of going directly to the LCBO? I put an X or a checkmark by their name and all the voices in my head are supposed to stop? I'd just as soon turn Horwath, Hudak, and McGuinty into the Human Centipede than vote for 'em. There ya go--all stitched up, now eat each others shit. Oh Taylor! How uncouth.
You there, wagging that finger...eat shit and die. Democracy? Is that what you call it? You're born into a prison, dumbfuck. Albeit a nice prison, with pretty women shopfronts but they got you so young there's no unfucking the program. They got you when you learned the abc's and do re me's. The more you flail around and bang on the cage, the more they laugh at your feeble attempts to break free. Just shut up and keep buying shoes, and eating potatoes, and voting. Oh, oh, who'd you vote for? Ah, fuck buddy, I voted for the Taliban. If you go out to any bars on a Saturday night, you'd ban dancing too.
My enthusiasm for democratic parcipitation has waned over the years. As soon as I hit eighteen I voted like clockwork: municipal, provincial, federal, I trodded my way down to the local school or church smug with my new found power; I couldn't wait to flex my democratic muscle. My parents usually told me to vote Liberal and I happily abliged. In the later years of my voting career, however, I starting becoming disillusioned and threw my vote away to the Green Party. Ever since I started I was always in a downward spiral, about to commit participatory suicide. It just took a while to get there. Now I would expand my Human Centipede and sew Mike Schreiner right in.
Perhaps if I ever have a child, many years from now, I'll become more involved in the process, when my progeny's at stake. When I'm not just looking out for number one. A real man puts his family first, and you're reading that man's blog. I can see it now: My girl bouncing on my lap..."Daddy, are you gonna vote tomorrow?"
"Yes, sweetheart, I am."
"Who are you voting for?"
"Well, I'll be voting for the Scientologists," I say, knowing they always had me, but now they have her too.
One more thing: I did have a suggestion for the Tim Hudak campaign. Sadly, too little too late, I know. But maybe in the future, when he's out at a speaking engagement, he can enter the stage dancing to that Noreaga song--"HudakHudakHudakHudakHudakHudakHudak...."
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