Hero’s Lament

I’d been working the crime beat at the Times for about a month, and as was my typical routine, Grosney and I would retire to a nearby watering hole to drown ourselves in whiskey and commiserate about the state of the world today. A favorite reporter pastime.

Grosney was an old hand in the newspaper business. He could remember the “good old days” as he called them, when he used to set type and the saying “stop the presses!” actually meant something. Sometimes he used to joke that he was there when Guttenberg printed the first bible.

Looking at him, you might forgive his hyperbole. He was in his 70s and he looked it. Decades of heavy drinking and seeing the worst that the city had to offer had etched deep lines across his sunken face. A steady diet of booze, greasy food, coffee and stress had left him thin with a nose the color of a bruised tomato.

“I’m telling you Stu,” he said to me while stirring his drink, “this city is going to shit. Shit!”

I was used to his rants about the state of affairs and I knew how to play my role. “Yeah?” I asked.

“Hell yeah!” He slammed his fist on the bar, almost upsetting the bowl of nuts and earning a cautionary look from Drew, the barkeep. “You’ve only been working at the paper for what, 5 – 6 weeks? You haven’t got a clue!”

He turned to look at me.

“Forty years ago this city was a metropolis. It was a thriving urban center! Back then politicians were honest, beer was cheap and women still had their virtue. You could walk down the street at night without fear of being mugged, raped or killed!”

“It’s not that bad,” I countered. “I think the police do a pretty good job. And of course, there’s Paladin.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. The flying freak in the cape. We were better off before he got here. He’s just as bad as the crooks! I’ve seen him in action before. He was stopping a bank robbery by standing in the middle of the road, stopping the guys from driving away. Everybody remembers the ‘foiled bank robbery’, but nobody remembers the nine-car pile up he caused because his dumb ass decided to just stand in the middle of the friggin’ street!”

“Hey Grosney, keep it down over there, I’m warnin’ ya!” Drew yelled from the other end of the bar.

“Keep your shirt on! I’m done with this place anyway, I got a 8-point column to write about the murder/suicide at the high school this morning,” he replied.

Grosney stood up and threw some money down on the counter. He may have been a little drunk, but years of drinking gave him the experience to be steady on his feet. He turned to me one more time.

“Just remember, this city’s going to hell and that super jack ass is helping it happen. It’d be a better place if he’d just stop playing superhero and let people live.”

After Grosney left, I took my whiskey and decided to find another table to sit at, preferably with more upbeat company.

Drew’s Pub wasn’t a popular place. Thankfully it has stayed undiscovered by rowdy college kids, gangs or other undesirables in the forty years that it’s been open. Drew’s father established the pub back in 1968 and Drew has kept it almost intact when he took over. It has its regulars and it’s a hang out for the newspaper types. There used to be more typewriter jockeys coming in for a drink after a stressful deadline. But with the advent of the internet, newspapers and reporters are a dying breed, rarely seen in nature.

I’ve only been frequenting the bar for the last month, but Drew considers me a semi-regular and I recognize almost everybody in there. So when I saw somebody sitting alone in a corner, his back to the wall, nursing an entire bottle of something, I decided to do the friendly thing and introduce myself to him. Maybe, I thought, he could cheer me up after that talk with Grosney.

I walked over to the table, which was in the darkest part of the bar. It could have been for ambiance, it could have been to keep the patrons from seeing the roaches running around like the owned the place. Either way, I couldn’t really see the stranger’s face.

“Hi there! My name’s Stu. Mind if I join you?”

“Knock yourself out,” he replied.

“So, I don’t think I’ve seen you here at Drew’s before. What brings you down to this dingy basement?”

“I just wanted a break is all. And this seemed like a quiet place where nobody would bother me for a few hours.”

I inferred from his answer that he wanted to be left alone. So, I scooted the chair back to stand.

“Hey, wait…that doesn’t mean I want you to leave,” he said, holding up a hand to stop me. “In fact, I could really use the opportunity to blow off some steam. Do you have the time to listen to a guy get some shit off his chest?”

His grip on my arm was like a vice, the only way out would have been to chew my own arm off. With that in mind, I gingerly sat down, ready to listen to this guy’s story, hoping this wasn’t the prelude to his eventually murdering me. It’s a tough call in this city, you can’t always tell who’s a friend and who’s a psycho.

“Sure man, lay it on me. I’m a journalist, so I’m great at listening to people. It’s my job.” I told him.

“A reporter, eh?” even in the shadows I could see his face twist in contempt. “Well, keep everything off the record and you’ll be fine.”

The threat in the way he pronounced “you” was unmistakable. I started wondering who this guy was and what he had to say.

“Alright, I’m all ears.”

He looked at me for a moment like he either he regretted telling me to stay, or was composing his words. “Listen, Mr. Journalist,” he started off. “Do you remember three weeks ago when there was a blackout on the east side of the city for a few hours?”

I did remember, it was annoying as shit.

“I’m the reason it was only a few hours instead of being an EMP that wiped out the whole coast. And you know what? Nobody thanked me!”

“Well, though it isn’t often expressed, people are very grateful for the electric company and everybody who works there for what they do. Don’t feel bad, I’m sure your boss will give you the recognition you deserve,” I said in consolation.

“What? I’m not an electrician and I don’t work for the electricity company.”

The confusion on my face must have been apparent, because even in the shadows I could see his eyes narrow in frustration.”

“Sigh…Did you notice last summer when gas prices skyrocketed by three dollars for about 12 days?” he asked.

“Sure. I didn’t live in the city then, so I was doing a lot more driving in those days. Just when everybody was getting used to the prices going down, they jumped up again.”

“Do you know why that happened?”

Not wanting to appear fully ignorant about socioeconomic trends on an international level, I used a trick most journalists employ when the questions are turned around on them for a subject they’re not too knowledgeable about: vaguely mumbling an answer. “Well, I assume that…you know…peak oil had reached, ummm, the tipping point of what the, uh…market could bare, vis a vis prices…” I trailed off, realizing that he obviously wasn’t buying it. “I haven’t a clue. Like most people I just assume the oil companies were trying to get as much money from people as they could.”

“Actually, it was my fault. The Devastator was holding the world’s supply of oil hostage and was threatening to destroy it all unless a ransom was delivered by the governments of the world. Unfortunately, during my battle with him, a bunch of oil caught fire. If I hadn’t put it out, all the oil would have burned up. Leaving the world high and dry. Because of me everybody gets to continue using their cars and trucks and commerce can thrive and the world can continue as it is, none the wiser. But nobody thanked me for that either. It’s kind of depressing.”

The Devastator? Ransom? World’s supply of oil? This guy was talking nonsense, I thought to myself. Even at my drunkest I never rambled on like I was some kind of superhero…

That’s when it hit me.

“Holy shit, you’re Paladin!” I yelled out. Then I caught myself and looked around the bar to see if anybody had heard me. Luckily everybody seemed to be lost in his or her own alcohol-fueled world and didn’t hear me. I leaned forward over the table, “holy shit,” I whispered, “you’re Paladin!”

I don’t know why I didn’t notice before. I must have been more inebriated than I thought. Upon closer inspection, it was pretty obvious: the costume, the cape that I had first mistaken for a heavy coat hanging on the back of his chair, the mask that obscured most of his face, accentuating his eyes. Everything that I –and the rest of the world- had seen countless times in newspaper pictures.

“I don’t get it, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“What does it look like? I’m getting drunk.”

“But why?”

“Because I don’t care anymore.” He sounded depressed, resigned.

“I don’t understand,” I said, prompting him.

“You don’t even realize the dozens, if not hundreds, of times I’ve saved your life and the lives of everybody on this damn planet. If you even were aware of how often your existence has been close to snuffed out, it’d blow your naive brain out of your ass. But what’s the point of doing it all if nobody knows? It’s a thankless job.

“Even the countless publicized times I’ve saved people and stopped crimes nobody’s thanked me. I’ve foiled robberies, rapes and murders, redirected the course of rivers, stopped lava from destroying towns and put out raging forest fires, and all without any gratitude from anybody.”

He stopped and took a dip swig from the bottle in front of him. Then he put his face in his hands and shook his head, before looking back at me and continuing.

“I feel underappreciated. People are so used to me being there to catch falling babies and punching crooks in the face that they just take it for granted that I’ll do the hero thing. The general populace often forgets that I don’t get paid to do this. I’m just a volunteer.

“You know, I wonder if people would even notice if I just quit. If one time I didn’t show up to save the day. Do you think they’d care then?” His voice started to increase in volume. “Would I even be missed?!”

“Of course you’d be missed!” I quickly said, hoping to calm him.

As quickly as it came, the anger drained from his face. “I don’t ask for much,” he said, his voice quivering, his eyes on the table. “I don’t want a reward, or anything. I’m not trying to get laid by being a hero! I just want to feel appreciated. I would like people to thank me for doing this out of the kindness of my own damn heart.”

It pained me to see Paladin like this. It was also awkward. I had never really considered the human side to the superhero. In a way, he was right. I did take for granted that he’d be there to save the day whenever we needed him, and I’m sure others did too. It never even crossed my mind to wonder what he wanted, or what he thought about things or what he did in his free time.

“I see your point Paladin. Maybe people don’t thank you enough for what you do. Maybe they do kind of take you for granted. But you want to know why? It’s because they know you’ll always be there. They know that no matter what happens, Paladin can make things better. You’re a rock. You bring so much security and peace of mind to the world it’s incredible. People go to and from work, go to sleep, get married, have kids and live their lives feeling safer simply because you exist. You can’t take that security away from the world, it goes so deep it’s ingrained into everything we do!”

He looked up at me then, questioning, almost like he was willing to believe my words. Or maybe that was just me being hopeful.

“If that doesn’t change your mind, think about this: even if you think the people you save take you for granted, I can tell you who doesn’t; criminals. If you take just one day off, they’ll notice. If you aren’t a superhero for yourself, or for the people who need you, then be one for those who will take advantage of your absence!” I said, somewhat accusingly.

For a few minutes he was quiet, lost in thought. Occasionally he’d look at me as if searching my face for the truth of my words, but mostly he’d look down at the table. Finally, he poured himself a drink in the glass next to the bottle. He raised the glass to his lips but stopped an inch short. He once again looked me in the face.

“Maybe,” is all he said.

He then stood up a little shakily, pushed the chair away from the table and slowly, (but still managing to do it heroically) walked out of the bar without looking back at anybody.

It was the first and only time I met Paladin. I don’t know what the conversation meant to him. I’m not sure he remembered my name or if I was just another one of the faceless thousands he’s saved over the years. But I like to believe that ever since then, every time I read or write a story about him rescuing people from a burning building, or stopping kidnappers from absconding with some child, that maybe he thought of my words while he was doing it. Maybe he knows that not everybody takes him for granted and if even one person appreciates him, then he can never quit.

It’s the only thanks I can give him.

Last Train Downtown

It took him an hour and forty-seven minutes to fully dispose of the body. He hadn’t counted on the bone being so tough to cut through. Using the cleaver hadn’t been the bright idea he thought it would be. It hacked in big, uneven pieces from the bone and left the muscles and fat a bloody mess.

He was pissed that his favorite movies had lied to him about how easy it was to kill and then get rid of the corpse as if the victim had never existed. It hadn’t been so simple in real life.


****


Finding a person to kill wasn’t hard. They were everywhere and their very presence annoyed him and constantly brought about headaches. He started to feel a headache forming in the front of his temples, so he popped an Advil and began his search for somebody to make famous posthumously.

He hung out around bus stops and rode the subway with his eyes peeled for a suitable test case. He found it very amusing that he went underground to find his victim. Because he knew that in death, whomever he met would never feel the cool, loving embrace of the earth as a final resting place.

He quickly pushed his morbid thoughts to the side as the train pulled into the station and he spied the homeless man on the metro platform. He tried to stifle a giggle as he stepped out of the subway train and headed toward the indigent man.

The first thing to do, is gain this man’s trust, he thought. Once that’s achieved the rest should be cake. He stepped up to the man who was sitting down with his back to the wall. He studied the bum, watching how his prey acted and moved. The homeless man was busy warming himself with a freshly bought cup of coffee. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that looked as if it would fit better on a ten-year-old. His jeans were faded so much that the original color was untraceable. Over the sweatshirt he had a black overcoat most probably bought or stolen from a secondhand clothes shop. He worse a pair of dirty gray sneakers and a coonskin cap, which contrasted the rest of the clothing, completed the outfit.

He pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and presented it to the man sitting on the floor. The bum looked at the money with much interest. He explained to the bum that he was in need of somebody to do a job for him. He had three dogs back at his apartment that needed walking and he was unable to do so himself due to previous commitments. The lie wasn’t carefully planned; his mind raced on the sport and this was the best he could come up with. He decided in his head that he would have to prepare his lie for the next time.

After convincing the bum to follow him, he made his way toward the surface streets with the bum in tow. As the passed by a police car he made eye contact with the cop inside. The policeman nodded at him and turned to working on a crossword puzzle that was in his lap.

They walked for twelve blocks, the homeless man shuffling along, avoiding eye contact with everyone, the other lost in his own thoughts. He could feel the sweat starting to form under his arms and on his brow. He knew that in this cold weather sweating was quite a feat. He was almost unable to control his energy and the bum soon had to jog to keep up.

Once they made it back to the apartment he began to question his motivation. Should he really go through with killing this man who had never done anything to him? Should he take a life for no better reason then to see what it was like? Once he began to think of how much power he could have he grew a broad smile and his mouth turned very dry. He wanted to kill so badly that he began to hop around in place, and almost ran into the bathroom where the bum was relieving himself, so that he could kill him as soon as possible. He hoped that by ending this man’s existence he would be able to stop the headaches that seemed to be coming more and more frequently. But he held back so that he would be able to plan better.

He was not as well prepared as he had believed himself to be. What he wouldn’t do for a gun or at least a nice chainsaw or power saw. He ran into the kitchen and began to tear the room apart for a good weapon. The carving knife? No, too much work. The electric carving knife? No, the cord wasn’t long enough to do any real damage. A big two-pronged fork? No, not quick enough. A cast iron skillet? No, too heavy. The cleaver!

He tucked the cleaver into the back of his pants and went into the living room to wait for his victim.


****


That was almost two hours ago. The man had made it hard; he put up a good fight. Better then he thought the guy would. His place was a mess, the living room couch was overturned along with the coffee table which now had several deep cuts in its top. The wall by the front door was splattered with blood from when the bum had almost escaped. There was a hole about head height where the cleaver had gone through his next and became stuck in the plaster. The kitchen floor was a mess of various cutting implements and utensils, tossed about is if by a localized tornado.

But the worst room of all was the bathroom where it looked as though
Hannibal Lector had stopped by and decided to redecorate the walls with human blood. The bathtub was filled with dismembered body parts. A foot was hanging over the side and the shoelace was swaying back and forth over the linoleum, tracing lines in the pool of blood that had gathered in front of the tub.

As for damage to himself, the man had a bruise on his stomach from where the bum had surprised him with a punch that knocked the wind out of him. He was also somewhat out of breath from chasing the bum around the apartment. He vowed to started getting back into shape to improve his physique and to deter those who would fight back.

He had considered many different ways to get rid of the body. But in the end he decided to put the pieces into garbage bags. He then took the bags to the roof of his building. As he stood and looked over the city he felt revulsion. He realized how much he hated the general populace of the city and even the rest of the state. He had gone through an ordeal in the last few hours, but he felt that it was worth it. If he could fid the city of its population, even one at a time, then he was going what needed to be done, and he felt good about that. He knew deep in his heart that he was doing important work, but it was also fun and that made him feel even better.

He turned around and put the bags into a little shack that housed as assortment of cleaning and lawn maintenance implements. The cold weather would mask the smells of decomposition until the spring.

He locked the door behind him and begin to walk back into the building, leaving red footprints in the clean, white snow.

Once he got inside the headache began again. He reached into his pocket, pulled out in Advil and continued down the starts.

Forgotten Heroes of Yore: Clair Huxtable

Too often in past entries of the Heroes of Yore series, we have ignored the contributions of women in the field of awesomeness. Some might say that’s because women haven’t done anything awesome since they invented the “ménage a trios,” but I disagree, I personally thought “2 Girls, 1 Cup” was pretty awesome if you’re in the soft serve ice cream industry.

Regardless, women have made great strides over the last few decades. Shaved vajayjays, breast implants, anal bleaching, booty augmenters, tight clothes, dresses so short you can tell how dilated her cervix is, these are all great things that have truly helped the human race to flourish to the point where we now need to implement roving death squads to keep population rates low, (at least that’s how I’d do it if I were the president!)

Setting the way for the modern, 21st century woman, was a great lady who was an inspiration for people with vaginas around the world! I am, of course, talking about Clair Huxtable.

During the 80s and 90s, Clair Huxtable was a beacon of light, a modern day Statue of Liberty, shining hope across the globe every Thursday at 8, (7 central). Her life was an example to everybody, regardless of sex. She proved that a woman could run a tight ship at home and be successful at work, simultaneously.

Clair Olivia Hanks Huxtable, (nee Clair Olivia Hanks Gunderson) was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1950. She grew up in a loving and supportive household with her parents and three siblings, (two brothers and a sister). I say supportive, because Clair’s parents were very open-minded. When one of her brothers wanted to be a rodeo clown, they were fully behind his enrollment into Emmett Kelly’s Klown Kollege of North America.* When her sister wanted to be a performance artist on the mean streets of Skokie, Illinois, their parents were the first to help her pack her bindle and send her off along the train tracks to find her future. When her other brother wanted to be a dish washer in a Mexican restaurant, her parents helped him sneak into Mexico as an illegal immigrant to work.

Things weren’t as easy for Clair though. Her parents seemed hesitant to help her when she decided to be a lawyer. So, she decided to set off on her own to start a life in the legal system. She left home and moved to New York City, where she attended the South Brooklyn School of Some Lawyer Shit.**

It wasn’t easy for Miss Gunderson trying to make her way through school while also working part time in a giant mouse suit at a nearby children’s pizza parlor. She spent 14 hours a day dealing with little brats trying to drown her in ball pits or shoving slices of pizza down her breathing hole. And at night she went to school to better herself and reach her goal. It was a hard and defining time in her life. Clair was able to study, work and live in a big city at a time when women were too scared to leave their kitchens for fear of becoming up-to-date on current events, (which was strictly taboo, for current events were a man’s business in those days.)

While at a hospital one day, getting treated for knife wounds she received from some ten-year-old who didn’t like onions on his pizza, Clair met her future husband and all-around clown, Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable. A short wooing period occurred wherein Cliff made it clear to Clair that were she to join in a civil union with him they’d both have a lot of money, a lot of kids, a nice brownstone in the nice part of Brooklyn, (which is about as realistic as having a summer place in Brigadoon) and each week they’d have some wacky adventures, where they’d learn from their children almost as much as they teach them. Each adventure would be wrapped up in under 30 minutes and would bring them closer together as a family.

This sounded like the cat’s pajamas to Clair, so she immediately married Cliff, cut off all ties to her family and quickly jumped into bed to get impregnated by her new, rubbery-faced husband.

Over the course of the 70s, Clair pushed out five children. Four daughters and a son. They all grew to be well-adjusted, creative and smart children, (except for the second oldest daughter, who turned out to be some kind of hippy who dropped out of college, after one year, to marry Lenny Kravitz).

With Clair’s help, her children grew up healthy, intelligent, funny and well-rounded. It was her dedication to her many children that made the Huxtables such an excellent-functioning family unit. Even with the 90-hour work weeks, Clair was never too busy or too tired to come home and praise her daughter Rudy for her latest macaroni collage, or to help dyslexic Theo get through his English homework. The rest of the kids were on their own though.

It wasn’t easy being a lawyer, a mother of five, the wife of a ridiculously goofy doctor and a sex symbol in the 80s, (you better believe she was!) but Clair Huxtable managed to pull it all off in style, while staying at the top of the Neilson’s for five years. She has been the role model for many women in this day and age. She has inspired women of all races to work hard, marry rich and to look down on others of their own race while simultaneously decorating their homes with art work from the lower classes, as if to reaffirm their cultural roots. She should be honored with statues, her face on money and an official holiday! Something like, Clair’s Reverse Pregnancy Day, where all men get to spend the day pretending to be pregnant so they can see what it’s like. (And hilarity ensues.)

So, next time you see somebody like “Octomom” or Kate “My Stomach Looks Like Ground Zero” Gosselin, just remember that a fictional, television mom did it first and did it better, even though she was hampered by having a full-time job, being black and enjoying jazz.

And now, a Haiku:

Clair is as Gaia
Earth mother of Huxtables.
What a bunch of goofs.



*With satellite campuses in Luxembourg and Borneo.

**Not affiliated with the North Brooklyn School of Some Lawyer and Gangster Shit (NBSSLGS).

Can’t take me nowhere

I’m quick to get annoyed in public.

When I’m out, around people, I get frustrated faster than a redneck looking at interracial porn.

I don’t know what it is, but when you get me outside I suddenly lose all pretenses of patience when dealing with The Great Unwashed. All of the small things that people let roll of their backs, or just don’t pay attention to, become great big glaring affronts to my delicate sensibilities.

I grew up as a loner. My father is a loner, as is his father before him, his father before him and his father’s barber’s roommate before him. I come from a long line of autonomous, indivisible, solitary, strapping and handsome men from down the ages.

We prefer sitting alone, reading a book and contemplating the very nature of the universe, over going out to a loud sporting event with a bunch of drunken slobs.
We’d rather recline peacefully, enjoying our favorite recording of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Scherzo in D Minor, over going to a noisy, sweaty concert with thousands of other poorly-gyrating, screaming fans.

We’d rather chill in the crib, watching “Meerkat Manor” on Animal Planet, over spending time in a zoo, packed in with hundreds of snot-nosed, screaming little punks with no sense of how to behave in public and who are just begging for the back of my hand to shut them the HELL UP FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST!#@$%!

Get my point?

Sure part of it is me. I have very little tolerance for stupidity and oafishness. But also I feel that it’s simply people in general and Americans in particular, (unless I’m at the airport, then I see just how pervasive an attitude of douchbaggery is around the world).

People are so damn inconsiderate! These days it’s very rare for people to think about others around them when going about their daily lives. Everybody is so focused on themselves that they just take it for granted that the rest of the world revolves around them too. How else do you explain cell phone drivers who go 15 miles under the speed limit, straddling two lanes without ever using a turn signal, then give you an evil look when you get around them, as if it’s your fault they’re inconsiderate bastards? Or those people who, in the middle of a crowded corridor, walk slower than a mummy on muscle relaxers, then decide to just stop, causing a ten-person pile up behind them?

At first I would see something annoying, like a person standing in a doorway, blocking foot traffic in two directions, and I’d sigh in my head or smile vacantly as I wait patiently for the chance to walk by. Now I’m just as likely to walk up to that person and punch them in the throat until they crumple on the floor in a heap of quivering pain.

Now I’m probably an embarrassment to the people who go out in public with me. I make a nuisance of myself and draw attention to the folks I’m with even when I’m sober!

Bob: “Hey Josh, I know she took ten minutes trying to pay for her Big Mac with a check, thereby slowing down the rest of the line and causing us to be late for that thing we’re going to, but could you please let go of the submission hold you have her in? She’s turning blue.”

Joshua: “Aaaararrrrahhhh!!”

Bob: “And maybe return her Endocrine System to her?”

Joshua: “JOSH SMASH!!”

Bob: “Also, we might want to get out of here before the cops come to check out the wheelchair you lit on fire and threw out the window.”

I can’t help myself. When I see somebody doing something wrong or stupid or just plain asinine I have to say something. I have to draw attention to this person and their inconsiderate ways.

Just yesterday, I was at Safeway, (stocking up on tampons, hemorrhoid ointment and Sudafed*) when I walked out into the parking lot and saw a shocking sight.

Some old person car, (and I knew it belonged to an old person because it was the same size and as well armored as a WWII sub) had taken over a parking space in a half. It made my blood boil. So I sat there and waited until the offending driver (a little old man, stooped and wizened) came out of the store. At which point I addressed him:

“You’re obviously old, and no doubt feeble and with diminished mental capacity, but are you an idiot too?”

The man looked at me incredulously, as if he hadn’t heard what I said. “Excuse me?” he asked.

“I asked if you were an idiot. I mean, who taught you to drive, Ray Charles? That’s the shittiest parking job I’ve seen all day! What’s wrong with you?”

Of course, nobody (especially not ye olde geriatrics) ever believes that somebody would talk to them like that without provocation, so instead of responding he just gave me a look and shuffled off to his Oldsmobile Tank. I shook my head ruefully and went about my day.

I don’t mean to be like this, it’s just my nature. But I know I’m not alone. There are others like me out there. People who still think that we should be considerate for each other in public; holding open doors, saying please and thank you, being courteous, being respectful** and just plain looking out for each other. And I’d like to think that I speak for those who can’t or don’t. I am fighting to make the world a better place!

Or maybe I’ll just stay at home from now on.



*For the Meth Lab, of course!

**And yes, I see the hypocrisy of me advocating respect after relating a story where I tell some old person off. But what can I say? I had to fight fire with fire.

DC Ink

“This is your first one, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure you want it on your hand?”
“Yes.”
“And you want it to be this word?”
“Yes.”
“This…misspelled word?”
“Sigh, yes.”
“And you know it’s permanent, right?”
“YES!”
“Are you sure you…”
“AAAAARRRGGGGGHHHH!” I said as I jumped across the counter and ripped the guy’s head from his colorfully tattooed neck, throwing it out into the busy street below.
***
And so went my experience getting my first tattoo. Sure I didn’t actually rip dude’s head off, but it was pretty tempting. Either that or ripping out those big ass earrings in his ears like all those Indians were wearing in Apocalypto.

I’ve tried getting a tattoo before, but obviously, could never commit to it. It’s always the same reasons: it’s permanent; it could affect my career choices when I’m older, it might look stupid, not exactly sure where to get it, too much money and I’m not sure that professing my membership in NAMBLA will help me out in the lady department.

The closest I came was going to a tattoo parlor in Clarksville, Tennessee, (town motto: Only 68 percent of our strippers have C-Section scars!) with my sister. The place was complete chaos and was organized about as well as Ellis Island. Disheartened by the whole process we instead opted to wait until we could find a better place.

Fast forward three years or so and we find ourselves outside of a place called “Curious Tattoo” in College Park, Maryland, (town motto: We don’t know the meaning of “underage drinking”!) ten minutes after 1 p.m. The reason we were outside was because, though the sign on the door said the place opened at 1, the door was still locked, because nobody had shown up yet.

Really though, how difficult must it be to be somewhere at 1 p.m. on a Saturday? I mean, the place already opens at a random, stupid ass time, how can you be late for that?


Tattoo Jerk: Yawnnn! (checks bedside clock) Oh wow, it’s already one! Oh well, I’m already late, I might as well get another four hours of sleep.


My sister tried to warn me when we arrived. Appointments were a hit or miss thing at these places. The key was so show up before a line forms. We thought that we had managed to do just that. But nothing is so cut and dry in a tattoo parlor!

You know what would simplify things? 1) a numbered-ticket system, like they have at the DMV, and 2) somebody who runs the counter who isn’t a tattoo artist or piercing artist. Because when they’re busy in the back drawing random things on people, the front area keeps getting more and more full of people wandering around. And who is to say who came first? Who’s to say who has an appointment?

I get that the whole concept of tattoos is about being a rebel, a non-conformist and all, but it doesn’t have to be such mayhem! One can be a rebel without being an anarchist. Don’t tattoo parlors have business models? Do they get together for annual conferences where they attend such lectures as “How to make people wait in your office for three hours for no good reason,” “Making up random, expensive prices on the spot while keeping a straight face,” and “Tips to undermine your potential clients’ desires.”

It’s that last one that really pisses me off. I dig that they want to make sure people coming in actually want what they want, where they say they want it, but there are better ways of doing it. The guys at the place I went to acted like they were lawyers, cross-examining everybody who came in. They were practically telling people not to get what they wanted. I couldn’t tell if it was because they all studied how to be tactless jerks in some sort of class*, or if they were just lazy and didn’t want to do a lot of work. I bet it was a little from column A, and a lot from Column B.

Truly, it’s frustrating. You finally decide what you want and where you want it, (after days, weeks, months or years of deliberation) you psych yourself up enough to do this thing, (because when you think about it, in this day and age, a tattoo is more of a commitment than marriage. Isn’t that wacky?) and when you show up with a hesitant, yet optimistic smile on your face, some Mohawk wearing freak with barely an inch of uninked skin left on his face asks you if you’re sure you want a tiny ass heart with “MOM” on your left bicep (or something similar)!

Do you think Mike Tyson had to go through that bullshit when he got his face tatted? I bet he didn’t. He probably ripped the guy’s tongue out so he couldn’t say anything or offer any advice. I think I’ll do that next time. It’s much easier than trying to pull heads off.


*Tactless Jerkishness 101, offered at the University of Maryland up the street.