Life Under the Fluorescent Lights
Fluorescent lights drain your soul. I know this because I now work under their pale gaze. I brought this up to my boss, and he said, “Well, you can carry your soul back into the workshop and scrape paint with the new guy if you don’t like it.”
Has anyone else besides me ever had paint on their eyeballs? It’s not pleasant, believe me. I start to contemplate my life under those lights, and wonder where I went wrong. I can’t go see the world because I am not dumb enough to join the military. I can’t become a cop unless I want to arrest all my friends. I am just as broke now as I was 10 years ago, and I discovered I am getting old. I know this because I don’t relate to the “Younger Generation” anymore. Which is sad because I am only 24. Fuck, I should be out drinking, fighting, fucking, snorting, shooting, and driving everything in site. I thought I was a rebel, and maybe I still am, in my own fantasy world.
Sometime, the barrel on my .357 looks tasty. My efforts to eradicate the Zombie Menace go unheeded in the newspapers, and the people I have told about it just give me weird looks. I know I am not taken seriously as anything more than another number.
I think I DO know where I went wrong though. I was in second grade and this fucknut of a kid, Jason, got me in trouble. I got my name written on the chalk board. In the mind of a 7 year old, this is tantamount to serving jail time. That was the first strike. THEN Jason starts to laugh at me, so I tell him to “SHUT YOUR NIGGER MOUTH!” (Thanks, Dad, for my vocabulary). Oh, I was not given a second strike. I was sent straight to the Principal’s Office. The equivalent of the hole in Sing-Sing. There, my Father was called in. I remember his words being “This is fucking ridiculous.” then winking at me, and I got the rest of the day spent in detention, which was in the Principal’s Office. Of course.
Jason brought me my lunch that day, and I threw my orange at him. I missed him, but scored myself my first suspension. I remember the principal telling me that this would hurt me if my behavior kept up like this. He told me my life would be spent just floating around like a bum if I didn’t stay out of trouble. “You’re a bright student, Carman,” I was told. “This behavior can get you into JAIL!”
My god that was not the last incursion. In my house, to back away from a fight was weakness, but so was to go out and look for them. I was taught not to take shit from anybody. If I did I would never stop, and become spineless. And a few free days off of school whenever I wanted wasn’t that bad either.
I did notice that after I got back to school, those “Other” kids started to talk to me. These were the kids that had on the Guns n Roses t-shirts and were known to be “mean”. We cliqued right away, and then I started to steal bikes with them. And so it went. .
I want to steal a car, but that will land me in jail. I am allergic to pot and cocaine makes me feel weird. The liberty cap isn’t that appealing anymore, because I know it would be artificial happiness. The worst thing of all, is that I can’t stop watching the news. But not for any of that shit about the war or politics. I watch it for my utter disgust with the morning news girl. She flubs her lines worse than Scott Steiner, and on top of that she has the Dead Eye Syndrome.
I can tell the morning weatherman hates her as well. Just looking in his eyes, I can see Patrick Bateman.
I brought this up to The Lady and she told me to change the fucking channel. But I can’t do it. I want to see the weather guy snap on live TV. That would be something to talk about at work.
“Frankly, that girl sucked anyway, but she was better to look at than that black chick they have on there sometimes. Did you see him go after her?”
“Uh... yeah.... I have work to do, Carman.”
Motherfuckers. I brought up my disgust ONE TIME thinking that others around me could understand, but they just looked at me. A co-worker said “I think she’s pretty” - to which I replied that she looks like something from “The Dark Crystal”, or perhaps “Fraggle Rock”. They also didn’t get it when I pointed out that when the Sports Guy’s name is said phonetically (Rich Chrampanis) it could be Dick Cram-Penis.
Perhaps I’m insane by wasting bandwidth bitching about local news anchors. But the fact of the matter is this: I LOVE the local news. It fills my day with humor (Cram-Penis) and disgust (The Dead Eye Syndrome) so I am ready for work. I find it harder to hate someone like Bill O’Reilly because I don’t see him around town like I do the local news people. I thrive by hating the things I hold dear. Ask me about comic books and I will tell you why they suck, but I have HUNDREDS of them. I have over 1000 hrs of music on a separate hard drive that I continuously pirate, but I am still here to tell you that most music is complete garbage.
If I get in a fight I go to jail for a while and lose my job. I love to fight, too. It’s pretty much in my bones. But I haven’t been in a good one in over 5 years. I have noticed at work I have been giving people “The Look”. Every guy knows “The Look”. It’s the look that we give when we want to punch someone, and “Fight Club” said it best when Jack stated “Most sane people will avoid a fight.” I know they have those underground fights because of that film, but those are not appealing to me. I want to kick the shit out of people I see on a daily basis, because I hate them, personally, not some dumb frat kid who has no idea about what true anger and misanthropy really are.
I want to let out a primal scream with all the rage of my viking ancestors. I want to punch a whole in the face of the company president then stand stoic while others look on in horror. I want to run nude on the beach and dance in the full moon light reflecting off the ocean. Patrick Bateman’s “Glimpse of a Thursday afternoon” can about sum it up.
The only release I can get is my nightly Zombie patrol. I haven’t come across any others yet (just that one chick), but with the scare that happened a couple months ago, I am positive that they will emerge from the ocean. And my patrolling gives me time to think about my life some more. It seems that is all I do is think and hope that things turn around. Sometimes I think I subconsciously pray for the Zombie Apocalypse to finally roll around so we can get this show on the road.
Bitterness is my coffee, along with my coffee. I drink it hot and black. When I am done pissing at 9am after five cups, I am ready to drag through the day. Another slave to the grind under the gaze of those fluorescent lights.
