Welcome to My Life, Now Go Away

After working eight hours at Chester’s Chicken Shack for a handful of peanuts (people call then dollars nowadays), I paid a visit to my buddy, Tim, who fancies himself something of an amateur pharmacist. “Take two of these and call me later,” he said. I took a Zanax. He said it would help with the anxiety. It did, at first.

It was a Friday. This meant I had to listen to my douche-bag brother Daryl’s lecture about the wages of sin, the temptations of the flesh and how I was definitely headed to hell if I didn’t repent. He wanted me to quit drinking entirely and stop bringing women back to the house.

I’ll give you some context… I did have a well-paying union job with benefits, paid vacation, the works. Had my own apartment with an in-ground pool, a gym and a garage. During the week, I kept it pretty clean – my behavior, I mean. On the weekends I cut loose and even smoked a joint once in a blue moon. The bosses complimented me on my hard work, perfect attendance and punctuality. Then - BANG! Some dumb-ass kid drops a fucking I-beam on my back and since I’m involved in the accident, I have to take a piss test. I lost my job, which meant the hospital stuck me for the bills. When I heard the amount I owed, I asked a nurse to kill me. How was I supposed to know that she was a devout fundamentalist Christian? She snitched on me. For over an hour I had to haggle with the Chief of Medicine at the hospital to just release me, with the proper medication, of course.

So it’s three months later. I’m still living with my brother and his bitch wife Donna. Every night Donna bundles her hair in curlers and sprays the shit out of it before going to work as the secretary at a “family” radio station. It’s her hair helmet and its special mist that keep the devil with his facts and rational thinking from entering the temple of her skull. On Sundays, Daryl and Donna like to host dinner parties. Donna puts on her seasonal apron, bakes, hums to herself and sports her patent leather loafers. She’s as dumb as a football bat.

At the Friday night orations, Donna doesn’t say anything. She only nods and smiles with her off-color eyebrows raised like a devoted android. I stepped into the house and noticed that Daryl looked especially pissy, holding something behind his back. “We’ve been waiting for you?” he says. “Going out on one of your crusades of self-destruction this evening?” The intonation of his voice rose at the end of this question as if Donna had suddenly squeezed his balls.

“No, I’m actually saving my energy to join you in your crusade against drinking, drugs and masturbation,” I said.

“Very funny, sir. You certainly do take after your father,” said Daryl. Though he calls himself a Christian, he still cannot forgive our dear dead father for liking me better and being somewhat of an embarrassment. “Recognize this, Mr. Marley?” He shoved the remnants of my weed stash in my face. “I should call the darn police on you!”

The Zanax helped me be less defensive, but not less sarcastic. “Daryl. Donna.” She showed her teeth through her smile in response. “If you call the police on me, I’m afraid I’ll have to burn your fucking house to the ground.”

Daryl doesn’t like a lot of things. Ten years ago – when he was twenty-five – he alphabetized his pet-peeves and memorized the list, an amazing feat of memory. That’s how he even knew the name Bob Marley. Then there’s the things that ignite his latent psychotic rage. Insulting Donna does it, so does comparing him to our father. This time I threatened the safety of his home, which he considered a holy place; the only place where God allowed him to be naked. Insulting churchy things was like playing roulette. This time, the ball landed on “banshee.”

He screamed his shitty breath in my face that smelled so bad I couldn’t even hear him. “I don’t know what you just said, but you have some pungent halitosis.”

“You think this is funny? Bringing drugs into my house when I want to run for alderman? When I want to raise I clean, Christian family?” Little balls of foamy white spittle formed at the corners of his mouth.

“No, Daryl. Losing sucks. No one wants to be a loser, like a dope fiend.”

“So you have no shame, do you?! I knew…”

“I’m not a dope fiend. A dope fiend commits violent crime and steals. I buy it from a kid just down the street with my hard-earned money to treat my pain because I don’t want to get a subscription to legal drugs that will turn me into a fiend when they’re gone.”

“That doesn’t make it right!” chirped Donna. He head vibrated in fear like a cold Chihuahua.

“Donna, for the sake of a constructive conversation, perhaps you should prepare a batch of cookies, rearrange your trinket collection, anything. Just shut the fuck up,” I said, politely as possible.

“Don’t you talk to her like that!” screamed Daryl, losing his last bit of composure. He upturned the coffee table in front of me, dousing me and his prized suede couch with soda.

I stood up, calmly walked to my room and changed clothes. In my room, I remember thinking to myself how well the medicine was working. Earlier that morning, and for most of the day, I thought about punching Daryl in the face and torching Donna’s hair helmet. Now I just wanted to get my stash and leave.

When I descended the stairs, I heard Daryl speaking in his loud, “official” voice, the one he reserved for police officers and his city council ass-kiss friends. “Yes, I can keep him here, officer,” said Daryl.

The Zanax couldn’t suppress the rage I felt in my moment of betrayal. I’ve been in a lot of shitty places in my life – strip malls, the Department of Motor Vehicles, municipal court – but I swore after the last time that I wouldn’t go back to jail. I had not other choice but to tackle Daryl, take my stash and run the back way to a new friend of mine, whom I will leave nameless in this account.

I stayed until about three in the morning, when I knew Daryl and Donna would be fast asleep. That made it more satisfying to rouse him from bed and drive to the park. “I’m at a pay-phone! Please come and pick me up! I’m sorry, brother. Please, I think they’re trying to hurt me!” He bought it. I knew Donna would go, so you can’t get me on conspiracy to commit murder. I hate her, but I called Daryl to get both of them out of the house.

You know the rest. I went back and torched the place with the help of Daryl’s gas cans and my homemade napalm. Call me a loser chicken shack bastard all you want. At least I can keep a promise. That’s all I have to say, now fuck off. Print that in your newspaper.

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