Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

Jenifer had never been to S.A. before, so we went down to the River Walk and took a tour boat through the canals they have there. It was fun and probably seemed pretty plastic to Jenifer since she’s experienced the dirt and charm of Venice, but we had a good time. Afterwards we went to Taco Cabana and drank a couple pitchers of their bogus wine margaritas, mostly because Jenifer isn’t 21 yet and we couldn’t get into some club Jim and Simone really wanted to take us to. Truthfully, I didn’t really want to go to a club in San Antonio anyway so we dropped off Simone and then Jim took us cruising through the Mexican barrio for kicks. I’ve ridden the subway through Harlem in NY but I’ve always wanted to see the Mexican ghettos and I kind of felt like a snobby shit for going slumming. Still, curiosity prevailed. Class distinction is so fickle and so much bullshit anyway, more people need to get out and see how people live and survive outside of the white suburbs.

Jim still had the acid I mailed down to him a few months ago and the following day we tripped our balls off at Natural Bridge Caverns. It’s the place whose burnt orange yet cracked and aged dinosaur signs had inspired me to visit Carlsbad Caverns a while back. You know, the ones that looked like a retard person painted them? It was a different experience than I expected and it was almost creepy down in the cave but I really enjoyed holding Jenifer’s hand and watching the walls melt and then reform. I think I must be getting old because lately when I trip I get slightly scared when the raw intensity of the hallucinations overpower me. I feel the acid more, which should be good but it just isn’t that fun to me anymore and almost by unspoken agreement, Jenifer and I hardly even mess with it now. I guess acid is just something people grow out of. This was just a special rare occasion, and besides I’m a sucker for exploring caves.

The cave was pretty freaky but the tour of the caverns only lasted about an hour and a half, so by the time we got back outside we were all still peaking really hard and we were too fucked up to think of anything else to do that might be cool. On acid it’s hard to quickly adjust to changing situations and going from being in the total darkness of a cool cave to back out into the hot sun was disconcerting. Still, it was a clear sunny day and we made the best of it. We were all still slightly tripping when we eventually went to meet Simone over at her parent’s house and hang out. Her little brother is a schizoid with a motor mouth, but in all probability he’s a genius that will do great things if he can learn to focus. Still, he was kind of annoying given the state I was in at the time.

We went and ate breakfast at Simone’s house the next morning, which tasted wonderful despite my hung over belly. A traditional Mexican breakfast with chorizo is a great cure for what ails ye, especially after the weird night we had. Jenifer, who is allergic to everything on four legs, had a severe asthma attack in the middle of the night that was triggered by Jim’s foo-foo dog. She didn’t have the “machine” with her and I tried suggesting all sorts of remedies in my overreaction to something I couldn’t control. We even tried going out and sleeping in the car to get away from the pet dander but eventually we had to wake up Jim and get him to drive us to the nearest hospital for her special steroid mist treatment. After arguing with the bone head doctor, who seemingly felt threatened by Jenifer telling exactly him what she needed in an amazingly ridiculous battle of wills, she was all better.

I hate seeing Jenifer in pain, her attacks hurt me with worry and her tough attitude sometimes makes me forget she is as fragile as a desert flower and could spontaneously keel over. She often tells me she almost died when she was born from this asthma and I’ve personally witnessed what could have been her second death (twice!). Bad luck happens though, so if we can get through her ‘little death’ number three with no repercussions, her life should be kissed with blessings forever.

Cramming our San Antonio adventure into just a few days was a whirling dervish of an experience but loads of fun. Seeing the power of Simone’s family cohe-siveness made Jenifer and I pine for one of our own, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon. I psychically sense distraction ahead of us. Visiting Jim was like visiting a favorite uncle and he treated us really well. Respecting his sleep patterns we pulled out early in the morning without waking him up to say goodbye, but it was necessary to make our timetable. I hollered at his little brother who was awake, and told him to say goodbye to Jim for us and to keep his fingers nimble so he could retain his title as Super Nintendo champion. We drove the rest of the way down to Laredo and crossed the border into Mexico on foot to buy some roofies. Many nights of Dominos pizza and relaxed loving are in our future now. Jenifer smuggled the Ro’s across in her pants with no trouble and we’re on our way home with yet another mini-vacation under our belts. We’re so cool we went to San Antonio and didn’t even see the fucking Alamo. Even Ozzy had to stop and pee on it when he went there, but I guess that he’s even cooler.

I feel so incredibly mammalian today, what with the heat and all. Having body hair is like having parasites all over my body, sapping my crucial minerals and the calories that I need to grow. I think maybe evolution is weeding hair out of our human genetic pool because it is past serving its purpose as a survival mechanism. All the thinning patches do now is give lawyers and businessmen sunroofs of insecurity for their heads. If I ever start going bald I’m going to shave my shit off like Michael Jordan instead of trying to cultivate a flap. A flap is when a person grows out the hair on the side of their head and tries to comb it over the balding area. It’s what the military might refer to as a strategic deployment of available forces. A mullet is a fish? My body hair is sucking me dry to extend its roach-like antennas up through my skin. I’m metamorphosizing [1] The dictionary says metamorphosizing is not a word. It should be. into a giant Kafka bug! I worry that this incessant hair growth will eventually turn Jenifer off. It certainly turns me off when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror after a shower.

My life is at the point where if I found a picture of the Virgin Mary weeping on some strange surface I wouldn’t even call the Catholic church to try to cash in on it. Say she appeared on a tortilla; I would probably eat it thinking “damn that tortilla tasted heavenly!” savoring the pleasure all for myself. Maybe I’m fearful of exploitation due in part to my anger at the discovery my education wasn’t always based in truth, which makes me fearful of exploiting things myself. Focusing on the small pettiness of life is making me increasingly atheistic, yet when I let my mind expand enough to take in the vast infinity of the universe I know there is a God. I know it, even when I don’t want to know it. The only problem I have with Him is that the world I live in reflects a laissez-faire policy on His part and that’s even scarier to me than not believing at all.

I’ve come to the personal decision that I believe in a higher power, and I know God wants me to question everything, including Him. There are enough people with blind faith based in ignorance; wouldn’t it seem logical to love the people that find out God exists on their own?

“Expedit esse deos, et, ut expedit esse potemus—It is expedient that gods should exist, and, as it is expedient, let us deem that gods exist.” I take comfort in knowing at least my God isn’t a tool invented by the man to control society, and so despite his anonymity I have to be content with the knowledge that He’s doing the right things. The fucking Baptists around here would censor the entire world if we let them. It’s almost as if they think God favors sterility.