Sam Paul - Why I Committed Suicide

The alternative to the increasingly rare normal person with a healthy normal cool-headed decision making balance, is where society’s perversions and odd urges creep into our lives. I suppose we all know the available forms of escape by now and if nothing works, or feels as if it’s working, then there is always the choice of ending this existence in hopes of an exchange for something better.

We are burnouts. The synapses and receptors I had in me are fucking fried everywhere except my heart. Through all of this shit, I still love Jenifer more than ever. I’ve overloaded my system with junk trying to give solace to my pain, only it’s creating more pain than it alleviates now. The pain of my generation.

I started out writing about adrenaline because I got fired from the Tomato today. That’s bad news for me but it’s also kind of good in a way. Without having the stolen beer money crutch I get from the Tomato maybe I can focus on cleaning up my life and doing the right thing for me and Jenifer in the future. Besides it was worth getting fired. I knew if I let what happened go, I would have to spend years in therapy regretting giving into my flight instinct when I should have had the balls to fight.

I was standing behind the counter helping make the afternoon lunch orders for people as they filtered in the door. When this guy, who I vaguely recognize, parks his white Nissan truck in the spot out front and comes in to order a slice of pizza. I’m not working the register but I’m standing behind the counter kind of looking at him as he’s giving his order when it finally hits me where I know him from. He’s one of the managers from Hastings and he’s looking at me like he knows about the crap that went down. He’s a young, average mid-management-sized white guy (cursed with a curly blond mullet hair) and he starts to say something to me when Becky inadvertently walks between us and asks me to go wash the windows outside. I fill up a big bucket of warm water and soap, get the squeegee and go outside, enjoying the morning and doing my work. I’ve about worked my way around to the front when Manager Boy comes out with his lunch and gets in his truck. I’m standing there with this squeegee in my hand staring at him and giving him a semi-evil eye since I’m not 100% sure that he’s the guy who fingered me. Then from the seat of his truck he starts yelling at me and giving me shit. He’s on Fry St., MY street, shouting that I’m a thief, telling me to “fuck off’ and to “stop staring” at him. I give him my best smirk and still stand there not saying anything to him, fully knowing now that he’s the prick that got himself promoted by pointing the cops towards me. He’s even a Flying Tomato regular; I watched as he ordered his food and he knew exactly what to get, so I’m guessing he’s the guy who told the cops where to find me too.

I’m getting more and more pissed at this guy sitting in his truck starting shit with me through his open window. I’m being calm on the outside but the whole time he’s yelling, I’m standing there getting angrier and angrier at his tirade, holding this huge 10 gallon bucket of scummy water that I just used to wash the windows. He finally figures out he can’t bait me into reacting, shakes his head, and he’s about to drive off when he starts talking about Jenifer, referring to that “blonde bitch who should have gotten busted too.”

Fucking punk! I’m seeing nothing but red then, all the shit in my life right now and all the anger that’s built up while worrying about how to change my life for the better, and this guy wants to throw down. NOBODY calls Jenifer a cunt and a bitch in front of me and NOBODY tells me they tried to get her in trouble with the law without repercussions. I threw the squeegee down so I wouldn’t have a weapon and gave him a quick rabbit punch to the jaw. It was just a light tap, and while he was stunned for a second I picked up the full 10 gallon bucket of shit-water and poured it right into his driver side window, all over his work clothes, his lap, his lunch, his hair, his stereo and several rental tapes in the car. Fucking punk, NOBODY!

He gets out of the car and I know I’m going to beat the shit out of him, but by that point I’m serial killer calm and while he’s still sputtering water I’ve already calmly walked into the Tomato and found Becky. I quickly corner her and say “I know you are going to have to fire me, so I’m going to quit now instead and save you the trouble. I’m sorry it has to be this way, thank you for giving me a job here all these years, now I’m going to go and beat the fuck out of this guy.”

By that time, I’ve got my work clothes off so that the Tomato isn’t going to be held liable and this guy’s soaking wet at the counter wanting to talk to the manager and insisting they call the cops. I’ve run up there too and I’m just reaching over the counter to get a piece of his ass when little Becky races up behind me and gets between us. This guy’s crying like a bitch now, talking about the cops and screaming to Becky that her employee is a thief, trying to tell her about the Hastings incident. Becky tells him to shut up, calls the cops for him and then gets in his face with an inhuman amount of resolve and tells him he has no right coming in here and antagonizing people or calling them thieves and that if he has a problem in his own store he should take it up there. Go Becky!

In about two seconds the police are there and then this guy is blubbering to the two cops about what happened, trying to get me arrested for assaulting him with hot water and for vandalism since the videotapes in his front seat got wet. I’m calm by then and when each officer takes us aside to interview us separately, I tell my cop straight up that Manager Boy came into the store where I worked, followed me back outside giving me shit and finally insulted my girlfriend so I poured a bucket of water on his head instead of kicking in his teeth. Since the guy isn’t really hurt and he’s blubbering like a puss, the cops kind of laugh it off, telling Manager Boy to go home and clean up and that they’ll file a statement for him. He drives off and they tell me I can go on home and that’s it. I quit or I got fired depending how you want to look at it, but it was SO fucking worth it. I’ll remember that surprised look on that fucker’s face and laugh about it for the rest of my life. I might not even need to find him and kick in his teeth.

“Temporality is the cause of all sorrow.”

Jenifer and I are moving out of the dilapidated apartment from behind the house of love. With all of our friends so fucked up with their various shit we’re taking baby steps to try and get ourselves together and beat this plague. Half of our friends are addicted to smack and the other half of our friends are addicted to shooting meth and coke.

All this drama and shit is spreading through town faster than a virus. New people I would have never pegged as dope heads are looking to Jen and I for leadership in getting them started, like we’re the fucking pioneers that paved a smooth path into some fucking unknown wilderness. There is nothing worse than giving somebody who’s never injected drugs their first shot. Their eager eyes are always tinged with slight frightfulness and then their faces light up as the rush hits them and everything makes sense to them for the first time. It makes me feel guilty because a month or so down the line I might meet the same person and they’re shooting themselves up with anything imaginable or helping some nai’ve kid do their first shot. Everyone enjoys it too fucking much. The next thing we know the same people who were our friends are coming over to our house begging to score, trying to fuck shit up, or eyeing the fucking stereo.