Noah Cicero - The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. I

“I wish I could say the same thing.”

“Why do you stay here?”

“Because I’m mad and poor.”

“That’s a good reason,” Missy says.

“Someday I’ll leave and become great.”

“You probably will one day.”

“Yeah, I’ll be a superstar.”

“Don’t forget me.”

“I won’t.”

I look at her face and imagine her in a white wedding dress walking down the aisle.

“I’m writing a screenplay about restaurant life. See, I’ve realized how our generation has deeply depended upon restaurants to make money,” Missy says.

“Yeah, I’ve thought of that. I’ve worked in at least ten restaurants and I’m only twenty-two. Our parents never worked at restaurants, they worked at the factories.”

“Yeah, the restaurant is like our factory.”

“There’s also telemarketing, and door to door sales.”

“Yeah, our generation has a completely different world of work opportunity than even people fifteen years ago.”

“Our generation doesn’t have much opportunity at all.”

“No, it doesn’t… Most of us have given up anyway. Look at this bar, these are all middle class white kids, and most of them will never finish college, they will just work shitty jobs, and get drunk.”

“I hate to say it, but that’s me too.”

“It’s me too, but I’ll have a college degree.”

“This world doesn’t want our generation.”

“No, and we don’t want this world,” Missy says.

“The world will be polluted to hell, and overpopulated when we get it.”

“And the economy will be a piece of shit.”

“I don’t think the economy will ever rise again. And the Middle East will just get more and more fucked up. And the terrorism won’t stop until we take our bases out of there, and leave them the fuck alone.”

“No, we’re fucked and that’s all there is to it.”

“And nobody even knows it.”

“And no one even cares,” Missy says.

“Hopefully we’ll figure it out before it’s too late.”

“Hopefully… Well, I have to go tend the bar in the back. I’ll see ya.”

“See ya.”

There she goes, the woman I want to marry.

I sit alone again.

Facing the universe.

I drink another BV and Coke.

Tasha sits down next to me.

Tasha is a notorious slut.

I’ve had sex with her, of course.

She has a big white ass.

That is so lovely.

She suffers from mental illness.

I had to visit her in the mental ward two weeks ago.

They should have given her shock treatments.

“How are you doing, Mark?” Tasha says.

“I’M FREAKING OUT!”

“Why, what’s wrong sweetheart?”

“THE WAR!” I scream it for everyone to hear and look at me.

“I know, it’s killing me too.”

“THAT MONGREL PRESIDENT, I’LL FUCKING KILL HIM!”

“Calm down, get a hold of yourself.”

“I WILL NOT GET A HOLD OF ANYTHING!”

I order another BV and Coke.

“Mark, it’ll be all right.”

“THERE’S A WAR ON, NOTHING IS ALL RIGHT!” I scream again.

“Mark, settle the fuck down!”

“NO, I’M FREE AND I WANT MY OPINION TO BE HEARD!”

“You won’t stop the war acting like this.”

“FUCK THE WAR AND THAT FASCIST BUSH!” I’m still screaming.

“Listen you’re drunk, I think you should stop drinking.”

“I can’t stop drinking, I have to suppress my anger somehow. I think I’m going to start a fight,” I yell at the crowd in the bar. “Is anybody Republican in here. Because if you are, I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Nobody responds, they just go on with their conversations.

“Come to the back of the bar with me and have a seat. Okay?”

She leads me to the back room of the bar where crapieoke takes place.

There are lazy boys from the seventies in the back.

She sits me down.

I fall into the chair, drunk.

I stare at the mongrels called humans.

I don’t like them.

All of them are for the war.

All of them want my kind and me dead.

The dirty mongrels!

I notice that Tasha is wearing a sexy skirt.

I get the urge to fuck her.

Or punch her in the face.

I’m not sure which.

I get up and get another BV and Coke.

I walk around bumping into people screaming, “STOP THE WAR MOTHERFUCKERS!”

Everybody just stares and laughs.

But I’m fucking serious.

It’s not that I don’t think the causes for the war are just or unjust.

I just don’t want fucking war.

I tumble into Jimmy.

I grab him by his shirt.

“STOP THE FUCKING WAR JIMMY, STOP THE GODDAMN WAR!”

“I can’t Mark, this is beyond our control,” Jimmy says.

“NO, STOP THE FUCKING WAR!”

Then I stumble away.

I keep gulping my BV and Coke through the straw.

I can no longer control myself.

I have to find a ride home.

I walk over to a really stupid hot girl and whisper, “Can you help me?”

“Yeah, what do you need?”

“I need to stop the war.”

“I can’t help.”

“No one can,” I say pathetically.

I stumble on.

I go back to the bar and get another BV and Coke.

The war has started in my mind.

Bombs are crashing into my neurotransmitters.

George W. Bush is talking in my mind.

Spitting beautiful lies.

I’m so tired of lies.

I seek truth.

But there is none to be had.

I want to go to sleep.

Humans are such vile creatures.

They deserve this war.

They deserve to die.

They deserve to have their family members die in the sands of the Middle East.

They don’t care about anyone, not even themselves.

I no longer want to be human.

I walk amongst them like they’re animals.

Because they are.

Animals.

Complete and total mongrels.

Mongrels.

All of them.

I will wage a personal war against them all.

And they’ll love it.

Humans love humans who hate other humans.

Like Kurt Cobain.

He made a living off of hating people.

I sit in my cushioned seat, drunk, staring at the people in the bar.

It’s their fault this is happening.

It’s everyone’s fault.

We are all part of America and its world domination.

We have no choice but to take part in it.

We don’t know any better.

Like a dog who shits on the carpet.

Oh no.

The world and its madness.

Music is blasting.

A thousand bad conversations are taking place.

I’m stuck in the middle taking it all in.

Drunk.

Wanting to be dead.

America.

I lay back my head and close my eyes.

The room is spinning.

The dead walk among me.

Poetry is heard in the distance.

I think I might die tonight.

Here in this seat.

I don’t see why not.

What do I have to live for?

Fifty years of being a drunken loser.

Fuck it.

I’ll die.

Fuck!

I can’t die.

What’s happening?

I’m surrounded by humans.

The filthy monkeys.

I notice Tasha’s friend Nicole sitting near me.

She’s cute.

With pink hair in pigtails.

Pierced eyebrow, nose, and tongue rings.

She turns me on.

She begins talking to me.

I don’t understand what she’s saying.

I want her to shut up.

She says the phrase, “Will you fuck me?”

I don’t know what to do with that phrase.

It sounds inviting.

I hesitate for a moment.

I’ve never fucked during a war.

I say, “Yes, but I don’t know if I can get it up.”

She says, “All right.”

“Can you drive me home? I’m drunk,” I say.

“Yeah, Emily will drive you home, and then I’ll bring you back to my house.”