The Road To Happy Destiny 2009.08.01[2] Final Draft

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The Road to Happy Destiny by David Burdett You end up there because you’re a fuck-up. Sitting in a plastic party chair at the 4x16 foot plastic table I stared intently at the resin-yellow disco ball hanging from the ceiling and imagined it had seen more tears, cigarette smoke and bullshit than a three hundred year old social worker. My road to recovery had begun and the regret I felt wasn’t for all of the people I had hurt, lied to, ripped off and fucked over – it was for what I should have done to avoid being in that chair. I scanned the room and forced myself to read the heart-touching platitudes and the moronic acronyms – anything to avoid the empathetic eyes of the caring and or loud mouthed bullshit whirling around me. The whole room seemed a toilet bowl just about to spill over, or stop just at the very top. I drifted in and out of the mandatory readings, court cards, money in the basket, principles before personalities, and non religious higher powered spirituality until a member was chosen to recite a prayer of their choice and get the ball rolling. “Our father we come to you as a friend, where ever two or more are gathered you will be in the midst…” The walls. Read the shit on the walls. “Keep coming back” “One day at a time” “Easy does it” A triangle in a circle: is that the universal symbol of homosexuality? I had heard all of this shit before, a court ordered bumper sticker. With the formalities in place and giddy chatter subsiding, the recovery dumper backed its ass up to the edge of the abyss ready to plop out its load. Today’s topic: Spirituality and your higher power. I guess standard A.A. protocol is to single out the newest, saddest, self-conscious motherfucker in the room and ask them if they would like to be the first to “share”. A well-intentioned skank bathed in expired perfume with crayon orange lipstick smudged across her top denture asked me if I would like to share. “No.” I had seen it coming and had said the word in my mind a thousand times preparing for her. “Well, what about you June? I see you over there smiling and talking to Carl.” “My name is June and I am a very grateful alcoholic.”

2 I’d be more grateful to be mentally retarded, I thought. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a retard cry. We were only ten minutes into the meeting. My thoughts startled me. Don’t judge. This woman’s an idiot. People are you. Don’t judge. Spiraling thoughts were broken when I became acutely aware of the odor assaulting my nostrils: an admixture of boiled hot dogs, unwashed snatch and Dennison’s Chili. I felt a stare, heard the “telephone pervert breather” breath, and turned to face the inevitable. Our eyes locked as I sat in pussyfied politeness while the burned out speed freak from the 70’s cracked a smile of baked bean teeth and began tapping his grimy index finger on the side of his grimy coffee cup. Veils of lacquered-on brown slobber drips; it had been a long time since the scumbag had bothered to wash his own mug. Fossilized flecks of mouth shit covered the graphic of two children huddled beneath an umbrella; the caption read, “If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.” Sheepishly nodding my head I looked up to see his stare had remained locked on me. His face was fixed in a self-satisfied recovering asshole expression that I immediately loathed and vowed to never emulate this posture. The way the idiot was smiling you would have thought that he had just turned me on to Jesus. I broke eye contact with a feeling of shame and pushed my feet on the ground to relieve as much of my body weight from the chair as possible trying to not make a sound and draw attention to myself as I made a break for the exit. With just enough space to slip away from the table, I walked the bubble wrap mile to the door as a murky voice droned on about how wonderful their new life was. Grasping the doorknob that had the hoodoo of a billion soggy Kleenex firm and welcoming hand shakes on it, I shimmied out of the meeting into the lobby. Referred to as the “half measures” room, the lobby had earned its nickname from chapter five of the alky bible, “The Big Book”. I paused for a moment to regulate my breathing and lessen the fear but immediately my brain began the violent mind fuck: “Yours is a punishing system.” To counter I vocalized in my mind “calm the fuck down, it doesn’t have to be like this,” but my self-administered pep talk was too late. It was on. I felt like shit. What kind of moron gives up his own apartment, pisses away everything, and ends up in a place like this expecting magic from a few minutes of one meeting of this cult. I hated myself, hated letting my life get so pathetically out of control, hated all of it. I couldn’t help but think about every piece of shit who had blatantly disrespected me, saw my kindness as weakness and preyed upon me when I was sick and broken. Scenario after scenario ran through my mind: who I should have beat down, who I would have loved, and how I could have avoided shitting all over my fucked-up useless life. Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda. I chose this and once again I made the wrong decision; I was doomed to be a pussy and an idiot.

3 “When are you gonna quit puttin quarters in the ass-kickin machine” said the urban cowboy with the solid white mutton chops to the basket case with the shaved head. “What?” I blurted out in habitual meek manner. He repeated himself with more gusto and seemed to be getting off on my inability to process his regurgitated witticism. “What’s that?” “You keep feedin that thing quarters and it keeps kickin your ass.” He wouldn’t go away and I couldn’t disappear. “You got yourself a sponsor?” “Uh-hu” “What about a big book?” “Yes” “Well, you might want to read it and do your fourth and fifth step so that you can get on with this program, get a life worth living and start acting the way god wants.” The fourth and fifth steps: an inventory and admission of every personal secret shame that keeps you an active alcoholic, an inoculation against an imaginary disease. Talking to God and admitting to one other trustworthy soul of every time you may have had a homosexual experience, stolen from your parents, fucked somebody for cash or made a beer run was guaranteed to release you from the shit sandwich you had packed. An evangelical pardon from the invisible chains that hold you earthbound and cock blocked from your highly anticipated way to religious ecstasy. I had heard many alkys talk of these steps and the fantastical feelings they earned from spilling their guts. The aftermath was commonly reported to be followed by being on a pink cloud. How could I lose? “I don’t know what happened or how it works but I now have a higher power in my life that I can rely on for sustained sobriety, car payments, unrequited love, getting my family back, and so much more”. What a crock; non-mystery it all was: an imaginary friend with super powers, a cosmic babysitter with a vested interest in the banal superficialities of your new life. “Who’s your sponsor?” it was the cowboy again “Oh,uh, my sponsor?” He’s not from around here.” “You need to find one here.” “Oh-okay.” He sat in his chair eyeballing me. I felt like a five year old who had been busted for something that was completely beyond my comprehension. He turned to re-engage the other crusty old fuck sitting across from him. I was free to go.

4 Stepping outside to leave I was horrified. There were more of them congregating in the parking lot and the only way past them was to acknowledge their presence and hope they weren’t interested in who I was. All shaved heads and gloating goatees they stopped their yakking, turned their attention to me and introduced themselves, hands out all around. After I reciprocated, they glanced me over, blew me off and resumed yakking. I stood there like a fucking idiot. Paralyzed. No clue where to go or how to simply walk away. Like a beat to shit dog waiting to be patted on the head, I finally clenched every muscle in my body and walked away. Out of everyone’s immediate space my head resumed war on itself. Sheets of glass dropped from the sky and exploded all around me, everything and everyone I had ever loved disintegrated. I was lost inside my skull as a thousand televisions tuned to a thousand different channels blared at full volume. I was in hell and there wasn’t a person, a thing, a god, a love or the smile of a child that could fix it. fuck Fuck FUCK FUCK! FUCK!!! It was broad daylight and drive time as the tears began to seep. People everywhere. Goddamned people in their cars, on the sidewalks, in office buildings, in uniforms, in love, in airplanes; people with people growing inside of them, pushing little people in strollers. I began to sob and choke. The snot slickened my hands and my eyes swelled shut from the bitterness of a failed existence. I hated the fucking world and begged for forgiveness. ~-~ I made it to my apartment without throwing myself into traffic or stopping at the liquor store and felt no better for it. Across the former fruit picker barracks courtyard Bill and Annie stood together. Bill was a good guy who was constantly drunk and perpetually barbequing. He would get wasted and bore the shit out of me with talk of atmospheric pressure, scientific data on asteroids, tips on camping, and the divorce he was going through. Annie was white trash. Lead paint and power lines. Trailer parks, gang rapes, a mother dead from alcoholism, and lots of uncles. She was as good a reason as any to not believe in god or universal fair play or evolution as anything I had seen. She had zero tact, an ugly pain-formed scrunched face and an ass that reminded me of a cardboard box that had been kicked in then reshaped. “Hey Dave!” they sang in drunken unison, “Are you coming from your meeting?” I had made the mistake of telling them that I was part of “Team-AA” and didn’t drink. “Yeahp.” “How was it?” Annie giggled as Bill stood there with his standard issue Budweiser grin. “It sucked dick. What are you cooking?”

5 “Steak and chicken,” he looked down at the can he was holding. “You’re welcome to join us. If the beer bothers you I can put it in a cup.” “If the beer bothers me that’s my problem.” I’ll be back in a minute.” I crossed the courtyard, pushed my way into the roach poison stench and ninety degree heat of my apartment, went straight for my meds, chewed four Klonopin dry and grabbed a hot beer I had stashed beneath the kitchen sink and washed down the paste. “Fuck everybody,” I muttered as I looked around the cracker box living compartment. I grabbed my wallet and hit it out the door. “Takin’ off?” Bill asked. “Goin’ to the store.” “Are you sure you wanna do that?” chimed Annie. “Let me check,” I glanced up at the sky not breaking stride toward the liquor. “Yeah.” A cowboy in a brothel, a drooling of the soul. I hadn’t had a drink in eleven months and had one hundred and thirty-two dollars and every reason in the world to get anesthetized. Sobriety was torture. It hurt to breathe and all I had managed to do over those past sacred months was sit in meetings, masturbate compulsively and fall asleep night after night to the light of the television with my head in a vise. I dropped anchor and stood in front of the refrigerators as the caps of the bottles flipped up and down, greeting me by name and singing gleefully at our reunification. It felt good to be back home. Twelve pack imported, one pint domestic, when I returned Bill had disappeared next door to shovel his barbeque at a girl he was trying to fuck. Annie sat on the concrete square outside her front door, “Hey.” “Hey. You want a beer?” “Sure!” she lit up with a smile “Well come on over, I’m gonna get this stuff in the fridge.” She stood behind me in the kitchen unsteadily watching me stuff beer into the glovebox compartment freezer. She was already hammered. I took a butter knife and framing hammer, busted loose a couple of chunks of frost from its sidewall, tossed them into two coffee cups and poured the whiskey high. “Here you go,” I handed her a mug and grabbed mine. “So, you’re not going to AA anymore?” she asked. “Not tonight. Tonight, I’m going to get fucked up. Screw AA.” “What are those meetings for anyway?”

6 “For? Mental masturbation. For those who love the sound of their own voice. For people too stupid to find their way to an actual church. AA’s a place you can go and commiserate with a bunch of other fuck-ups about your ‘Disease’ and how ‘Normal People,’ whatever planet they reside on, don’t understand you because even though you don’t drink anymore or are trying not to drink you will never be like them because, previously unbeknownst to you, you’re a hedonistic, self-absorbed, self-appointed defective human being with a disastrous denial system, and this has been glaringly obvious to anyone with two marbles to scratch together, but completely eluded you your entire life. You should go sometime; it’s a fuckin’ hoot and a half.” I caught my breath and smiled, recalling the first time I heard some geriatric macho guru spouting off that his worse day sober was better than his best day drunk. “What a fuckhead” I thought at the time; “what a complete fuckhead” I thought again as I drained my mug, held it upside down over my mouth, and tried to touch the bottom of it with my tongue. She smiled and laughed. Nothing I said had even registered with her but it didn’t matter. I just wanted somebody to drink with who would periodically laugh, feign some interest in who I was, and let me stick it in their ear for a few hours. An emotional kotex. Somebody to wipe the shit of my soul onto. I was happy she was there. “Want another?” “You just handed me this one.” I took the mug from her and smiled. “Well, how about I freshen it up for you.” I sucked hers down, refilled both mugs, and with a series of flourishing hand gestures I spoke with an auctioneers rapidity and laid down the rules of the house. “There you are – bottoms up. If you need to puke, front door, trash can, sink, or hold your shirt out like a basket and aim south. Other then that, go to town!” “Huh?” she looked confused. I slowed my speech to that of a guidance counselor on Quaaludes and repeated these instructions in a monotone and then burst into laughter. “Nothing, enjoy.” We sat opposite of each other. Her on the couch and myself at a collapsible table that held a homemade six-by-five-foot tall rectangular bookshelf. Twenty pounds of stereo piecework was perched there; at the zenith was a fifteen-pound Buddha the size of a cantaloupe. My command center. Music, literature, porno rags, lotion, paper towels, dozens of writing utensils, a multitude of legal pads and grade school composition books filled with repetitious crybaby rants: loneliness, fear, my hopelessness on being a state-certified depressive retarded morbid asshole drowning in my life on a brutal stupid planet – the whole shit hand I had been dealt. Pages of chaff interspersed with

7 rudimentary sketches of tear-spattered suicide poses. I had constructed this heap with an unobstructed view of the ka-ka colored bunkers, dozens of feral cats, and the hot dead asphalt of the courtyard that sopped up the sun and always smelled of piss, and ordained it my writing table. I felt bad every time I sat here but aside from the toilet it was the best seat in the house. “What is that thing?” she pointed to the Buddha and breathed quietly out of her mouth. “It’s a trophy, I won it playing croquette, placed third. Pretty cool huh?” Her stare met my eyes briefly then bobbled up and down between my face and crotch. She squirmed in her seat grinding herself around in her pants and own juices. I knew what was coming so I got myself another cup of whiskey and popped open a beer. If I was going to have sex with this girl I was going to be delirious and she was going to be pretty. “What about me?” she cracked a perturbed canary-yellow cutie smile. “Oh, sorry. Help yourself.” She stood and hiked her pants up high and tight in an effort to arouse me by exposition of her damp camel-toe. “Grab me another beer, huh?” Damn. Don’t fuck her. You are drunk and if you were not drunk you would not fuck her. Do not shit where you eat. She will surely make you regret it. She handed me my beer. By the look in her eye I could tell that she knew she was going to get laid. “Do you wanna fuck me?” “What?” Her lemon stained smile widened. I felt like a cartoon character who was about to be pushed over a cliff for the umpteenth time. “You look like you could fuck me really good.” The balance of power had shifted. My good time Charlie lampshade hat had been swiped for something I knew was going to end up in the ditch. “Look, I just don’t want to spoil what could blossom into a great friendship, that and we’re both fuckin’ drunk.” I could tell she knew that I was repulsed by her. She was standing there looking at me, summing me up as another man-pig who would take a blow job then abandon her in the park. It was now my duty to at least fuck her and try to not deny, confirm, or justify my actions to anyone, including myself.

8 We cautiously approached each other and as we began kissing our movements became jumbled and dyslexic. My hands went up in a halting position as I grabbed at her tits like they were something intrusive and separate to the matter. We were two very anxious drunken people who had just skipped into traffic together and had to keep going for our own clouded interior reasons. I pulled my self out of my t-shirt and felt flabby and spent. For a millisecond I fantasized that we would both start laughing simultaneously, agree to a postponement and spend the rest of the evening drinking and enjoying each other’s company. As I stepped out of my shorts I looked down and saw she was already on her back. My dick hadn’t decided to come along for this ride. I looked at my frame in the mirror and stared at my dick, my size 15 foot, my six-foot five-inch 235 pound frame and wished my shoe size were two or three smaller. I wasn’t asking god for a kickstand, just a little consideration. "You okay?" she seemed worried. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm cool." She peeled off her dirty leotards and was naked. In a flash she was gripping both sides of the blubber casing that framed her pussy, exposing her clit. What little hard-on I had wilted as I looked down at what seemed a baboon’s ass and scanned the room for my drinks. I wished I were sitting next to them instead of in front of what was going to happen next. It was a bad decision but I tried anyway. I hadn’t fucked in over a year. I knelt down in front of her and began squeezing the shaft of my cock thinking, “If I can get it up even the slightest, biology will take over, I’ll get hard, fuck her and be done in fifteen minutes.” I rubbed my dick from clit, to lips to hairy asshole. It wasn’t going to happen. “What’s the matter, don’t you like my pussy?” “No it’s fine, I just…the speed, the beer, the pills ya know?” She was hurt by my lie and hurriedly slipped into the bathroom with her tights in one hand and pulling her tattered t-shirt over her ass with the other. I sat naked and cross-legged in the center of the bedroom floor listening to the hum of the air conditioner, the sounds of her sniffling and the water running in the sink. She came out and was startled I wasn’t dressed. “Why aren’t you dressed? Most guys won’t sit around naked in front of a girl unless they have a nice body and a big dick.” She looked at the ceiling and combed her hair. “Well, I’m not like other guys on both counts." Maybe some light hearted self-effacing humor might take the sting off of her and restore some measure of comfort. “I’m going to the living room to get my drink.” she said. I got dressed and did the same.

9 We sat opposite sides of the room and drank. I saw it coming and tried to divert it. “What kind of music do you like? I’ve got just about everything except country.” “What kind of women do you like?” she asked “I don’t know, that’s a big question.” “You don’t know?” There was no way of giving an honest answer without insulting or hurting her. “I like all types, sizes, shapes and colors of women.” “Have you ever fucked a nigger?” “Yeah, I’ve had sex with black chicks.” “Oh god, if I woulda known that I wouldn’t wanna have fucked you.” “What do you have against blacks? “They’re fucking monkeys!” “I got news for you, we’re all monkeys.” There was a welcome silence. We stared off into separate spaces when I thought of something she could do for me before I got rid of her. My pattern has been once drunk to get my hands on some dope so I could keep drinking and keep myself sexually entertained. It didn’t require anyone else and I was hell bent on having a good time. “Do you know where to get any shit?” “What kind of shit?” “Speed, Meth?” “How much do you want?” “A 20 or 40, whichever we can get with the least amount of bullshit.” “Give me 40 dollars and I’ll go across the street to the motel. My friend Sandy owes me a favor and she’s always holding.” “Does she shoot?” “What!?” “Does she use a fucking needle?” I slapped my arm and bugged my eyes out. “Why!” “Because if she does, offer her ten for a sealed one.” “You’re a fucking hype now too!?” “No, I’m a recreational intravenous drug user.” She stared me down with incredulous disdain. “Here’s ten more. Get yourself another pint and a six pack of Cobra for me. How long is this gonna take?”

10 “Fifteen minutes” she answered “I’ll see you in an hour.” I felt better with her gone. I sauntered to the fridge and pulled another tall can from the freezer. At just over four dollars a six-pack, they never failed. Simple and honest and they fucked niggers too. ~-~ I sat at my table and watched – the dirt field and the giant malformed pepper tree across the courtyard became beautiful with the quiet setting of the sun and emptying of tall cans. I was at peace when she reappeared in the doorway wired and shitfaced. “Did you get it?” “Yeah,” she dug the baggie out of her bra and handed it over. “What the fuck is this shit? Did she sell you a point? “A what?” her eyeballs were bouncing, darting, spinning. “A carousel? a rig?, a hypodermic needle?, not that I would stick this chalky cut up garbage into my arm.” “She’s supposed to have more in an hour.” “You know what, fuck it. Do you want your half or did you already do it?” “She smoked some of her personal with me while we were waiting on her connection.” I emptied the tiny baggy onto the desk. I was euphoric from the malt so the amount wasn’t a big deal. “If you want we can smoke it from my pipe?” she squeaked and produced a glass stem that was charred black from smoking low grade crank. “This stuff won’t smoke, Its crap. I’m gonna snort mine.” She hurriedly scooped up her pile, poured it down the neck of the pipe, put fire to it and began sucking as if it were the last dick on earth. That is some fucked up shit I thought and rolled a bill, jammed half the length up my nose and snorted. The dope was just good enough to sober me up. “Let’s go to the store.” “What for?” “Moon pies and penny whistles.” “What?” “To get more alcohol.” “Can I have some vodka and Hawaiian punch?” “Might as well.”

11 Any self respecting shallow asshole wouldn’t be caught dead in public with this fucked up bitch but the failed sex earlier dictated and my chemically-induced shifty moral code allowed mutual public exposure. “Hold my hand,” she gleefully suggested as we crossed the intersection. “Why? You fuckin’ lost?” The Palestinians that ran the mart were scumbags but as long as you didn’t ask for credit they were easy enough. I often imagined they taught these foreigners in some liquor store etiquette school to address every man as “Boss” or “Chief” and all the women with stale marital nicknames like “Beautiful,” “Honey,” “Sexy,” “Sweetheart.” “So Boss, you do like the pussy?” he asked, as she pondered her choice of corn nuts flavor. “She give me head for vodka. Five-dollar head.” “Yeah, how much for a fifth of rum?” I cut him down with a lick of my lips and “I’ll suck you off for a candy bar” grin. He quickly checked our items, faked a cell phone call and didn’t call me Boss as we left. “See ya next time Chief!” I announced. “I hate that piece of shit.” “I know.” Back at my apartment she sat on the love seat and cleared a place for me, I sat opposite of her at my writing table. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “So, have you had a fucked-up life?” she asked. She wanted me to care. She wanted someone to listen. “Compared to some people yeah, compared to a lot of others, no.” She wanted me to ask her about her life. She wanted me to listen to her drunken pain, her monologue, her reasons. Her trying to figure her way out of a fucked- up existence through two pints of vodka with the empathetic ear of someone who was in no mood to expend the energy to listen to the screams of one more broken human being. I wasn’t having it; there was nothing I could do about it. I spoke up. “You know what? Fuck this place. Fuck every shit slinging monkey fuck retarded derelict who has helped this sad ball of poison that we live on devolve into the free floating heartless, godless, dickless, cosmic turd that it is. You could take nine out of every ten motherfuckers that I’ve met in my lifetime and utilize them for dog chow or glue! Give most people a play station, a twelve pack, a hand job, and a bottomless sack of “happy” and they could give two shits about anything or anyone else.”

12 “What are you talking about?” she giggled as she sucked on her fruit punch and vodka. She was laughing at me. Everything was laughing at me. Fear and rage cleaved through my mind as I struggled not to be hurt by someone so ugly and so dumb. “I’m talking about getting you and your shit the fuck out of my apartment.” I wanted to put her head through the wall. I wanted her vaporized. She was just one more person walking around breathing my air and making life hurt. “You think I’m fucking funny?” She kept giggling as my mind began to devour itself and become lost in its own adrenaline and confusion. I was shaking as she walked out the door and crossed the courtyard to her apartment. I quietly shut the door, raised my beer to my cheek and spilled a mouthful down the front of my shirt. Fear settled on me. That fear of everything. The fear that no matter what, I was cursed to play this role, and even suicide wouldn’t stop what my life was. I peered from a pinhole in the shade across the courtyard at her window as the ghostly light of a television switched on. There was nothing left to do. I took the last beer, turned off the lights, sat down with the monsters and waited for the sun. -- The End - May 7th 2009 David Burdett [email protected] (909) 969-3502

13 IGNORANCE IS BLISS. So what’s the opposite? Awareness is hell. I am never comfortable with myself. I see too much.