Damn It All to Hell

Chapter 16

There’s nothing better than lying in bed after awakening from a drunken sleep. I could just lie here all day long, staring at the ceiling, thinking about life. I could die happy right now. I could stay here, thinking about that girl from last night and how she was just another face in the crowd until I realized she’s exactly what I used to be: young and hopeful, but a little too fucking pissed at the world. She’s gonna throw her life away, and I don’t wanna watch that happen.

I think I might have to seriously consider straightening myself out. That girl was obviously not very experienced with drugs. She’s just starting. I can tell. Why did I give her drugs? I don’t want to condone my way of living. I used to be young and hopeful. I was innocent once. I was smart and good-looking and ready to take on the world. Then I let people get to me. Then I let the world get to me. The whole world seemed like it was out to get me and all I wanted to do was hide. I wanted to hide beneath the largest rock I could find. I wanted to hide beneath something that would show me a moment’s satisfaction with who I was and where I was. I wanted something that would tell me it was okay to be me.

Everywhere I look, there’s something else to make me realize that nothing in life is worthwhile. I’ve been searching for some worthwhile cause in life for as long as I can remember. I tried looking inside myself for what felt like forever, and I never discovered anything. I was never the best at anything, and I never will be; I wasn’t even good at anything. I knew I couldn’t sit around being obnoxious to people that weren’t as big or brave as me forever. I wanted to do something. I wanted to make sure I accomplished something with my life. I wanted to become something, but look where it got me. I can’t remember a single time in my life when someone actually gave two shits about me. I don’t think anyone ever tried to tell me I was good at anything.

No one in the world ever tries to be motivational. No one ever says, “Yeah, sure, go ahead. Follow your dreams. Become who you want to be. Go where you want to go.” No one ever says things like that. All I’ve ever heard is, “Dreams don’t always come true. Don’t expect the impossible. Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t kid yourself.” What am I supposed to do? I’m not just gonna sit back and take what’s coming to me. I’m not just gonna be forced into some huge corporate career that I hate so I can go there everyday, while my pitiful life leads me straight into a living hell. I’m not gonna fall in love and get married to some woman who’s just gonna fucking destroy me. I’m not gonna have children who will grow up to become even more fucked up than me. Hell, no! I’m gonna get me a shitload of drugs, and then I’m gonna sell them to kids who really can’t afford them and don’t even know how to do them right just so I can make some money to support myself and do something with my time. I’m gonna face the possibility of OD-ing on cocaine everyday before I’ll sit in some office watching the world fall apart around me. I’m gonna watch the news and know the people who are getting shot. I’m gonna watch the news and know what the drug dealers and the murderers are feeling. I’m gonna do drugs, and start fires, and kill people, and throw myself out a twelfth story window just so I don’t have to be ordinary, just so I don’t have to be unhappy, just so I don’t have to be victimized. I will not be a victim. I will cause the problems.

I always thought escaping from normalcy would make me happy. I always thought rebelling against life would somehow give me something back. I thought the world owed me something and I was gonna die trying to take it. I never found it, and I don’t think I ever will. I’m getting too old to be throwing my life out the window. I’m getting to the point where I realize I need more. I’m getting to the point where I see what happened to me, and I want to make it go away. I want to stop it from happening to other people. I want to make a difference.

So I guess I still want to make a difference. It’s just gonna go around in circles like this forever, isn’t it? What will make me happy? Drugs make me happy, but it’s only temporary. The happier you get from a drug, the more you realize you need to be that happy all the time. The happier you get from a drug, the more you realize there are more things out there to be had that aren’t good for you and shouldn’t be occupying your time, your money, or your mind, but you want them and need them all the same. The happier you get from a drug, the more you realize you’re making yourself unhappy. You keep getting more and more unhappy, and then it all blows up in your face. You take more and more drugs to make yourself think the drugs are keeping you happy, and it gets to the point where you don’t think you can get out of bed to face the day. It gets to the point where you can’t take it anymore, and you’re gonna have to kill yourself because everything in life is so fucking shitty. It’s such a downward spiral.

That girl last night was so young. It’s all still a game to her. I don’t think she really understands it. I don’t think she realizes that she’s going in the wrong direction. I wish there was some way for me to help her -- or anyone for that matter -- see what drugs can really do to you. I don’t know how, though. I wouldn’t have believed anyone. I wouldn’t have let anyone stand in my way. I was too smart, too strong-willed, too sure of myself. Now I don’t know anything. I’m twenty-six years old, and I don’t know why the fuck I’m still alive. I don’t know why I wake up everyday. The drugs are getting boring. The drugs are getting to be just like any other job; you have to do it because it makes the money. And in this job, you have to do drugs because people who do drugs recognize other people who do drugs, and if you’re not fucked up, people won’t know you’re selling drugs.

So I’ve decided that drugs aren’t the answer. I don’t think there is an answer. I think you can either deal with the world or you can’t, and I guess my body has determined that it’s not gonna deal. My body has determined that it simply cannot deal with the fact that certain things in life must be done. The world has influenced me in such a way that I can’t help but rebel. I can’t help but argue with everything because none of it makes any sense.

I wonder what it is that makes people decide not to do drugs? I wonder what it is that makes some people think there are some things in life that are good? Do they sit around, looking at the trees and the flowers, thinking that the sheer beauty of it all is enough for them to wake up everyday? Do they walk down the street everyday, looking at the homeless people and the drug dealers, wondering where those people went wrong?

Maybe this is my huge revelation. Maybe this is the epiphany. Maybe the time has come for me to clean myself up. Maybe if I set the drugs aside for a little while, I’ll discover something else. Edan tried to tell me the other day that there should be something inside of me that can make me happy. I don’t think I know what he means, though. Is there supposed to be a little voice inside my head that tells me to be happy? Is there supposed to be a voice to tell me what will make me happy when everything else doesn’t? Is there supposed to be some other way for me to know? Trying to figure it out all by myself certainly isn’t easy. What could possibly be inside of me that could make me happy? Well, whatever it was, I probably fried it out of my brain cells a long time ago.

I asked Edan what it was that made him happy, and he couldn’t explain it to me. I guess he figures it’s something I’ll figure out on my own. I don’t know. He never really struck me as a happy person anyway. Maybe he’s just as unhappy as I am. Maybe there is something that will make me happy. I know it’s not money because the drugs bring in plenty of that. I like the money, but it doesn’t matter how much I have, I always wish I could have more. I think it’s something way down deep that’s missing from my soul. I think it’s something that shouldn’t have been neglected when I was young, but it was. The void will probably never be filled.

My life is such a horrible dichotomy. There are a shitload of kids that come to me, and I can see the genuine admiration in their eyes. I can tell that I’m exactly what they want to be. As far as they know, I’m the coolest thing to ever set foot on the earth. Of course they think that; that’s what I used to think about my dealer. I used to look up to him so much that I would copy his hairstyle and clothing. I used to copy his vocabulary. I even practiced walking like him. I would’ve done anything he asked me to do or anything he told me to do. Now that I think about it, it’s exactly that kind of conformity that I was trying to avoid, but it’s so much easier to listen to someone of your own generation, since they’re coming from the same place. It’s so hard to trust someone who tried to convince you there’s some mystical being who comes down your chimney every Christmas, or who told you there’s an invisible man in an invisible kingdom controlling the world from his invisible throne, or who doesn’t even know how to do a search on the internet. They’re obviously not very smart if these are the things they don’t understand. There’s so much more to it than that. They just don’t get it.

I’ve got to clear out my brain for a little while. I’ve got to see if there’s anything else for me to do. I’ve got to find out if I’ve been wasting my time for all these years. I want to find out if I’m a good person. The big problem here lies in the fact that the things I was told would make me a good person came from all the people I found I couldn’t fucking trust. What else can make me a good person? Does it make me a bad person if I think it’s good for people to believe whatever they want to believe? Does it make me a bad person if I don’t tell anyone what to do? Does it make me a bad person if I don’t listen to people who are older but obviously less intelligent that me? Does it make me a good person to ignore it all and shun the people who are different than me? Does it make me wrong to try and figure things out for myself? Does it make me wrong to want to help people be happy? Does it make me a bad person if I try things before deciding they’re bad?

These things can’t possibly make me a bad person. I don’t understand anything. If I’m constantly allowing people to do whatever the hell they want, why am I the one that feels so neglected? Why doesn’t anyone tell me to do whatever the hell I want? Why am I the only one to ask how people’s days were even if I don’t care? Why do I have to torture myself by asking all these questions? Why can’t I just exist and be happy? Why do I have to think about everything?

I think I’m too smart. Every time something happens, I have to try and figure out why it happened. I can’t just accept it the way it is. I have to question everything. I have to wonder about everything. I have to figure things out. I’m too fucking smart. Thinking is so bad for me, though! It actually makes my head hurt, and it makes me dizzy. It makes me feel like there’s nothing in the world that will ever let me figure it out. If you’re constantly questioning everything, how can you expect to ever come to a conclusion? If you come to a conclusion, you then have to wonder where the conclusion came from and whether or not it’s the right one! It fucking sucks! Every time I try to come to a conclusion, it’s always the same one. I always end up thinking, ‘Oh, fuck it all. There’s nothing to believe in, so I might as well enjoy everything in life to its fullest before I die.’ That leads me right back to the drugs. If I’m just gonna die soon enough anyway, why not do the drugs? All this thinking is making my brain hurt. I still have some E left. Oh, fuck it all.