Super Effin' Happy

superhappytime @ 2009-11-11T18:52:00

2009-11-12T00:52:12Z

When I was 13 I rode the bus to school. One autumn morning I left the house, as usual, about an hour after everyone else. It was about 7:45. I walked down the driveway and stood at my mailbox. My neighbor, a girl who was in tenth grade, was already down there. Within minutes several vans and police cars arrived and stopped just up the street. Men in body army got out carrying giant shields and holding guns. They got us and moved us outside a perimeter they were setting up. Over the next hour they slowly closed in on one house, though we could not see what was going on.

As I found out later, they were after one of my neighbors. The man--Kevin--had been to our house a hundred times, if not more. Though we didn't live in a subdivision or have the type of neighborhood activities you might see on television shows, he was a regular at people's backyard cookouts or holiday parties. He even went to church with a few of our neighbors.

The night before Kevin had been out with his wife at a chain restaurant by the mall. After a few beers an argument had broken out. Things escalated in the parking lot, at which point Kevin went to his truck, pulled out his totally legal and loaded handgun and shot his wife at point blank range in the face. An onlooker, apparently feeling the need to play hero, had produced his own weapon and fired it. He missed. For his trouble he was repaid with a shot to the stomach. Kevin then got in his truck and drove home to go to sleep in his own bed, where the SWAT team apprehended him without any fight the next morning.

Terri--Kevin's young, attractive wife--survived the shooting but was permanently disfigured due to muscle damage and scars. The parking lot cowboy also survived. Kevin eventually ended up in prison, but he served less than two years thanks to a temporary insanity plea. Last I heard he was working for the phone company as a technician doing home installations.

It's possible, though it seems less likely, that the same thing could have happened if Kevin didn't have a handgun and instead kept a shotgun in his truck--something that wasn't that uncommon in Atlanta in 1990, though it's a rare sight now. It's even possible to believe that a guy with no past history of violence or spousal abuse who didn't have a weapon of any type may have been capable of snapping and just punching his wife in the parking lot--though the longterm damage from that would not have been nearly as severe and the would-be Samaritans in the parking lot might have been able to actually help her in that situation. Maybe it was destine to happen or God's will.¹ But it's my belief that in the presence of a gun causes the situation to escalate quickly and led to a handful of neighborhood children who had a lot of nightmares over the next few months.

* * *

A few generations ago boys grew up on Hemingway and Falkner and the glorification of adventure and alcohol. A generation later it was Mailer and Roth and the self-indulgent pursuit of happiness through the use of your penis. For my generation, most eschewed novels. We grew up with Dr. Dre lyrics and John Woo glamorized action films that involved Chow Yun Fat, a slow motion action sequence, and two guns blazing while something explodes in the background.

I get the appeal. Guns are cool as fuck.² They make noise. They blow shit up. They give you an adrenalin rush. They look cool. They make you feel powerful. They even have cool names, like Glock and Desert Eagle. I've owned at least one pistol since I was old enough to do so legally, mostly because it's cool to write rhymes to my gun. But, just like I'm willing to sacrifice a higher percentage of my income so that other people can have a better life, I'm willing to sacrifice that right.

Any time someone mentions--just mentions--the idea of new gun legislation it causes people to get defensive--even if it is just something simple (and smart) like increasing waiting periods or taxing ammunition. The majority of the dissent seems to fall into three categories:

a) Guns deter criminals: This point is asinine. There is no way to prove or disprove this theory, just like there's no way to prove weather gun control in other nations has raised or lowered crime rates--there are too many variables that can't be controlled and you can never measure this. It's an opinion. Maybe some people are deterred by guns. I don't know. I do know that, like most of us, I've known a criminal or two in my day, and they weren't deterred by guns anymore than they were by the thought of going to jail. They thought they were invincible. And they were stupid. That's generally how one ends up being a criminal in the first place.

b) Guns protect my home: This one is probably true in some cases. I've heard plenty of stories of people defending their home successfully, and they probably even outnumber the stories of people who got shot with their own gun by the criminal. But what about the times a child picks up a gun and shoots a friend? Or what about people who pull a gun on an unarmed criminal and have it taken?³ Even if it only happens once for every hundred times--or one out of every thousand--is that a price that people are willing to pay? There's plenty of research to show that the vast majority of would-be home invaders are deterred by something as simple as a Loud Ass Alarm. In lieu of that, there are plenty of other non-lethal options for home defense, such as tasers or bear spray.⁴ Or, if you feel that guns have to be an option, how about a tranquilizer gun? Or a rifle? Are pistols really the only option?

c) It's my right: This argument drives me fucking insane. Generally speaking, I think it's the function of government to make laws to prevent greedy corporations from fucking people over, but when it comes to individuals they should follow the advice of all the hypocritical right-wingers⁵ who say that less is more. If guys want to marry guys, that's phenomenal. If people want to manufacture and smoke opium that should be their choice. If people want to sell their body to lonely dudes who can't get laid, that's just capitalism at work. If a woman wants to have lot of promiscuous sex with guys she barely knows⁶ and then use abortion as birth control, it's a decision with which she has to live. These are personal choices that people make that have no affect on you or I.

But in a modern society some laws have to made to protect people from one another. A brother and sister might really, really love each other. Or two first cousins. And, while that's a private matter, it's a good thing that the government has laws against breeding with your siblings. Because society doesn't need a bunch of inbred, deficient, stupid children running around. We already have one Ohio.

No matter how you frame the conversation, the one and only real purpose of guns is to KILL. With a rifle or shotgun, you can perhaps argue that it is for recreation in the form of hunting,⁷ but there is no defense for handguns. You might use it for target practice, but it is designed to take the life of another living, breathing, walking-around-the-earth human being. And I can't see how that is anyone's "right."

* * *

Sweeping, radical reform and bans to gun ownership don't make sense, they probably wouldn't work, and they wouldn't be accepted no more than a sudden ban on abortions or another reintroducing a prohibition on alcohol. But it really makes no sense to not try something to help deter gun violence. Maybe the first step is just to get rid of concealed weapons. After all, if you're argument is that your gun helps deter crime or is there for your personal protection, wouldn't it do more for you if you carried it out in open on your belt. It seems to work alright for cops.

My personal preference is to slowly work towards eliminating handguns. Thirty years ago, before that celebrity Ronald Reagan became president, it was the view of conservative judges that it was not their job to change laws--that was the job of the legislators--so it's surprising that a conservative court ended the Washington, DC gun ban. If handguns and assault weapons were slowly phased out, people could still have their rifles and shotguns to defend their home⁸ and they won't be robbed of what they consider a sport, though shooting an unsuspecting, unarmed animal doesn't seem very sporting at all, in my opinion.

Or maybe the best answer is that you can own whatever you want--handguns, grenade launchers, napalm, plastic explosives--just as long as you follow the same policy that should apply to smoking cigarettes, smoking crack, or two dudes smoking each one another's cock. That being that you do it in the privacy of your own home. You can defend your own house, but don't drive on public streets or walk down the sidewalk with your weapon.

I know some people have a problem with that way of thinking, and perhaps I should care, but I really don't give a fuck. Over 200 years, progress in America comes very, very slow, but it has been shown over and over again to be a (very) slightly leftward leaning, progressive nation. And perhaps people who don't like that should get the hell out and go live in the type of gun-toting, god-fearing, conservative country they seem to want. Yemen is probably a good place to start.

^{1) As people who are wont to not taking responsibility for their own actions or choices often say
2) So are illegal street races and loose women, but they probably aren't always in our best interest.
3) Or what about the fact that killing someone means you're going to hell, if you're religious, as there are no asterisks on the Ten Commandments and you are supposed to "turn the other cheek" to those who seek to do you harm?
4) And the response of "that won't work in some situations" is just bullshit. Bear spray stops angry grizzly bears. ANGRY FUCKING GRIZZLY BEARS. Do you really think the douchebag meth addict trying to steal your laptop and/or your soiled panties is stronger than an angry fucking grizzly bear?
5) Hypocritical because these people will complain about their rights to own weapons or drill for oil or smoke in public and drive Hummers, but they don't feel the same about protecting the rights of people of people who want to get high or have the gay sex.
6) Generally because she has daddy issues
7) If you're white trash
8) Although these won't do much against an angry bear}

superhappytime @ 2009-11-04T16:21:00

2009-11-04T22:22:01Z

The builder must have had a sick sense of humor. Outside the large wall of windows children were running around a playground or feeding ducks at the small pond. Inside, as if in another dimension, we sat in the crowded municipal building waiting for our number to be called so that we could hand over a check and have our vehicle registered for another year.

I'd been there for 10 minutes--though it seemed like 30--and I spent most of it staring out the windows. Perhaps that's why I didn't notice the girl sitting near me. At least not at first.

She seemed so familiar.

I kept glancing her way. She seemed to do the same.

"Starbucks," she finally said.

"Huh?"

"Starbucks. In Grand Prairie. You used to come in."

"Oh, yeah," I responded. "I used to work over that way. I haven't been there in at least a year. I left that job."

Actually, I'd been asked to leave. But that was beside the point.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I went back to gazing out the window.

"Fifty-six." A voice over a loudspeaker. It sounded about as enthused as I felt. I glanced back at the ticket in my hand. It had not changed. I was still holding number 80. I must have groaned out loud because the girl giggled.

We both sat staring out the window for a second. Children running around playing with giant smiles on their face.

"I hate them so much right now," I said. "So happy."

She laughed again.

"Look at this way. They won't be for long."

"Continue," I said. My curiosity was piqued.

"They're young. They don't know any better. Give it a few years and they'll be teenagers. Half of them will be pregnant. Or fat. Or in rehab. Or jail. Miserable."

It was my turn to laugh.

"And then adulthood," she continued. "That will be even worse. It's all down hill for those kids."

"I don't know," I said. "Look at that old lady by the pond. She looks happy."

"Alzheimer's," the girl said. "She doesn't know any better. Her family probably ditched her on that bench because they were tired of taking care of her."

"Well what about them?" I pointed out a couple sitting across the room. "They look like their having the time of their life sitting in the slow ass T-DOT line. They must be the happiest people on earth at night."

"No way," she said. "They're only happy right now because they're having an affair. By tonight she'll be at home with her lazy, fat husband and he'll have a headache from listening to his nagging wife."

"Fifty-seven" the loudspeaker called.

The girl looked at her ticket. "That's me," she said. It was almost as if she were calling out BINGO.

She got up and went to the counter. A few minutes later she passed back by with her new registration stickers in hand. She gave a little wave, then stopped and turned back.

"So, I'm going to work now. You know where it is. Maybe you should stop by later. I can tell you more about people who aren't really happy."

"Would that make you happy?" I asked.

The color rose in her cheeks just a bit and she walked off.

"You'll have to see for yourself," she called back.

I sat there looking out the window at the people in the park. I no longer saw happy children--just future fornicators and addicts and convicts. And my lips turned up just a bit.

superhappytime @ 2009-10-28T17:47:00

2009-10-28T22:47:43Z

Six months ago I ran into Simone in a mall. We talked in the awkward way that past lovers sometimes do when it ended badly and they run into one another unexpectedly. We asked about work. We both admitted we were shocked to see the other still living in this fucking town. She asked about my dog. I asked about her son.

"Well, he has a little sister now," she said.

I was surprised. I had heard a few things about her over the past couple of years, but I didn't know she was with anyone.

"So, I guess you're married...or close to it?" I asked.

But it turns out that wasn't the case at all. She was perfectly candid in telling me she'd gone through a "wild phase" when she was just "listening to her body's needs." She could probably narrow down the father to a couple of guys, but it really didn't matter because it wasn't someone she had an interest is knowing.

And now she was 26 with a baby girl--and a son not even in school. And she was living with her folks and sleeping in the same bedroom she'd spent her first 18 years.

A year ago--maybe more--I ran into Jennifer at a baseball game. As fate would have it, we were seated in the same row. She was there with a colleague. I was alone with a free ticket I'd gotten from my boss last minute. We'd never talked that much back when I was dating her step-sister, but when we had the conversation had come easily enough, as it did on that day. Especially after we'd had a few drinks.

Conversation led to flirting and compliments and four hours later we were sitting in corner booth in a dark bar making out like high school kids. The rest of the night is mostly a blur, but we inevitably ended up back at her house--a rental that happened to be right across the street from her parents. Maybe it came up that night, but I don't remember talking about the elephant-in-the-room until the next day.

Turns out she knew just as much about Maggie--the step-sister I'd once planned on marrying--as I did. There had been some family drama and Maggie had ended up flipping out and running off with a guy from work--some ignorant, older hick who was among the 20% of the population who still thought George W. Bush was doing a good job. The last anyone had heard they were living in Amarillo or some other shitty panhandle town.

Last spring I was in Charleston and bumped into Andy.

More correctly, she bumped into me. And I paid her $20, plus a tip, for her time.

I was there for work. For the sake of my career I took part in the male travel ritual of going to a strip club with my boss and his friends. I was pounding down drinks and staring at my watch when I saw her across the room on an old man's lap.

Our relationship had been short and tumultuous. Friends turned to lovers turned to bitter enemies. Then back to lovers once more. But she was one of the smartest women I'd ever met. English degree from USC. Doctorate from Columbia. And there she was on the pole. It's the only way she could make ends meet. She'd piled up so much debt with her "retail therapy" that she had no other choice. At least not legally. I decided that offering her cash to walk down memory lane would be a bad idea. Though it was tempting.

March 2007. I was in Manhattan hoping to land a job with a consulting firm. My first real girlfriend had lived there since law school. I'd found that out from a mutual friend. We'd broken up in the late 90s. We hadn't had any contact in at least five years. Still, I got in touch and we decided to meet up. I went in a night early.

It was the way you dream it will be. We clicked instantly. There was obvious chemistry. There was something more. She treated me to dinner at a high end restaurant. She had on a tan skirt and jacket and a white sleeveless sweater. I remember sliding my hands underneath it to get at her breasts while riding the elevator up to my room. It reminded me of college and the way things had been between us. The indifference to our surroundings. The sex on the floor. The cocaine in her purse.

But in college she didn't stay up all night doing blow. Not after we'd finished fucking.

And she didn't look so skinny. Or so stressed out.

I look back and I should be happy, right?

It's entirely likely I escaped disaster.

So why is it that I feel like it's all my fault and I was the one who could have saved them--even if they didn't know it at the time?

superhappytime @ 2009-10-16T17:30:00

2009-10-16T22:30:14Z

"Hank has never once bought me flowers," she said.

This didn't exactly surprise me. The "Hank" to whom she referred was her soon-to-be ex husband--though he didn't know that yet. I'd always figured the dude to be a complete jerk, if only because he looked like a meathead, worked at a hair salon, and liked to quote Glenn Beck. But Simone wasn't one to badmouth him in most situations. But she'd already made the decision to leave and was just working up the courage to tell him. Perhaps that's why our impromptu get together had turned into an alcohol-fueled confessional.

"An empty gesture. That's what he called it," she continued. "'At least you can eat chocolate,' he would say. Not that he ever got me a thing on Valentine's, either. 'Just another meaningless holiday,' he said. I'm convinced he only got me stuff at Christmas because he wanted me to get him something. And still, it was always stripper lingerie and short skirts and bright colored halter tops--shit I would never wear."

She'd just finished her second martini and her deep southern drawl was becoming more pronounced.

She was taking graduate courses at night--that's why she'd come into the city. But with the looming divorce and concerns about what it would do to her schedule--not to mention her finances--she'd met with her professor and told him she was going to have to drop the semester. She'd given me a call because she had time to kill before she was expected at home, so we met at a neighborhood bar that was popular with our friends. It was all but deserted on a Tuesday night. A drunk, professorial type with a long beard at alone by the jukebox and made a pass at Simone when she went to put money in it--apparently making no assumptions about our relationship...or the diamond ring she wore.

She deftly brushed him off. I noticed that type of thing happened a lot with her. It didn't seem to matter who she was with or where they were, there was just something about Simone that drove some guys to act without qualms. At just over six feet tall with a model's slender build I suppose she appealed to some fantasy that they had.

When she got back to the bar she took a large sip off the top of her third drink and continued talking about the misery associated with her failed marriage. Her mother-in-law was an overbearing hypochondriac who liked to drop by unannounced. Her husband--who hadn't in a church since the previous Easter--had lately taken to telling her that she didn't care enough about the baby Jesus. And they were falling behind on the rent because he'd taken to spending all their money on his car, a tricked out, early 90s model Mustang.

I'm always amazed how low some women set the bar. Especially the younger ones. Or maybe they're just looking at the wrong bar altogether. In my early twenties I had average looks and above average finances. I was intelligent, optimistic, funny, romantic, and charming, although a bit shy and insecure. And I had to work my ass off to get laid because women flocked to bad boys and gym rats.

Ten years later I was mostly the same. Still average looking. I still had a pretty decent job. Most of my insecurity had been replaced with apathy and my optimistic outlook had been replaced with cynicism, but I was mostly the same. And women were flocking to me. Once bitten, twice shy, I suppose. Simone summed it up perfectly.

"I just wish I'd chosen a nice guy," she said. She'd just finished her third drink. "Hank is so pretty. The problem is he knows it. And there is nothing else to him."

We ordered another round and conversation drifted toward more pleasant topics. She talked about the M.A. she was hoping to finish next year. We gossiped about our friends. A half hour later we were standing under a street light next to her car and I was telling her that maybe she shouldn't drive home. I didn't think she was that drunk--it was mostly just a ploy while I considered what might happen next.

Our conversation lingered for a few more minutes. There was a chilly autumn wind and we kept inching closer to one another until she was leaning against the side of her Rav4 and I was pressed against her and we were eye to eye. I reached up and played with her dark hair and a few awkward minutes passed while we both tried to ignore or prevent the inevitable. And then I pressed my lips to hers and felt her tongue slide inside my mouth. My hand found its way inside her tight sweater and I gentry rubbed the hot flesh of her bare torso.

When I was in my early twenties I was drawn to stories of passionate affairs. Heathcliff-and-Catherine type tales of wives stuck in a relationship with the wrong person and the passion and emotion that drives two people to betray someone else. Because that is how it was meant to be. People were tortured by guilt and longing who hoped for some other alternative before giving in to their desire.

Three weeks after my thirtieth birthday I fucked someone else's wife for the first time. And it had nothing to do with passion or emotion or what was meant to be.

It had to do with someone else's empty gestures.

And perhaps my desire to make him regret them.

Zero

2009-10-10T18:40:40Z

Do people read the introduction posts, or are they just here to give us a chance to practice? I have yet to figure it out.

I'm 32.

I'm male.

I'm white.

I live near Dallas, but I'm not even close to being a native--even after 5 years in Texas.

I have a tendency to talk too much about music, movies, books, and other self-indulgent interests that mean little to anyone else.

I often say things like "I like cute girls who wear skirts and listen to good music and talk about philosophy." This is because my life consists of nothing more than meaningless one night stands and nights spent high as hell just trying to break up the day to day monotony of sleeping, eating, shitting, and going to a job that has been slowly sucking the life out of me for close to a decade. I wish there were more attractive people on LJ, like back in the day. I feel like I'm alone here.

I guess you could say I'm "trying to find myself." I'm sure American usage snobs have a problem with that phrase. I even have a problem with that phrase. But it does get the point across, even if it earns a bit of a scoff. I can't blame you. Who talks like that other than assholes and narcissists? And I may be both.

I'm jealous of the lives that other people lead. Not so much those with families and so forth. I'm not sure that life is for me, although at one point I thought it was. I'm just jealous of those who wake up feeling satisfied and content on a regular basis. I would pay a lot of money for the power to delude myself in the way they have.

Perhaps that last statement sounded kind of bleak--as if I've given up. But that's not the case at all. I did say "trying to find myself." As opposed to losing myself. Although I've done a lot of that, too.

superhappytime @ 2009-10-09T01:06:00

2009-10-09T06:06:24Z

I think so. Yes.