April 11th, 2022 - The Pub with No Beer

Dear TNY,

I’m in Kingman, AZ, I’m wounded beyond measure, and I just finished “The Pub with No Beer”. 

Or what should have been called “A Man Cleans a Bar”.

I don’t know.  I’m distracted.  This piece doesn’t do it for me.  Obviously it did it for you.  This ethereal piece about, what?  A ghost town?  Ghost bar?  Ghosts?  What does it all mean, cruel world?  Who gives a fuck.  So yeah, I didn’t really get into it.  I’m sure it’s got some clever shit I missed.  But I don’t care to go back and find out.  Mercifully, it was short.

What I’m saying is this review I’m writing sucks and that’s on me, not you.  It would have taken an astonishing love story to knock me out of this fucking unreal pain that’s holding me down.  And you don’t do those often.

I do have other shit to say, though.  So can you pass the phone, please?  Thanks.

Dear God,

Firstly, and I don’t want to come off as flippant, but fuck you.  I don’t know what else to say.  I’ve done something to deserve this, I get it.  Some fucking lesson you and Big Jeebs up there have in store for me.  But, fuck.  Since 2019, all the women I have dated (and I don’t care to debate the definition of “dated” or “together” with you, God, because you know and I know and they know, and if they don’t know, then what the fuck was I doing with them in the first place (spoiler alert: because I’m broken and can’t be alone)) stepped out while I was visiting my kids or tending to my life (and all is four, as you know, God, because I’m a huge loser who wants to fall in love and I don’t sport fuck because it hurts me, internally, to even think about (because it isn’t “just sex”, it’s being invited into someone and it’s fucking beautiful and church and a fucking privilege even if people treat it otherwise (I will not allow other people to define what it is to me)) and who also doesn’t want to be alone so I try to make it work even if I know it won’t and who also has terrible self esteem issues and…you know all this, you dick, because you made me like this).  Do you know how much that fucks with a person?  Holy shit, bud.  I was looking at every concrete embankment yesterday on this drive I was on and thinking, yeah guy, that’s the one.  Crunch it.  Just crunch this motherfucker. But, I thought of the van. Chuck. He doesn’t deserve that. He, a van, doesn’t deserve that so I won’t treat him like that. Yet, you treat me like this.

I just want to be loved, goddamn it.  I feel like you are fucking hurting me on purpose now.  I mean, yesterday.  Woof.  I woke up early and drove to a VW car show with my best friend, the aforementioned Chuck, an inanimate object for chrissakes, because he’s the only one that chooses to participate in my life (and “chooses” I’m using loosely because he doesn’t really have a choice), and I cried the whole way there.  Because I would have loved, as you know, God, to spend the day with my father, watching him get drunk, and talk everyone’s ear off about their old bugs and buses.  And he would have been proud to sit in mine, and tell people, “That’s my son’s! That’s my son’s!”  But nah, God, you fucking tore my dad’s throat out with your magic cancer fingers. So I have to go chase his ghost, alone, mind you, at a car show in Phoenix, a million miles from anyone I need or want.  And, boy howdy, I wanted my sons to be there too, so at least they could spend time with their dad, as it’s a lot of what I wish I could do now, but nah bruh.  The matriarchy doesn’t win in most places in life, I hear that and it’s a bum rap and I’m sorry for it and try my best to not be terrible, but it does win in divorce court.  The math is simple.  Most judges have equated vagina = to good parenting, regardless of any proof or qualifications.  So, BOOM. 

But regardless of that fun fact, my kids don’t even want to come.  They want to go to German class and complain about it.  And binge anime.  Or Youtube.  Or watch the same movie over and over again in an air-conditioned house with all the blinds pulled down and dogs that bark at everything and subsequently get yelled at by adults for doing so.  And who can blame my kids?  They are just kids.  They know, but they don’t know, that they are finite.  That I am finite.  So I don’t begrudge them this one.  I actually get it.  Like most of your children down here, they will only understand as hindsight and it will break their hearts. But I love them more than anything, thank you for making them for me, and I just want to see their stupid faces every day, and hear their stupid jokes, and watch their stupid fucking hair grow, and listen to their stupid little voices get deeper as we make up all sorts of inner circle jargon and laugh so hard that they cry and rock in their seats, looking for breath.  I will love you eternally, my men. You are all that matters.

As you can tell, I’m insane. Thanks for that, too.

Anyway, I’m at the fucking car show and it’s fun for about an hour and then I realize that I’m just a tree falling in the woods with no one to hear it.  So I sit in the van and watch the family that’s parked their iridescent purple bus next to mine.  The young wife, gauged ears, a trucker hat, and a tiny baby.  Her mom, cooing the baby at nap time under the shade of my awning.  Her husband, getting drunker and louder but fun and nice to talk to.  And the man of the fam, camouflage bucket hat and so much VW pride.  I cried.  I gave them my beer.  Let them charge their speaker in my van, because I have solar.  Let them sit in my shade.  And I just fucking cried.  Fucking strangers, God.  FUCKING STRANGERS. 

Anyway, back to women.  Don’t send anymore. They hurt me and I can’t handle it (the handle part is on me). Unless she’s the one.  Don’t send these ones that contain a universe of promise and then just fucking fall down.  I can’t do it.  And yeah, I hear you.  Yes, I fucking blew up my marriage by the same act.  Yes, I live a life no one can match.  Yes, I’m smart enough to consciously subvert the relationship, making my self-fulfilling prophecy of them leaving come true.  Yes, I’m lonely enough to be desperate and dangerous.  Yes, I don’t have patience and yes, I’m constantly fucking testing everyone and they almost always fail.  But, you fucking asshole, you made me this way.  What’s the fucking point, you dickhead? What’s the point of putting inside me a massive desire to be loved, not famous or anything, but to really be loved, that’s, at this point, heavy enough to squash me, yet give me none of the fucking resources to maintain?  And then send people that don’t work? People that hurt me? And why do you dial my fucking sensitivity to everything up so high that everything feels like a gunshot?  Fuck you, you asshole.

I can’t keep this up.  Do you want me to come home?  Is that what you want?  Because right now that’s all I want.  My boys are on the right path, despite what I believe to be a subpar life (Hey, it’s not for me, you know?  Each to their own).  My sister has a kid now, so she doesn’t need me anymore.  All my friends, they don’t need me.  Because they already exist on my phone only.  Hell, this reminds me of when I quit Amazon in Luxembourg.  When I announced that I was leaving, the entire team said, “But who’s going to do all your work?  You do so much work.”  And I said, “Nah, I’ve been slowly transferring all my work for the last four months to all of you, I don’t do anything anymore.”  It’s like I’ve prepared for all this, God. I’m out of all of their lives.  I have life insurance and a big bank account, so I’m not leaving my ex high and dry with taking care of the boys financially.  I don’t talk to my mom anymore, no loss there.  Or other sister.  And you fucking snapped up my brother years ago, and my dad about seven years back.  So they won’t miss me. Everyone else has already moved on.

Yeah, man.  Take me.  I’m fucking done.  What I want is to not die; I want shit to be better.  I want you to take all the parts out of me that make me miserable, and make people cheat on me, and make me cheat, that make people leave, that make me be alone, take those motherfucking parts out of me so I can be better and so that my life will be better. So that maybe I’m happy more than once a month for five minutes.  Yeah, I don’t actually want to die, I want my life to be better.  But I know you won’t do that, God.  Because for some reason you need to keep flattening me. I used to steal a line from Run the Jewels and say: I’m dirt, motherfucker; I can’t be crushed. But I can, God. And you’ve done it. I don’t want to get up anymore. Just finish the job.

And yeah, I’d beat my mom up right now if this was her argument, because it lacks a sense of “personal responsibility” that religious zealots flaunt because you don’t really exist and I’m copping out of taking those parts out of myself.  Whatever. Eviscerate me. At least then we’d see you.

I’ll leave you with this, God.  You fucking selfish prick.  Here’s a missive from Julien Baker, someone that actually fucking believes in you:

I went walking again

I'll go out and forget to tell any of my friends where I'm going

I'm just drunk on the side of the road in a ditch

When you find me; I wanna go home, I'm sick

There's more whiskey than blood in my veins

More tar than air in my lungs

The strung out call I make

Burned down on the edge of the highway

"I'm sorry for asking, but please, come take me home"

I quit talking again

But I know you're still listening

To see if I sleep or I pierce my skin

Needles to the worn out rags

The folds in my arms, the sickening black

And I haven't been taking my meds

Lock all the cabinets, send me to bed

'Cause I know you're still worried I'm gonna get scared

'Cause I'm alone again and I don't like the things I see

And I haven't been taking my meds

So lock all the cabinets and send me to bed

'Cause I know you're still worried I'm gonna get scared again

And make my insides clean with your kitchen bleach

But I've kissed enough bathroom sinks

To make up for the lovers that never loved me

And I know my body is just dirty clothes

I'm tired of washing my hands, God, I wanna go home

Either take care of us or end this fucking experiment.  We’re not happy down here. I’m fucking dying, God.  Not from alcohol, but that’s surely not helping.  But because I did all the things you told me to do.  I’m not perfect, but I’m a good man. I grew up to be a good man. And that’s hard to say because I hate myself. But it’s true.

And yet, you took everything away from me. 

Fuck you, guy.  Take me too.  I don’t want to do this fucking bullshit anymore.  Now give the phone back to TNY. I’m done here.

ReDear TNY,

Fuck you too.  You’re about as real and meaningful as He is.

Nick

P.S. God, thank you for making me beautiful. I’m sorry I got mad. I’m just really sad right now and it’s not going away and I don’t know how to fix it. Please send her soon. Soft hands. Patient. Loving. I’ll do my best. Please, before I die. I don’t want to leave. I really, really, really don’t.

And if you can’t send her, just, like, maybe an afternoon with my dad and brother. I won’t tell anyone.

Or stuff me in that picture that’s currently at my mom’s house, I think I’m about three, my brother is four, and I’m holding onto my mom’s back, my brother in front of her, and we are all smiling while swimming in the pond near our shitty singlewide trailer outside of Aztec, NM. We look happy. Like none of us knew how bad it would end up. So pure.

Or, maybe just one afternoon with my sons. Swimming somewhere with deep, blue water, and let time slip by really slow, and carve out the parts of my brain that question whether my kids even want to be there. Let me just enjoy it. Please. Can you do that for me?

Hugs, big guy. I’ll try to do better today. Sorry.