Proverbs 18, Verse 2
"A rebel doesn't care about the facts.
All he wants to do is yell."
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CHIPPED WISDOM:
It's been a while since I last screamed my fucking head off at my father. I don't remember what it was about, although I'm reasonably sure it had something to do with him interfering in some fight or other between my sister and I. Me and my sister? My sister and me?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I used to think I could teach English. These days I'm lucky if I can speak it better than the average guy who cuts lawns around our neighborhood. That was a racist thing to say. I am a racist. How do you do? Nice to meet you. I love you.
My father can really take a beating, that's why I abuse him. And because we love each other and so I know it's okay. It's okay to hurt people if you love them-- didn't you hear that song/watch that movie/see that play/take that psych course/eat that poisonous apple/drink that antifreeze/pick that pepper?
Well. Didn't you?
I don't scream much anymore, about anything really. College was a great time for screaming. I screamed at ex-girlfriends, at friends, on stage, in my car. There's a lot to scream about when you're 18-22. It's a good screaming age. Many of the confederate troops belting out that REBEL YELL were probably in that age bracket. Some younger. And they died. What a bunch of assholes.
When you're thirty-three, what is there to run around screaming about? The homeowner's insurance payment that's due in January? Vacuuming Basset Hound hair off the rug for the third time this week? The pile of papers on the desk that you're blithely ignoring while you're blogging? The phone that doesn't ring because the only person who calls you is sitting five feet away from you sewing costumes for a play that neither of you are in?
That's nothing to scream about. It's nothing to write home about either. Good thing I'm not writing home. I'm just writing. To you. To your home. I'm in your home. What are you wearing?
See? Not only am I a racist, I'm a creeper. You under the covers now?
I still want to scream about things. There's scream left in me. Eye scream.
HA!
But I don't know where the energy is to move it out. Up and out. Up and at 'em.
MARCH.
It's like eating something bad and not having the careening bile to push it up your esophagus and out of your mouth. Something's not there. Something just broke. There's something happening here.
At the hospital, we get all freaked out when people scream. We say we won't, that it's a healthy way to get angry, but we're lying, 'cuz we're staff. It's a good way to get attention-- nobody gives a fuck about you if you're just doing your thing quietly. But if you're screaming, we'll all come out in the hall and stand there waiting. What are we waiting for? You tell me. But we'll stand around, acting faux-casual, like nothing's going on. But something's going on. Because you're screaming.
That's how we know.
Screaming scares me. It scares me when I do it and it scares me when I hear it and it really scares me when someone's doing it to me. Screaming at me is not something I like. I can look you in the eye while you're screaming at me and I can feel your spit on my face and your nose grease on my nose grease and I can look at you with dead eyes because hey if you hit me you hit me what the fuck can I do about it? Look at me. Gimp limbs and gawk-eyed hawk-eyed hook-nose dumbfounded and confounded and consarnitall sometimes it's better to just get it over with. I have been screamed at and have not reacted but all the while I've been shitting in my pants.
Proverbially speaking, of course. I like all my pants too much to really do it. I also lack the initiative.
I wanna feel hot again. Hot enough to scream. Passionate about something. Furious, enraged, out of calmer more rational alternatives. I want to roar and bellow and bellyache and go on a tirade and go on a tear and go on and on and on about something I just can't express any other way other than to rage in your face.
Against the machine.
Against all odds.
Against my better judgement and my humble, servile nature.
Obsequious. Deferential. Apologetic for my very existence.
I'M SORRY.
Something like that.
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