The Natural Order

Walking home from the annual get-blitzed-and-forget-my-breath mixer at the Victims of Female Waterboarding lodge, my father and I heard some dirt talking to a tree. 

It said, “I can discharge you from this cortex, or collect your organs like raindrops with colors to spare.”

I thought that sounded beautiful. 

“That sounded beautiful,” I said, tugging on my father’s Cuckold Klein unlimited edition denim jacket. 

He gave me this look: Your teeth and eyes and maladjusted thyroid are from the left-handed side of the family, meaning, Liquid should be illegal, she slid too fast, or simply, These summers are moot.

So this is what my father did: he went back to Walmart for the fifth time that week, bought a power saw (Only $149.99 – Don’t miss a single Rollback or special offer!), cut the tree down and pissed on the stump.

Then he made me do it.

“That sounded beautiful,” my father whispered while lighting my jacket on fire.

We Always Managed to Have the Same Teachers

Carl didn’t see the piñata-bashing club as I cracked him with it on the back of his dome piece, knocking him out for a solid two minutes. And I didn’t see the two massive parental hands that grabbed me from behind and spanked my learing, chubby rump until I apologized to Carl, our non-offensively biracial god and the president. “Crappy birthday to you” is an understatement. Honey-bearded Jesus and George Bush 41 just kept staring at me from behind their picture frames on the plastic, Pine-Sol-colored mantel, and I wouldn’t be getting my new Super Nintendo until the following year, when the only thing anyone really wanted to play with were Stretch Saddam dolls and Branch Davidian Big Wheels. But I would be seeing a lot more of Carl. Until the next time he touched me where it smelled funny.

PTSD Is So 2005

Oprah agreed on a fair way to decide initiation, which involves two closed fists and pretending your grandmother’s in the room. The compromise proved to be a big ratings boost in most major markets (except, of course, in Kandahar) and was rated as favorable by almost every viable demographic besides panty-sniffing Japanese stock brokers vacationing in Haiti and bomb-sniffing dogs out on recon.

Honestly, I think it made most people feel a little better about the future: vapid suit-herders could still meditate under clouds of dharma-jizz in obese central-air pumping boxes, highways would still shimmer in the hot afternoons and block complete glimpses of fields, bizarre tension vibes and unprovoked assaults would still be the two most sought-after traits of every washed-up child actor.

My brother came home in August with half a femur and a pull-one-over-on-you Midwestern drawl he got from watching too many John Hughes movies in the hospital. Maybe that’s why nobody argued when he stopped taking his Ambiens and started stashing them away for what we assumed would be one heck of an Alive Day party the following year.

“The least coolest person on TV is more interesting than anyone I know,” he told me while I sponged him down for the last time, his Budweisers raised above the tub like night goggles.

DO NITRATES WEEP FOR SOGGY BURRITOS?

I scarfed the promise of a latterday whatever. The blue tumor was a Michelin-starred disaster (we trust in cancer as a bull market that’s not ready for sneaker parties). Lapsed Caucasian: stop being such a shaman with “gluten’s for pussies and Chipotle promotes infant rape.” But, really, why so blue? "Insecticide forest. Insecticide for us."