The Douchebag Bible (29 page)

that detachment is an important part of their job.

We stewed in the hospital’s waiting room while doctors

performed surgery. We were told that my father had suffer a

massive heart-attack.

The waiting room was filled with people wanting to be seen

for minor illnesses. A black woman kept shouting how outrageous

it was that she had to wait so long for treatment for her sickle-cell.

“I know these white people in here ain’t got no sickle-cell!” she

shouted indignantly. I wanted to smash her face into the brick

wall that I was leaning on as I sat on the floor because stupid

cretinous morons like her had taken all the chairs. I wanted to

pound her face into a pulp until sickle-cell was at the very bottom

of her list of medical problems.

Being in the hospital that night kicked killed the

conservative in me. Not all at once, but it was the first blow to all

my high-minded idealism about the strong pulling themselves up

by their bootstraps. Here I was, surrounded by the weak—the

poor, the infirm, the refuge of society. I had an epiphany then

(though it was drowned by grief): these people were my

countrymen. These sickly people and these relatives of sickly

people were my fellow human beings. That hard truth is that no

one is strong. We are all fundamentally weak because no matter

how spectacular we may fancy ourselves to be, we’re still

biological organisms of immense frailty.

My friend Logan was driving in a car with his girlfriend

once and he had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. His

girlfriend wasn’t wearing her seatbelt and her head smacked

against the windshield. She was largely unharmed, but Logan

realized that if he hadn’t hit the brakes when he had, he’d have

crashed and she would have been severely injured or worse. He

told me then how he hated the fragility of human life.

There was a time when I would have agreed with him, and

much of me still does. However, and in spite of all the sorrow it

has caused me and countless other human beings, I kind of dig

our fragility. Marilyn Manson, who just so happens to be the most

brilliant man on earth, puts it best in his song “The Reflecting

God”:

Without the threat of death

There’s no reason to live at all

Isn’t that the truest statement ever spoken or sung?

Without death, life has no meaning. Existence is no fun if it’s not

temporary. That’s why we drive too fast, do drugs, eat shitty food

and all that fun stuff. We like to give death a big middle finger and

dare him to bite us in the ass.

But I digress.

I was in the hospital room waiting for my father to get out

of surgery. Everyone knew he was going to die. There were no

delusions. We were all attempting to lie to ourselves, but none of

us believed our own bullshit. Maybe if he’d contracting cancer or

something like that and we’d had weeks to lie to ourselves instead

of just hours, we could have tricked ourselves. That wasn’t the

case though.

I supposed that the first time a loved one dies, you should come

away with a deeper understanding of yourself. It’s sort of

expected of you. “My dad died, but I gained such and such insight

into myself.” It’s our way of acting like us and the world are Even

Steven. So, without further delay, here are somethings I learned

about myself in exchange for my fathers death.

GRAND ISIGHT INTO MYSELF #1:
I fart a lot when

I’m consumed by grief and shock and terror.

I could scarcely go a minute without releasing the most

rank and vile farts known to man. I was in a room filled with sick

people, waiting for news about my father’s fate and I was farting.

Nothing in those overwrought dramatic films about personal

tragedy prepares you for such incongruities. Sorrow and

flatulence are supposed to be mutually exclusive occurrences.

Farting while be dad was dying taught me this: there is no

“supposed to be” in the real world. Reality doesn’t care about

“ought” or “should.” Hoping, praying, wishing, expecting—these

activities are akin to wading up a piece of paper and throwing it

at a tank.

GRAND ISIGHT INTO MYSELF #2:
I have a thick

country accent when I’m bereaved.

I stood beside my father’s deathbed with my normally

unaffectionate brother clinging to me as if I was the sole thing

keeping him from spiraling into madness. I spoke to my father for

the last time—knowing full well that he couldn’t hear or perceive

a goddamn thing that I said. I may as well have been talking to a

wall.

I begged him—in a thick southern accent that I don’t

normally have—to pull a miracle out of his ass. I told him that if

anyone could defy the odds it was him. I swore that if he made a

full recovery, I—an atheist since childhood—would praise

whatever God may be in any way that I could.

Hours later, he was dead.

The nurses told us that he had no chance and that even if

he survived he would likely have serious brain damage. I said,

“That’s not what he’d want,” and I had them take him off the

machines that were keeping him alive.

It was amazing how quickly he went from a human being

to a corpse. His body was suddenly so stiff and lifeless. When I

gave him my departing hug, it felt as though I were hugging a

mannequin or a wax figure.

I went home that night and the first thing I did was make a

YouTube video26. It may seem peculiar, but I’ve never been one

26 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo-q7RgABIg