it's hard being alfie

A friend of mine is getting married on Saturday. Every time I've talked to him for the past 5 years, he retorts something like "it's hard being [alfie]." He's being sarcastic, intimating that I've got it made. That I live a good, full life.

Kinduv ironic if you ask me.

--

I just watched the latest episode of Scrubs. Eliot (Sarah Chalke) gets proposed to, and the whole cast goes through daydreams of what it would be like to marry her. JD's (Zach Braff), of course, is the only sweet one of the bunch, and it closes the show accompanied by Dashboard Confessionals "Stolen". It shows Zach and Eliot embraced on the couch, simply and casually, when he says to her, "I'm so glad you're my wife". She replies "me too", and the share a sweet, soft kiss. Then there's a single shot of Zach in the shower thinking to himself "it should have been me."

Now, I've seen every single episode of Scrubs, so I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for Zach. He blew it several times, and he had the girl thinking that he was the one, only to walk away from her, leaving her in tears.

Still, that last shower scene made me empathize. I wanted to go take a shower myself after the show. (lol)

--

It's funny... I've been watching a little more TV than usual, catching up on Boston Legal, Entourage, and Scrubs, and it occurred to me last night as I was watching yet another not as cute/fit/nice guy (yes, as me, bitch) on TV get yet another super-hot, emotionally available girl (unicorn) that it didn't make sense. Everywhere you look, people date themselves with different genitalia. I mean, how often do you really look around and say to yourself, "what is she doing with him?" No, people, instead, often look exactly the same. Same social backgrounds, same ethnicity, same level of attractiveness, same approach to relationships, etc. Sure, you have your exceptions, like that cute interracial gay couple you know (doesn't everybody?), but even they are the same in terms of the cast they've adopted.

Which is the problem, now isn't it? I can go find a girl as attractive as me, but we'll be from different social backgrounds and not understand each other's values. Or I can go find one of those "down to earth" types where we have similar values and they'll either be a lot like me and completely psycho, or they'll be dumb and uneducated. Or both.

I know this is an old argument, especially if you've ever shared a beer with me, but I can't see any way around it. I really can't.

I have never ever ever met someone like me. And that's not the ego talking, that's plain, simple truth. Every mild assertion I make about my identity and what I'm about closes the gap between me and potential partners by several million women. As a teenager, there was so little set in stone that I would simply adopt the traits of the women I dated that suited me. There were some -- like socioeconomic class, especially -- that called out to me and I did everything I could to assimilate.

But you can take the boy outta the ghetto. You cannot, however... you know the rest.

So my identity -- ironically, the assertion of which makes me more attractive -- is the problem.

I'm not a city guy. I despise status symbols. I am annoyed by people who see only presentation and not substance. I appreciate good conversation over any other form of entertainment. I really like wining and dining, but I'd take $6 a plate Thai food, whether on Shattuck or Gaudalupe, any night of the week. I watch Stargate because I want to be part of something bigger than myself and so look up to the characters (well, that and I'm a nerd). I watch Scrubs because I'm a little bitch inside who identifies with Zach Braff's character a hell of a lot more than I laugh at him. I'll put poison into my body on rare occasions just to have and share the experience. And I have no faith whatsoever in anyone who happens to have a vagina. Well, actually, I don't have a whole lot of faith in anybody, but at least the half of the population that has a penis doesn't front like they aren't assholes. (The double negative is intentional. Reread the damn sentence and think about it.)

So, I don't get along anywhere. I'm contradictingly too liberal and too realistic. I want to save the world, but the futility of it leaves me stopped in my tracks. Furthermore, the others I see who claim to want to save the world generally strike me as hypocritical, which just infuriates me. I'd rather be no one than a hypocrite.

And so, what am I left with? Friends who all grow the fuck up and move on? Sam will find his FTW and leave me, having a single happy hour IPA with me thrice a year. Corban will continue to wallow. Serino will have chased away a really good girl only to wake up in 5 years in the same place he was born and wonder how he got there. Shane will continue to tell me to pray.

Ayla will not be my friend despite wanting to be because some old fucker who doesn't no shit about god (dead, indifferent, or non-sentient) or his own ass (needs to be washed) tells her I'm a bad influence.

And I'll move away, not because I really want to anymore, but because I don't know what else to do with myself and after all of the announcing I've done I'll feel like a big dumb ass if I don't follow through.

Duty again. Duty to pull triple busboy shifts at 16, duty to take some girl I didn't love to dinner at 20, duty to customers at 23, duty to colleagues at 26, duty to tenants at 29. Duty to go back to school now.

Because I said I would.

When all I really want to do is stay asleep forever. No, not in the dead way, freak. It's just that in my dreams I'm usually happy. There's all the old faces that I just whined about leaving me someday (or, sometimes, the ones that have already left, with the slant of nostalgia on their side), along with a few new, faceless bodies that love me the way I've always wanted.

I just wish I could create what I see in my dreams for real.

--

I'm angry now.

62 hours. Next time any one of you mother fuckers find yourselves thinking you know what it's like to be me, you repeat that number in your head. Next time you find yourself trying to hustle me for something, say that shit out loud.

Because yeah, I own this and that, and I have all of these great things going for me, and I can bench 150% of my body weight, and I can get an 18 year old girl to blush with a sideways glance, but you know what? I paid for my shit.

62 hours. That's how long I stayed awake one weekend, at 17 with nothing but youth, caffeine, and something to prove, working my ass off when all you bitches were worried about solving Algebra problems that I aced in 7th grade with an Oakland public school education. I did this for $4.25 an hour just so I could stay the fuck away from my parents who were so evil that they took a kid with a 151 IQ and made him a high school dropout. Yeah, the numbers are right. I was that kid in kindergarten who knew instinctually how many fucking popcorn kernels were in the fucking jar. And how to recognize patterns. Apparently if you know Fibonacci in your gut at age 4 without ever being told wtf it is, you're a "really smart guy". Fuck me.

My friend Dustin works harder than anyone in my peer group. But he hasn't always. I did.

(And no, that wasn't just one weekend. That was my world for years. That one weekend was just the all-time record.)
--

My dad tried to kill me. I'm getting deep and angry and letting loose, so wtf?

One time he was holding me against my will. I was about 14. I was banging on the front door of his apartment because he had deadbolted it from the inside, telling him that if he didn't let me out I'd break the door down (which would have been pretty tough, actually -- it was solid wood and there was an iron security gate behind that, but I was 14 and passionate).

He yelled at me: to stop making noise, to not leave, to stop being a loser, to respect him, to fuck myself. Probably all of the above, which just escalated my anger even further.

Then he pulled a golf club out of a bag and said something like, "you wanna not listen to me mother fucker?" and swung at my head. I blocked the swing with my right arm, and the head of the golf club bent at the point of contact about 60 degrees. Yeah, he hit me that hard. I couldn't feel my fingers for a couple of minutes.

I just stood there and looked back at him as he went on a tirade for 15 minutes or so. Then he went back and sat down in his chair.

I don't know how long I stood there. I don't remember much of anything else about that day.

--

The other time he tried to kill me was around the same time frame. It was probably earlier, actually -- I was maybe 13. Old enough to take the bus and fight back a little, but still young enough to not always be prepared for chaos (like never ever leaving the house without a coat and enough money for coffee at Denny's -- cuz they won't kick you out of Denny's if you can pay for coffee).

He had a 1977 Dodge van. Sometime around 11 or 12 I became the family mechanic. Not because I was good at it (well, I probably was, but you'd never know from what was said) or because I had an interest. In fact, to this day, there is no single task in the world I despise more than working on a vehicle. I can and will if I must, but I'd pretty much rather dig a ditch through clay in the sun while wearing a parka. Well, maybe not with the parka. But you get the picture.

So anyway, this old school piece of shit was never running right, and he wanted me to replace the exhaust manifold. That's a piece of metal that connects from the engine block to the pipe that feeds into the muffler. It's a pretty tough job. A mechanic would probably keep the car overnight (maybe even two nights) and charge over $2K to do a job like that.

Pops didn't even have a new part. He had a salvaged piece of shit from the junk yard.

Now, I still don't know too much about the mechanics of this, but sitting here at 30 and reflecting on it, I'm struck by the fact that the engine heat probably alters the shape of the metal slightly. So using an old part might be ok, but it makes the job of installation that much harder.

Kinda like how I always skip the el cheapo plumbing and go for a Moen or Pfister fixture when I do any construction work in the bathroom or kitchen. The extra $50 in materials can save me hours of hassle (because, like the drive through, they fuck you at the Home Depot, too).

But anyway. The point is that this is a hard job for a skilled adult professional, let alone a 130 pound kid who had never said the word "manifold" out loud before this little project began.

So, naturally, we (by we, I mean my father berating me and MAYBE handing me a tool here and there while I crawled underneath the car in the grease, wearing last year's jeans and a torn t-shirt) started at 4 in the afternoon when it got dark around 5:45 (must've been february or so -- based on my age, that would've been 1990). That's because dear old dad is a non-functioning individual and couldn't hold down a nine to five for more than 3-4 months as long as I can remember.

The tools were not right. I had a hand-ratchet to "break" a rusty bolt that hadn't been touched in over a decade. I lacked the basic mechanical knowledge of finding an empty pipe and using it to slowly and careful crank the ratchet handle. (Well, actually, I probably had it, but with the old man yelling in my ear about what a slowpoke/loser I was, "mother fucker" was on my brain rather than problem solving.)

Can you see where this is going? It started to get dark and cold, and puberty was kicking in, and I talked back. "Fuck you! Do it yourself, then" was pretty much where it started. I got up, dusted myself off, through the ratchet in his general direction, and started towards the house.

So locked me out. No dinner, no jacket, no nothing. I live in California, but February in Oakland still is in the 50s. I had no money, no keys, no tools, no friends, no jacket, and no place to go. I tried to talk to my mom, but he wouldn't have it. She left me out there, too. What trust issues with women?

I broke into his truck. It was a easy -- the rear vent window never latched right, and you can fit through some really small places at that age. Inside, I found an old coat of my father's. I moved the clutch to first gear, tried to choke on some taco bell seasoning packets I found (puked 'em up), and went to sleep.

When he awakened me the next day, my little brother in tow, the insults began before I even achieved lucidity. I had a fever. I felt it immediately once the blood started flowing to my limbs again. I guess being curled up in a little ball with minimal clothing for 14 hours will do that. It was a tiny truck cab -- an old Toyota SR5 two seater with bucket seats. I was small, but not that small.

He took the coat away. I was so sick I could barely stand. I remember the sun coming out and going and laying in the street so that I could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin. Yes, that's right, I grew up in the ghetto in Oakland and I layed out in the street for most of the day.

I don't know how long I was out there, but it was a lot easier to ignore my father while in that catatonic state. Eventually he realized that I wasn't going to do his work for him and did it himself.

Turns out he couldn't get that bolt off either, even with a pipe. So he put the old parts back on and put it back together.

He still wouldn't let me go to bed, though. I remember my little brother coming over to me and asking if I was all right. Mind you, this was over 24 hours at this point with no food or water. "Daddy, [alfie] sick" I vaguely remember my 4 year old brother saying. I think he even snuck me some cereal or something. Maybe I just remember him asking if he could get me some.

I remember Pops telling him not to share his food with me, to let me suffer. They might have even left for awhile to eat and come back. I'm not sure. Like I said before, I was pretty much catatonic.

My mom eventually came home from work. I think she got home around 4:30pm in those days. I wonder why I wasn't in school?

It was still light outside. I remember her begging my dad to let her take me inside. I think his deal was that I was supposed to stay outside until the job was done. Eventually, he must have finished putting everything back the way it was, because I was allowed to go in.

My father disappeared into his own seperate apartment (my brilliant parents had a duplex, yet hadn't rented out the second apartment since I was very young so that my father could use it as his fortress of solitude), and my mother helped me up out of the street.

I don't remember walking inside. I do remember drinking several glasses of water. I used a little white cup in the bathroom with a handle and Disney characters on the side. Then I crawled into my little twin bed and went to sleep.

My mother came in a little while later and offered me more blankets. I took them and was still shivering. I remember there being three sleeping bags piled on top of me in addition to my normal bedclothes before I finally felt warm. Two of them were green and one of them was red. I also had several layers of clothing on. For some reason I remember wearing a hoody.

My mother reported that I had a temperature of 104. I remember hearing my father say that I deserved it.

I don't know how long I was sick.

My father never apologized. When I confronted him about it years later, he claimed it never happened, that he would never do that, and that my mother must've told me that story.

She didn't. I doubt she remembers it, either.

--

My god. And I wonder why I can't find happiness, why I'm happy in Spartan surroundings, and why things like home ownership are important to me.

I also just realized why Job in the bible is such a sticking point for me. Fathers shape our perception of god and so forth from Fight Club. My dad is god, and I am Job.

Or, actually, my dad is Satan, and my mom is god. "My Lord, why have you forsaken me?"

And god replied, "niggah, please. I make the earth go 'round the sun and the stars shine in the night sky. I'm a busy muh-fuckah. Quit yo' bitchin' and be glad I gave you life in the first place. Bitch!"

(Sameul L. Jackson is the voice of god echoing in my skull, apparently.)
--

Before I wrote the last couple of paragraphs, I took a bathroom break from all this writing.

I washed my face and cried into my sink for a couple of moments. I think it's funny that this still hurts like that after all these years. Maybe I've just never told the story in such detail before.

Maybe I'll just never be over it. Which sorta means, I think, that I'll never be happy.

Sigh.

A little part of me wants to go find my father right now and beat the shit out of him. Just hit him and hit him and hit him some more until he pretends to remember. You sorry now, bitch? Hit me and call me a fag now, you sorry fuck. I'm a loser, huh? (blam) You sure? (blam) NO, it's not my mother's fault that YOU (blam) did this to me you sorry fuck! (blam)

Remember? No? How about this scar on my arm? Remember that? No? How about we give you one to match?

It wouldn't be enough. I can't hurt him as bad as he hurt me, my brother, and my mom. Even if the man that I am could execute that vengeance, it's just not possible for him to pay it back.

(tears)

It still would be nice to make him bleed once, though.

--

So after I got over proving him wrong on the loser tip... god, I feel like I did that at 21 or 22 -- I remember him having a crush on my girlfriend, and making twice as much as he and mother combined, and driving that BMW... yeah, he did. He was attracted to my 19 year old girlfriend. Freak.

After I got over that, I think I still needed to have all of this net worth just as a security blanket. I mean, most normal people get a decent job and work it for a couple of years and decide that they can get another job paying the same amount pretty quickly. That's their security blanket -- the faith that there will be a vibrant enough economy for them to always have a paycheck should they want it.

I don't trust the economy more than six months out. I don't trust my employer more than three months out. I need to have a lot of cash flow and side income just so that I can feel secure. It's like, before my first wet dream, while my voice was still cracking, I always had to have my jacket and a couple of emergency dollars on me just in case I ended up walking a few miles to a 24 hour coffee shop and reading a library book all night. And all morning. Because cops bother you at the park and on the street, but they assume you're an upstanding citizen if they see you at Denny's at four in the morning with some cream, sugar, and two bucks on the table in front of you.

I need 8 jobs and 12 houses just to feel secure in the fact that tomorrow my car will start, I'll be able to eat whenever and whatever I want, and I'll have a warm place to sleep. In reverse order of importance.

I'm semi-stunned. This feels like an epiphany. I don't know what it means, if I care, or what to do about it if I do care, but this is a new twist on my inner workings that I wasn't aware of before.

--

There are sometimes when I'm out on dates, or talking to people generally, when the other party insinuates that they had it bad too. It's always so lightly touched upon, it seems -- people talk about hitting rock bottom with this or that experience, having old relationships die suddenly, experiencing a chasm with their parents, etc. In recent years, I remember thinking that maybe my experiences weren't so universally evil, that maybe this happens to a lot of people.

It doesn't. Shut the fuck up.

My tire valve popped the other day. I thought two things to myself in the first 30 seconds. First, I wondered if I had pissed off my father recently. Secondly, I wondered if there was anything else that could possibly have caused it, like a manufacturing defect or something.

Then, lastly, I wondered about the possibilities of random vandalism or carelessness.

I say this to illustrate my world. I live in a paranoid world where a psychotic man 24 years my senior who served as a sperm doner in my genetic makeup actively takes drastic and direct steps to hurt me. Today.

You know, I offer an open, passionate, and empathetic hug to any young girl (or boy, but it's usually girls, right) who has experienced sexual abuse. And I offer a nice, manly, heterosexual shake/hug to any young boy who had his first boxing match with his old man.

Rationally, I know that there are those who had it worse.

Except that they're all in jail. Or have committed suicide. Or are about to end up in one place or the other.

If you're on the internet, and you're reading this, then, no, I don't think you understand. Don't pretend that you do.

Sorry, but date rape in college isn't exactly the same as your parent trying to kill you. You had some place to go and someone to call, even if you didn't.

I don't know where the line is drawn. I don't know that it's something to compare anyway (I'm more fucked up than you! HAH!).

But I do know that this shit doesn't go away with a happy little song, a heartfelt prayer to a deity that ignored me for the last 30 years, or a whole gaggle of friends reminding me that I'm in a good place and have created a solid life for myself.

It doesn't go away with two IPAs and pizza. It doesn't go away after good sex and pillow talk. It doesn't go away when a little girl tells me she appreciates me. It doesn't go away after winning ten games of basketball and a half-dozen game-winning shots from 23 feet. It doesn't go away after finding snow on a granite countertop in Vegas.

I want to believe, I really do. I want to have faith. I want to believe that I can change, that the hand dealt is not the one you go home with, that the night is still young, that the future is a better, brighter place where parents love their children and the worst I'll ever have to deal with is arguing about who hit the basketball out of bounds.

But I've been fighting this for a long, long time, and all I have is the beer in my fridge and a few friends who care, who read, and even love, but don't know how to help me.

I wish you could, too.

--

I'm gonna try to sleep now. I hope my dreams are good.