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Sitting in a rocking chair, unobtrusive, conservatively-stained wood. Not enough padding to make you feel sinful. Not enough rock to make anybody roll. Just a good old wholesome American rocking chair. The kind your grandpa sat in when he was ready for his nap. Every day, same spot, watch in hand, but no alarm, and his head would drop, and he would snooze. For exactly fifteen minutes and then wake up, look at his watch, and return to his usual hell raising. 

It was a neat trick, one that always filled me with a sense of envy and sadness. I mean, I was sort of jealous, but, really, what kind of freak superpower is that, to be able to sleep, instantly, every day, for fifteen minutes? 

Ass in a goddamn chair.

Or, your grandma sat in that old, wooden rocker - crocheted or knitted or did crossword puzzles or pretended to read a book. Something manic in the the metronomic rocking, the controlled fury. 

Ain’t no slouching in a chair like that. It ain’t made for loving or for video games. It’s made for sitting, focused on the task at hand, and getting lost in the rhythm laid down by generations of sore and tired backs, moving with a head on the bob, afraid to be still, because still things die. 

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Don't look at me all high and mighty like that. Like you never smoked catnip. Never broke pieces of crack rock off, smoked it on top of cigarette ash in a metal bowl. Like you never drank lighter fluid or tried snorting the painkillers in your parents’ medicine cabinet. 

Like you never barricaded your door and sat with a hunting knife pressed against your throat while your parents screamed at each other. Like you never got raped by some asshole who thought you’d want it even though you were unconscious. 

Like you never got lied about and defamed by bottle-blond self-abusers afeared of the ideas in their little Disney brains. Like you never chewed Oxy. Like you never used a serrated kitchen knife to map your thighs. 

Sure you can smile, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a compulsive masturbator. That you smoke too much weed just so the snacks will taste better. Don’t act like you never drank two bottles of robitussin to see what would happen. Don’t look at me like you never woke up on the kitchen floor with blue nitrous lips. 

Don’t act like you never paid your employees too little while you tallied up your stock options. Don’t act like you never dropped bombs on dirt-dwelling folks just so you could add another wing to your vacation home. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t eat an endangered animal given the chance. 

Don’t think we’re going to Mars and we ain’t gonna fuck that shit up. Mars will be Florida within five years of our arrival. You ever freebased on Mars? They’re cutting that shit with stardust. 

Don’t act like you never courted genocide, waving American flags like you were trying to put out a fire, not start one. 

Don’t look at me if you’re not looking in the mirror, motherfucker. 

We all got issues. 

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When they open it, they will experience joy, the thrill of discovery; they will share in the experience and the feeling, and that is a gift. They are young, and their eyes still see true things. I know it won't always be easy, but nothing worth doing is ever easy. The shock will reset their brains, clue them into the reality of what it means to be a thinking animal. Not trussed up in suits and ties and power lunches, but real life, the kind that cuts to the marrow. 

This is a gift. I am the pied piper. 

If they could only see the whole thing. Maybe there is an aspect of recruitment in this. Surely, there is some ego, but I am comfortable never getting my due recognition. It is enough that someone witness a piece of the majesty. It is enough that someone hear the symphony, turn the pages. True art is timeless, and never supportive of the artist. 

Sharp mind, sharp blade. Dull minds deserve slaughter. I suppose in many ways I am my father's daughter. 

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 You can have all the best intentions, and still fuck up. It's like making pie crust. Seems simple, and it is simple when your Grandma does it, but then you try and do it on your own, and you end up with soupy bullshit. So, you buy the pre-made pie crust and lie about it because, what the fuck? Doesn't matter. No one will know. Why would you want to make it from scratch when they have it already made and packaged, sitting on the shelf?

Same thing applies to personalities. 

I mean, yeah, they sell a bunch of different kinds at the mall. You can be a rebel or Live, Laugh, Love! your way into Chardonnay oblivion. You can walk into the mall a computer programmer and leave a fucking gangsta. Dad to Special Ops Ranger. Grandma to muscle-head. Grandpa to Lothario. You just change clothes and roll. Buy the appropriate soundtrack. Find your flunkies. Post up. 

But it ain't gonna fit right. Some people will be fooled, but never the people you're so intent on impressing. 

You can walk into REI a scared suburban wanker and leave ready to conquer the Amazon, climb Mt. Everest. At least aesthetically. 

Or you could try to find out what you really think. How you really feel about things. What's really important to you. It may not be a popular answer, but it's YOURS. Shouldn't that count for something. Chameleons are charming, but I don't trust them. Just feed them bugs and bullshit on my way to the dumpsters. 

Just because you can buy it doesn't mean you need it. No matter what the talking heads say. 

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It's hard, rowing against the current. It's demoralizing. Your arms burn, and your shoulders ache, and you barely make any progress. Thing is, if you stop rowing, you're screwed. Even for a second. You'll lose so much, and it will hurt so much more to make up the distance you had already covered. You can just flat quit, lay down in the bottom of the boat with the half inch of tobacco water and old bass rubber, but it stinks down there. You never get dry. You catch a chill when the sun goes down. 

Everyone else is dealing with their own boats. And hell, some of them got two big old outboard motors on them. They create so much wake it's a miracle they don't capsize all the wooden boats, but it is what it is. They must just deserve those big motors, and it's none of your concern. Just keep rowing. Watch out for the wake. Don't question anything. That's what the authorities are for. 

If you need to reach them, they're drinking sweat tea and bourbon on that big party pontoon. 

You can't see ahead of you that well when you're at the water level. Those big bass boats and pontoons have a better vantage. You can stand up and try to catch a peek, but don't fall in. 

Only socialists need help out. 

Now, if you row your boat, don't make no wake with the oars...be happy working your way up to a john boat, and don't expect no more...

If you are willing to ignore the folks paddling their canoes like mad, not to mention the poor bastards already half-drowned, trying to keep their heads above water...

If you make sure you're focused on the advancement of YOUR team....YOUR allies...

Man, if you just shut the hell up and row...

...you won't drown at least until the falls. 

We call it retirement. 

Deadly.

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It was a Tuesday when I decided to head on down to the holler and drink myself to death. All you squares worried someone is gonna find out you jerked off or snuck a few snorts of liquor. You ain't a murderer fucking your cousin; I had real problems. Problems that couldn't be solved except with silence and an unending supply of shine. The holler had the silence; I figured I could provide the moonshine. So, I traded my truck, my shotgun, and my dog to the kid down the road, got me about sixteen full jugs of shine. More than enough. 

I figured it wouldn't be quick, and I was prepared to puke a lot of it up. Spill some. Whatever. Two was more than enough. The sold truck and gun and dog were insurance. I knew I couldn't get 'em back. Now, there was nothing calling to me. 

I cracked the first jug about noon and it tasted like battery acid and fire. It hurt. The first half of the jug hurt, really, but after that nothing hurt for a few days. Then, all the hurt in the world came to me. But I was only down three jugs and there was plenty of silence to shut up. 

I started losing track of time, then. Not just how long I'd been in the holler, but my place in time. I started taking trips back to my childhood and shit. Saw my old man clear as he was sitting beside me, and he blew his brains out ten years ago. Saw my first girlfriend. I swear I could smell her.

I figured I wouldn't know when death came, but I did. I knew it clearer than anything. I felt a calm peace take over my whole body, and I knew that the next time I tipped the jug, it would be the last. I would return to the dirt, become part of the holler. So, I smiled and tipped the bottle, drank a toast to secrets and the woods that keep them.  

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We have to stop meeting like this. They're going to get wise to you. You aren't toeing the line sufficiently, or you could do better if you just rubbed these essential oils into your eyeballs. Read your bible. Bible. Sorry. 

Take this assault rifle and go bust some bottles out back, son. We need you ready for when the queers and abortioners attack. Put this confederate flag on your truck. Not the white one they waved at the end of the war...the one your cousin has tattooed on her taint. 

You hear about that kid who sold lemonade to pay off his classmate's outstanding school lunch bills? That's fucking socialism, and it's disgusting. Me? I'm making more money than ever by not planting the crops the gubmint don't approve of.  My Deddy got rich not planting soybeans. The government takes care of farmers, you know? 

The people who pick and work in the fields, not so much. 

Did you take the sticker off your new phone? The one that says it totally wasn't put together by sterilized Uyghur women. You're supposed to leave that shit on. Let people know it's official. 

I'm gonna head on down to the Walmart. Yell at some people. Like a real American.