It was only about a week after the assembly for Tyrone getting gun down at a bus stop with that little girl when Arabs decided to fly our planes into our buildings, pretty much doing what they do best, destroying shit. I took this as another epiphany that the year was goin to pretty much suck, and I was right. At school admin and teachers were worried about the students being traumatized by the event so one class period was devoted to talkin about what happened and then we had to go to another assembly and listen to some government expert tell us that we shouldn’t feel unsafe because the president and the US Government was doin everything to keep us safe. I was thinkin this guy doesn’t have a clue. There’s a lot of guys at Jefferson that would love to see planes fly into Jefferson as long as they weren’t in class when it happened. None of my friends are worried about being attacked by Arabs but by the thugs in the neighborhood. A friend of Tyrone’s named Rasheem... It really makes you wonder where black people get their names from. I think they figure any name that don’t sound white is a good name. Anyway, Rasheem says that if all the people in the buildings had been black the president and the United States Government wouldn’t give a shit. You could see he was still upset about Tyrone being gun down. The speaker says that’s not true and Rasheem says bullshit because black men between the ages of somethin like 16 and 25 are more likely to die by gunfire than anything else. I could see the teachers eyeballin Rasheem, and if it weren’t for the speaker they’d of been all over him for his language. But he knew they wouldn’t do shit front of the speaker because they had to look all sensitive and such. They’d get him later. The speaker goes on to say I understand blah, blah, blah. But he don’t understand shit. I mean if Rasheem gets killed there’s no doubt that some black or Mexican gangbanger will be doin the killing, not some wild-eyed Koran reading Arab.
In the class discussion Ms Whiner
said now Americans know what the Jews face everyday in Israel. Of course she’s
goin to say that because she’s Jewish but the class response was mostly a yawn,
like we've heard all that before. The thing is, Jewish or not, Ms Whiner is real
hot. She don’t dress that way or nothin but she’s pretty and athletic, if you
know what I mean, and kinda always angry about what’s goin on in the world
which makes her even sexier. She’d be terrific for Dad cept she’s too smart and
I wouldn’t want her as a stepmom because she’d always be on my case about doin
homework. She’d probably trash my PlayStation. So the class cuts her a lot of
slack and don’t really give a shit about her being Jewish because we think she
a Jewish atheist. I think being a Jew is the only religion that allows
atheists, which don’t make any sense at all to me but when it comes to
religion lots of things don’t make any sense to me. Like the Moslems that whip
out the ol rug and pray five times a day. I mean once a day should do the trick
if god’s listenin. Any more than that is getting a little greedy for god’s
favors, like a kid at the mall who tells Santa that he wants a bike for
Christmas and then gets back in line to ask for a skateboard. If I were god I’d
really be pissed off getting all those prayers, like he’s thinking Enough already!
Imagine getting billions of
e-mails every day. God probably just let’s the celestial computer do the work,
you know the automatic mail that you get that doesn’t really come from a
person. Dad’s always bitchin about junk mail but he wouldn’t get any mail at
all if it weren’t for the bills and junk mail. Of course, all those prayers may
just go out into space and never reach god at all, either because he’s too far
away or don’t exist, like those little sperms that we learned about in health
class, pushin and shovin one another to be the sperm guy who gets that one girl
egg, just like in the real world, too few girls for too many guys, or at least
too few good-looking girls. I mean no sperm want to have sex with an egg that
looks like Jabba the Hut. Anyway, when it comes to religion there might not be
a god egg waiting to receive those sperm prayers so they just get lost in space
until they get tired and give up the search and float in empty space like dead
fish.
There must have been lots of
prayers going out from those two buildings, but like during the Holocaust god
was in a stingy mood. And those were his chosen people! And it’s not like I’ve
never tried praying myself. When Mom and Dad were callin it quits I was on the
prayer phone all the time. But god never picked up and I don’t think he did
because either he just don’t give a shit about people and who could blame him,
or he’s a big dumb fuck like an elephant who don’t know the fleas he’s carrying
are trying to communicate to him, or he’s just a figment of the human imagination, which is how Mr. Wingnute said
Sigmund Freud explained it. People wanting a Sugar Daddy in the sky to turn too
when things aren’t working out, which is most the time. I’m amazed that some of
my teachers still have their jobs bringing up unpatriotic shit like that, but
what they do to keep their jobs is say some big shot like Freud said it, not
me. Ms Whiner, Mr. Wingnute and Mr. Mendel don’t seem religious at all to me. They
know better than me how fucked up the world is, so why would they be?
Mr. Wingnute said that such ideas
are filled with seeds for other ideas, just like a fig is filled with little
seeds, and before you know it one idea has turned into a big tree with lots of
little ideas hanging from its branches like apples on an apple tree. He kinda
laughed when he said that about the fig because I think he was thinking that we’d
swallow anything. That night I asked Dad about the word figment and so he got out his big dictionary and we looked it up.
He really loves doin that. It said something about making bread, so a figment
of the imagination is like people making imaginary bread and then eating it afterwards
and even talking about how tasty it was though it wasn’t even real in the first
place. Then I got it. It’s like starvin people making believe that they got a
meal of this real tasty food when really they got nothing to eat. That’s
fucking sad because I bet lots of people in the world are eating figs of the
imagination because they got nothing else. Enough of the depressing shit.
So Dad asked me why I was
interested in the word because it’s kinda rare that I am, so I told him what
Mr. Wingnute said about Freud saying religion being a figment of the human
imagination. You see I had to mention Freud because that’s how Mr. Wingnute
planned it so Dad couldn’t pick up the phone and say that Mr. Wingnute was
teaching atheism. Fucking teachers aren’t all that stupid. So all Dad could do
was give me that blank look he sometimes gets when the world seems too weird.
Then he says like “How come they’re not teaching you something that will help
you get a good job?” A good question really. I think I said, “I don’t know,
Dad.” But then I think about him and his shitty job. Apparently Dad didn’t
learn about Freud or about how to get a good job.
Speaking of weird, one of the
nerdy students pointed out to Ms Whiner that we’re supposed to be discussing
the Arabs attacking America not talking about Israel. I had to admit he had a
point. She didn’t get pissed though because she likes nerds. Dad said the
attacks would have never happened if it weren't for Israel and if America wasn’t
always sticking its nose where it didn’t belong. I wasn’t sure what he meant
and didn’t asked because I wasn’t all that interested and knew if I asked he’d
give me a long drawn out explanation and I get enough of that at school. As far
as I was concerned it was just more of the stupid shit adults do. Let’s face
it, Jews, Americans, and Arabs are just bigger versions of the Crips, Mexican
Mafia, and Aryan Brotherhood. They’re all gangbangers as far as I can tell
fighting over territory.
It’s weird that there ain’t any
Jewish gangs. Maybe they’re just one big gang that figures they can beat the
others by being smarter than them, which is pretty much true. That’s why Jews
aren’t liked because they give everyone else an inferiority complex. Take that
Freud fellow. He was a Jew and you have to admit what he said about religion
makes religious people feel pretty stupid. I don’t even know why Jews don’t
just give up believing in god. He hasn’t done a fucking thing for them. Like I
said about the Holocaust. There had to be a lot of sperm prayers headed his way
when Germany became the Umbrella Corporation. I think all those prayers are
still floating around in outer space.
Mr. Mendel said something like a
vibration once it gets goin it goes on like forever but maybe he wasn’t thinking of
prayer vibrations. Maybe they don’t even get out of the earth’s atmosphere but
just bump into other vibrations and break up so that all that’s left is noise.
Anyway, my point is that when you think about it god’s done nothing for his chosen
people. Chosen for what by the way? A stopover in Auzwitz and then pass Heaven
on the way to Hell because only Christians get into Heaven. That’s what I’ve
heard. From what I see in school Jews get their success without god’s help. And
that could be the reason you don’t see Jewish gangbangers in school. They’re
too busy studying to get moneymaking jobs when they grow up. But that’s a
problem for the rest of us. You have to do all that studying before you start
making alot of money. I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Of course Dad wasn’t big on the
books when he was in high school, mostly sports, and he ain’t making much money
working for some electronic version of McDonald’s. He learned about computers
when he was in the Army and took some community college classes afterwards. He
keeps saying that he’ll go back to college and get a degree in the stuff he
does at work. “Can’t get anywhere without a piece of paper you can hang on the
wall,” he says. I say it’s a little late. I mean when I talk about my old man I’m speakin the truth. He’s
pushing forty. He don’t look all that old but he is, especially on the inside.
Dad was on the right track after the Army, takin courses at Hawkeye Community
College on the GI Bill but then I came into the picture and the college thing
faded fast. Just another example how marriage is a highway to nowhere because
it always leads to havin kids. I say that but of course I’d marry Avalon in a
minute. Can’t marry Jill. Wouldn’t want to raise a family in Raccoon City,
though Alta Vista, the Black Zone, Taco Town, and Little Saigon aren’t any
better. At least in Raccoon City you won’t get arrested for shooting the bad
guys.
Getting back to the new bad guys
on the block, Jackie said he’d like to shoot an Arab for what they did, but
that ain’t saying much since Jackie was always talkin about shooting somebody
anyway.
So as you can see, the beginning
of the school year really sucked and I figured even then it wasn’t goin to get
any better, and I was right, because nothin’s goin to ever get better. Shit’s
always goin to happen and if it makes you feel better to say a prayer then go
ahead and do it. If it don’t do any good at least it won’t do any harm, though
I ain’t so sure. I bet those Arabs who flew the planes into our buildings
thought that god told them to do that. And how did they know whether what they
heard was god’s voice or just a fig of the imagination? And if that was really
what god told them to do, then god’s fucking nuts. So it don’t matter whether
god don’t exist or whether he does. People are goin to hear what they want to
hear, like if god did exist and was tellin those Arabs that they shouldn’t fly
those planes into the buildings, they’d just said that it was the voice of the
devil just messin with them.
That’s it. People hear what they
want to hear and if god decides to deliver the message directly like with
Jesus... Well look what happened to him. And if the reanimated Jesus came to
America today and said you gotta give up your SUVs, computers, televisions,
cell phones, goin to the movies and such shit, he’d find himself back on the cross
or in a loony bin. Which means people are pretty much goin to keep fucking over
one another and the world and all its inhabitants. And that’s what Christians,
like those baby-dick-lovin priests do every fucking day. Nail poor ol Jesus to
the cross. And that’s the way it is in all religions, people hearin and doin
what they want to hear and do, and now we got a president who’s on the prayer
phone with god 24/7. Even Dad worries about that and Dad’s no atheist. I don’t
think he is anyway, but maybe when we go to church he’s really just looking for
god. I don’t know and don’t want to think about that right now. Anyway, that’s
my epiphany about 9/11, like it or not.
A chapter from Freddy’s
American Life to be published or not. Certainly not by a conventional
publisher. Conventional publishers like to imagine themselves as representing
freedom of speech and freedom of press, but they would have no interest in allowing Freddy to have his say because they would consider his ideas toxic. And that’s where self-publishing publishers
come in. Unlike conventional publishers, they are willing to give Freddy a
soapbox upon which to express his ideas and feelings concerning his American experience,
which are not his alone but those of millions of Americans. And if you don't want to listen, you can walk on by, but at least he has his say. To
conventional publishers his ideas and feelings must be rejected because they do not conform to their
vision of what America is and should be. Their message to Freddy
is “Shut the fuck up! Enough of the reality bullshit!”
