2005-10-06 - 3:45 p.m. Hello My Name is Satan My interactions with a waiter the other night: �We have enjoyed this in the past.� Talking only about the way I enjoy a steak cooked, but I looked around the room looking for the one other person that would turn I into �We� �I fought the cow, and the cow won� delivered in a Jeff Goldblum way after I finished all my steak, meaning actually that I had defeated the cow. This is a story about how Gump makes friends. Without diving deeply into my past I didn�t have friends coming out of my elementary school, which was the �toughest� elementary school in my town. What does that mean? It means I grew up in a middle class almost all-white suburban utopia and my definition of tough is most city definitions of �pussy�. Nevertheless, to the fish in the aquarium, the anglefish is a giant. The school that I came out of mostly consisted of edgy white kids that would draw pentagrams in their note books with really angry faces. I learned very quickly that Satan was evil. And evil was good. Evil was good because teachers thought evil was bad, and being bad meant that teachers didn�t like you which meant that other students did. Which meant that I should be evil. I got confused and pretended I was a dog. That may have been because Dog was the dyslexic form of God which was good and maybe by being good that would be the worst evil. But it also might be because I was crazy. I am sorry to say, but this is true. However crazy. Needless to say I didn�t have many friends, and those I did have were confused. Example: Jay: Jay was intense and I ended up getting into a fistfight with him right about the time his mother died. Three years later I had a conversation with him about he and his Dad would go down to the shooting range a lot and fire off all different types of Guns. Jay liked Guns and invited me to join. He also told me how his dad would always go down to the strip club while his mother was dying. I am writing these things down because I can hardly believe they happened. My mom never really cared for Jay�s Dad. John: Jay was friends with John, due to how close they lived. I never liked John. I also got into a fight with him, but not a good fight. I was angry and was chasing him in order to hit him, but he was faster than I was. Eventually he told a teacher and I was held back by a Teachers Aid who I then hit. I feel bad about that. His older sister Kerry was better at him in almost everything. He was much more likeable when he grew older. Chip: Chip was strange. I will never quite know what happened with this kid, but I do know that his yearbook quote thanked the Patriots for getting him through High School. Ironically the Patriots kinda sucked during that time. The only real good year was when they went to the superbowl, and got cheesed. Regardless, my greatest moment over Chip was beating him in a pillow fight. The Pillow fights occurred at Jay�s house with heavy pillows. We were rowdy and loud and a group of boys, but we were not watched because Jay�s mom was dying and his father was at a strip club. His father left a lot of playboys lying around the house. I never looked at one. The point of all this was that when I entered middle school I didn�t have any friends and I was weird. I wasn�t raised weird, two parents, normal house, nothing odd or traumatic happened to cause a splintering of my mind. I was just weird. This is what my problem was. Responses. I started eating rulers in 6th grade. I thought that could be my thing. I was little and weak and not smart and not fast and not funny and not confident; I thought that if was weird then that�s how I could fit in. I remember my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Jordan, had a display of things above his desk which were �weird things that past students did,� and I thought that if I could put something up there, then that would be good. In retrospect, it would just be weird. Sidenote: How strange is it that teachers are always �Mr. And Mrs.� with no first names. I would like to know at what point students start learning teachers first names. I think somewhere around there we start losing respect for authority. I remember that this kid behind me was so good at arm wrestling he would beat anyone in the class. In 7th Grade I met vomitingcod. We met in Art Class. Art was the �A� in HIAM which some of the kids called �Hymen� a joke I didn�t get for at least five years. HIAM was a mix of Home Economics, Industrial Arts, Art, Musical Arts. I have absolutely no idea why I sat at that table. See, the table consisted of people with the last names �A�, two �B�s�, and a �C�. As you all know, my last name begins with �H� for Hood. Anyway Cod (the �C�) and I for god knows why reason sat next to each other. As if this isn�t believable enough, this is how our first conversation went. �Hey, my name is Cod� �Cool. My name is Gump. But not really� �Oh, what is it really? Is it Gumpalot?� �It�s Satan.� �Wait, Are you saying that you are Satan, or that�s just your name?� �No, I am actually Satan. Lucifer, Gump, whatever you like. I just thought you should know. Slightly scared, more intrigued � �Why would I want to know?� �Because you are taking Art while sitting next to evil.� and I sold it. It wasn�t a goofy face, It was a �I will skin you leaving all but your nipples and then I will put your body in a lava river so that crocodiles can nurse at your remaining man teets� stare. For the record, I never planned on telling him that I was Satan. Nor did I intend on continuing that gag for as long as I did. It was at that moment. The first thing I did was let him beat my hand. Later in my life I learned my nerve endings are buried very deep and I don�t feel pain. So maybe letting a middle school boy smack my hand with rulers, books, pens, and punches wasn�t the best plan, but it did create a certain amount of self-doubt that lead him to believe my lie. We talked everyday after that. Seriously. There weren�t many consecutive days from then until we graduated High School where we didn�t talk or hang out. Now this also says something about The Cod. Not only did he never question why I would call myself Satan, but it endeared him to me. We started hanging out, and there was actually never a final conversation with me declaring myself �not Satan�. It just didn�t matter to him. He is my best friend now, so I suppose that this time evil didn�t backfire for me. We lived together two different times each for a year, and he�s moved away three times, this last time being the final time, and it sad that he�s not coming back. I drove by his old house and the new occupants there have made changes to his yard, and cut down the bush that poked him the eye. I half grew up in that house. Its all been very weird and sad and I must say that while I don�t think we will see each other that much, we will always be close. We are as close as brothers. He will be the best man at my wedding, and I will be the best man at his. | |||||||||||
