Tombstone

I always tell everyone that I'll be dead by thirty. I often ignore their instant question of why? because I know why and quite frankly it's none of their damn business. But now it seems it's coming much too soon--death that is. I mean I always figured I'd take care of it around twenty-eight, probably on a real birthday, my seventh. But now that it's approaching at twenty-three already, I can feel my hands clutching independent of the rest of my body, grasping out wildly for a little more time, time enough at least to make it once more in the sack.

I wish to extend a sort of parting letter only a little earlier than planned I imagine. I want to begin with a reaction to a reaction, which is to say that several of you dear readers have indicated your concerns and fears after reading one of the previous posts entitled "Scary" which goes to show how great of a writer I am or perhaps more realistically no one likes the idea of someone being anally raped. The whole thing led to several calls from my mother who wanted to know where I was staying now and if I was eating my vegetables and whether or not she should send along a few more cans of Gerber and if so where should she address them to. It was all very touching. I even came across a dear dear friend who I often playfully liken to death--and no not the Brad Pitt death but the Count Orlock sort--and even he, after reading, offered a comfortable place on the floor of his home to sleep, which I thought was more than gracious of him, especially considering he also takes the time out of his busy days writing what will be a terrific and I'm sure hilarious novel not to mentionthe work on his own, much better blog to point out all of the "fleshy broke-dick sentences" in my own postings. I couldn't ask for better friends, but as for you, all of you who expressed no concern or care over the sanctity and security of my Hairy Asscot-hole, to you I say 'screw you.' And not that you care, but when I am dead by next May, it will most likely be from one, several combinations of, or all of the following things:

Like that poor bastard Kane, the newspaper business will have done me in, and I'll have lost the woman who's not in my life to begin with. I'll end up crippled in bed, crushed under the weight of deadlines and high school gossip columns of the School Press. Lying there, lying there in bed muttering shit about sleds and lost childhoods, blossoming bosoms or buds or some nonsense. Or maybe I'll be sitting on a dock, at the end of a pier on Lake Lepto like Gatsby, blankly staring at the flashing green light on the distant shore until the aneurysm finally kicks in and gets the job done.
Perhaps I'll go out more gallantly, laying down my life on the battlefields of Freshman English, storming the classroom like the beaches of Normandy only to be struck down, pierced by some fourteen-year-old's witticism, cut down like those fools from the light brigade.
Even better will be my utter destruction in the course of coaching--or at least wildly running around on the sidelines like I'm doing something as several of my past coaches did--seventh grade girls basketball. If I haven't strangled one of them by the end of the season, maybe I'll have strangled myself.

But what I really hope happens, the way I really hope to go out in this next year is quite simple really. It will be for no complex reason or exquisite, glorious death or anything, not even a particular day--well, I hope it's on a Friday actually, and I'll be coming home from a long day as they'll all be long days, and I'll set a six-pack of cans of Schlitz or Hamm's or some equally schitz beer, though I can't think of any equally schitz beer right now, down on the kitchen counter, and I'll be too exhausted to make pizza from scratch as I do now, and, instead, I'll settle for a frozen Tombstone pizza--Supremo Deatho, Brick-Oven Style. I'll throw it in the oven before the oven is quite preheated to 425, and I'll pop a beer and take a sip. And I hope to die, I hope to choke on the very last bite of the last remaining inch of frozen pizza, and I hope I go before the first bad beer is completely drank. I hope they find me on the living room floor late Monday after I haven't shown up for work. I imagine the cats will have nibbled away some of my flesh having not been fed for two days over the weekend. And I say when I'm gone and you're forced to find someone else to schitz on, think fondly of me, or think of me as the bastard I am because either way, it makes no difference. I'll be dead.

So put something clever in the eulogy and something cleverer on the stone. Bury me in pine, throw in a Cohiba and a quart'o'tequila for the after party and make sure I'm in my Grateful Dead boxers 'cause I want to go out in style.



But what I really hope happens is when I'm down on the ground, blue in the face, gasping for air and grasping for the last clutches of life, I hope I manage to gurgle out in the last breath, through the crumbly crust and sauce and pepperoni and black olives, I hope I manage to get out Boxer's famous words, those death-gurgling words of a dying old man, "I will work harder."

Day Number It's Been a Long Time: I've decided I'm going to have a Schlitz or a Hamm's some day next week when I go out to lunch. I don't consider these to be real beers so no harm no foul.