Why I Committed Suicide

by sam paul

  PART II

  TRAVEL, HABITS and

  LIFE

  Hey again me! Guess what? I finally did it. I cut the long shaggy mane that I’ve been keeping in a ponytail and tucked under my Baskin-Robbins hat for too long. I finally figured out that I wasn’t going to use it to shag the ladies anymore and it’s so hot that it was no-longer convenient to sacrifice style for comfort. Cutting off the hair has been on my mind for a while and I must have been whining about it a bit, because Jenifer point blank asked me if she could cut it. Probably just to shut me up.

  I could tell that cutting hair is something that Jenifer really feels like she should be able to do and that this was very important to her. Not only would I be trusting her with my hair, it would also be synonymous with the trust we have placed in each other and in this relationship. You know how girls can equate the weirdest things with the status of feelings for each other? Jenifer is a cool girl but you can’t overcome biology and female “hormonics.” “Hormonics” is my new word that mixes dynamics with hormones as pertained to females in relationships.

  I did make sure to ask her about what her initial cutting approach was going to be and offered some pointers. Hey, when you are a guy with long hair you get all kinds of shit and it takes really long fucking time to grow and look halfway decent. My mom has been giving me crappy bowl cuts for years, so I’m entitled to be nervous when a hair chopping virgin is going in for their first time.

  We did this the other night on the front porch of the house so I wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of finding a broom. The hair can breakdown and fertilize the lawn with its leftover traces of marijuana and LSD for all I care. I got a camera and took pictures so I could do a before-and-after kind of montage and make it into one of my art collage projects. I got the “before” picture just fine, and notice how I’ve only mentioned Jenifer attempted to cut my hair shorter. Who would have thought that it actually takes practice and a modicum of skill to merely cut hair? I sort of suspected that this might turn out badly and if I wasn’t slightly prepared to take it (“it” being my motherfucking wig) all off before hand, I wouldn’t even have brought it up as a suggestion.

  We combed my long dirty blonde hair all down in the back first, making it sort of resemble a country stock-car racing fan hair-do. Then Jen took the scissors and while the hair hung in mid-air, poised for one last show of Nordic sexiness, she cut a straight line right across the back removing the longest portion all in one neat swoop. Well that was the intent anyway. In reality she fucked it all up with our dull and rusty kitchen scissors leaving me with a half chopped back head with an uneven line. A little adjusting on one side led to more adjusting on the other side until most of it was gone. The blood from my lovingly nicked ear gave it a tad bit of color and fun though. I am in love and thus my patience is near eternal. I say that as I write this later because I’m fairly sure I squealed like a stuck pig when it happened.

  As any girl will tell you, the process of cutting long hair to short hair is a BIG deal that goes far beyond the actual hour or so it takes to physically cut the hair. The psychological preparation and after-effects of any radical change of appearance are predictably long-reaching for women and men, but it’s a thousand times worse for women. Cosmo probably has received a thousand tearful letters from women across the country about occurrences with hair stylists after cutting off their long locks, and most of those women have had the luxury of having their hair cut by a professional. I certainly didn’t maliciously want Jenifer to fail, more for her psyche than for the preservation of my overindulged image, but her “it looks so easy” quickly turned into apologies. Jenifer was in tears by the time she quit in frustration, thinking I was angry with her, and my fucked up grinning shaggy head wasn’t doing much in the way of being comforting.

  Oh sweet Jenifer, how could I ever be angry with you?

  We finally went over to her parent’s house and her mom did the best she could with what was left. Her parents thought it was funny and I thought it was funny, but Jenifer didn’t like us joking around about it that much. Obviously girls won’t dig me as much anymore, but I really don’t care if anyone else in the entire world thinks I’m attractive as long as SHE still does. In fact most of the time I wish everyone would leave me alone except her. Having short hair is like a new lease on life, easy-maintenance experience. I hardly have to use any shampoo anymore and that’s got to save some money. Money that can be spent on more Ramen noodles. HA!

  Jim had his crazy childhood friend, Timothy, a guy I’ve heard a million stories about, over to the house the other night. Timothy is on of those people that are so full of energy and go-go-go, that he doesn’t always know what to do with himself. He is one of those people always looking ahead to the next thing or the next party or the next drink and if there is trouble of any sort, I wouldn’t ever be surprised to see Timothy in the middle of it. Timothy is amiable and friendly but I learned that it isn’t always smart to give acid to people with too much energy to begin with, especially if it isn’t something they are used to doing. While Jim, Jen and I were sitting down and trying to chill out, Timothy was buzzing around the house doing amped up crazy weird shit. He kept trying to show us this trick he learned about eggs.

  The structure of an egg is very strong if the force attempting to break it open is applied evenly over the whole surface area. This means that you can try and crush an egg in your hand and it can withstand the pressure if you don’t get too crazy and apply the force to it evenly. I learned that in one of my old physics classes or while doing bong hits watching the Discovery channel.

  Next thing I know, Timothy is in the fridge walking around crushing eggs in his hand trying to show us this “new trick”, but he was way too fucked up to do it right and he kept breaking eggs all over our house. He even broke an egg on top of Jim’s bed, which I’m sure will get pretty gross since Jim only does his laundry about once every six weeks. Yuck.

  Timothy was pretty amusing at first but his shenanigans got to be very annoying, something I try to avoid while tripping my balls off, so Jenifer and I cut out of there. Poor Jim had to stay and almost baby sit the guy since it was his friend, but I think they still had fun on their own. I mean, I guess its okay for people to talk to themselves as long as they don’t interrupt themselves at the same time.

  I’m going to be starting a new job at the Swensen’s up the street where my roommate Jerry is the manager. Basically I’ll be a short order cook for them, which means my fast-paced, enticing, high-paying career in the food service industry is officially in full bloom. Now if I can only get to the enticing and high-paying part of that description I’ll be on easy street. At least no one in my house will starve. I should be re-named the “Purloined Food Avenger” or some-such nonsense since I practically feed the whole house. I’m apparently the only one with enough sense to grab lots of foodstuffs everyone is sick of looking at by the time our shifts end and bring it home. After slinging pizza for so long, nobody who works with pizza wants to even touch it, much less eat it. I’ve been working at the damn Tomato longer than anyone so I just wanted some sort of new job for fucking variety.

  I’m thinking I will still continue working at the Tomato to supplement my income a little, but with both Dan and Jenifer working there now it’s time to attempt at least some sort of minor effort to change. Too many hands dipping in the same till will get me busted, so I think maybe subconsciously I am trying to make a change towards recapturing my honest business practices. My sense of Bushi. I make less than 4 dollars an hour STILL and you just can’t make a dollar out of fifteen cents sometimes. Sooo, even though I won’t be changing industries (oooh check out my ‘high-tech’ lingo usage), I’ll be changing jobs. Maybe I can do a little table waiting and pick up some tips at the new place, and then I’ll at least have waiter training and be able to move on again someday. I can always fall back on the welding I learned in high school if the cooking industry bottoms out. At l
east welders get to wear the cool looking Imperial-Guard-Star Wars-helmets and that’s not too bad.

  For the most part it’s pretty nice to work in a place where you can eat. That way if all the other money has to go to the bills there is always some food around to eat in really desperate times. It’s also cool to be in a place where I can work, eat and smoke pot in the freezer all at the same time. The ice cream parlor aspect of this new job is a slight bonus, but my first damn job was at a Baskin Robbins and it took me years to be able to stand ice cream again after creating so many vile concoctions with customized flavors and combinations. A word to the Baskin Robbins Company: never leave anyone under 21 in charge of an ice cream store!

  I figure since Jenifer and I eat at Swensen’s anyway, she can come up there to eat club sandwiches while it’s slow. She can be finicky when it comes to eating the only crap we can afford to eat sometimes.

  School is going okay. It’s difficult to get up at 10 am (early is a time relative to when I actually go to bed). It’s hard enough to leave bed, but I also must leave the entanglements of such a beautiful woman behind me. Still I go. Plodding to class in the heat with more heat added on top of that, while hormonally IN heat is not an easy task, especially when there are cool forbidden sexual delights at home. Ahhh well. big sigh. Sometimes both of us sleeping in my regular twin bed can get a little crowded but I really do love it. Have I mentioned I love Jenifer thirty times today yet?

  We finally got cable TV in the house and Jenifer will sit with me in my lap on the big easy chair in the living room and watch the Discovery Channel and old Star Trek reruns while I bong out with Skeletor. I feel very content when I spend days and days doing this. It really makes me so grateful for everything. Must be all those juicy love vibes I’m getting, plus I’m learning a lot about World War II and animals so it counts as productive educational time.

  Occasionally we all pitch in some of our money to get some cocaine and then stay up all night playing cards and Super Nintendo. Personally I’m not much of a speed person. I don’t like feeling nervous and jittery, but Jen and I fuck like rabbits when we’re on coke. It’s very nice. I can see why people become addicts I suppose, but sex and awareness of the world around me doesn’t really rule my life. I guess I’m just more of a turn on, tune in, drop out kind of goodfellow. Jerry and Jenifer like doing coke a lot though. Every girl I’ve ever seen doing coke loves it way more than anything else she’s ever tried. When you score it from the dealer they actually call it “girl” since so many broads go fucking nuts over the shit. I thought it was kind of funny when I found out a drug was nicknamed after the gender that prefers it. I think it must affect women differently on a more personal level. Maybe confidence is something all girls lack in their lives and cocaine can fill that gap chemically. Temporarily. I don’t really get it…I wonder what “boy” is?

  I really was so disappointed with cocaine because it was supposed to be the greatest drug of all time and it was a really big deal for me to do it the first time. Then it turned out to be (relatively) tame and not very much fun, which meant all the lies I ever heard about cocaine were more paranoid drug war bullshit.

  “Just say no, or your arms will fall off. LSD makes you think you can fly and jump off buildings.” Fuck that! I hate when I find out that I’ve been misled into being good for my entire life. TELL ME THE TRUTH AMERICA! I promise I will think about my decisions more rationally if you do.

  Good news! My soul mate and I are planning a trip out to Baja, Mexico for the Christmas holidays. Jenifer’s getting restless again and we both need a road trip to instill some sense of our faith in Americana. I gotta get out on the road, read the road signs in different places and encounter people with values that will continually surprise me. It will be our first road trip together. Awww, how fucking sweet.

  We’ll be going to Arizona and California and then down to Baja to catch the migration of the grey whales as they head back up the coastline for mating season. It’s supposed to be an incredible experience where they take you out in a boat and you get so close you can actually touch the whales if you want to. That’s the rough plan anyway; we’ll see how it goes. It’s nice to have some sort of vacation plan ahead to give a little excitement to the monotony of our everyday existence. Isn’t that great? I write a lot about how happy I am and then can’t wait to get out of town away from the doldrums. I’m an oxymoron.

  One of my managers at work, David, along with his younger brother Gabe are both totally obsessed with doing heroin. Gabe gives Jenifer and I free sandwiches from Schlotsky’s when he’s working sometimes, so we really like him and the strange isolationist groove that he has. I’m sure he likes Jenifer more than me though. It usually works out that way with the guys and her. We are like magnets to weirdos, but mostly good-hearted weirdos.

  The smack thing has become some sort of quest for them. They have bought pharmacology books and researched the effects heroin has on the body. I suppose it’s all the glamour and hype that is going on about it lately that has them obsessed, it’s what their excuse would be I’m sure, but I think they really want to try it because we’ve all run out of drugs to do. Everything else is boring or expensive and hurtful (cocaine). I must admit though, that I share some of the same interest that they have to try it. This will be the last drug I ever experiment with. If it lets me down then I’ll move on.

  It’s harder than hell to find smack in rural town USA, but I’m sure someone in this college town has it somewhere. Real life isn’t like the movies where you can find people selling drugs on any corner and the first one is free to get you hooked into some drug dealer’s evil scheme. Dammit. I think I’ve located and done about every illegal drug that there is by now, except for PCP, and I’ve discovered that all the textbooks and good fucking Samaritan police officers that came to my school when I was a child to talk about the evils of drug abuse were all full of a big steaming peanut-filled pile of uneducated shit. So I’m guessing that heroin will turn out to be along the same lines, another disappointment.

  I went off on a rant there didn’t I? We really are focusing on this trip to Baja now. The whales are an excuse to get out on a road trip and I think my tales of Mexican fun have planted the seed of romance in Jenifer’s brain. I have to find out about passports and car insurance.

  Jen and I got our passport paperwork underway even though there is supposed to be some sort of agreement where U.S. citizens can legally drive all the way down into Baja. Some leftover tourist thing from the golden days when big fucking Hollywood money would drive down the coast to Cabo. The picture in my passport is really crazy looking, my hair is sticking up everywhere and my eyeballs are all bugged out. I’m guessing we’re bound to be searched for drugs if anybody looks at them too closely. I borrowed a mummy bag from Jenifer’s cornucopia of parental camping gear to sleep in since I can’t seem to find mine around anywhere.

  We’ve got a pocket full of money, a full tank of gas, even a half pack of cigarettes, so our restless spirits are headed to a welcome warmer climate. Both of us are worn out from trying to hump it through the end of semester blues, we’re gearing up for a strong finish and this month or so of holidays will be a real soul quencher. I this will be the first X-Mas where I won’t be going home and I won’t have to be involved in that whole formal ‘spend the day with the family’ thing. I’m stoked, Jenifer and I already opened most of our presents early with the blessing of our families but getting the all clear to go play is the best gift I think I could have received. Even though my parents are not in a position to deny my freedom any longer, the most expensive present I got was something my parents didn’t even know they had given. Freedom.

  Jenifer gave my parents a vase fired by her father at my family’s formal present opening party, or ‘present presentation’ I guess. My mom really liked it a lot, thinking it was very thoughtful and touching even though I knew it was an easy and casual gift for Jenifer to give. It made me feel like a s
tupid bastard for not getting her parents anything, although I have no fucking idea what to get them. I suspect that one day her father’s pottery might be valuable in the same way that people value Van Gogh’s painted madness. Perhaps I should bring up cutting off appendages with him in one of our conversations. I’m a bastard I guess.

  I can tell that my sister has accepted the changing of the guard finally and that she really likes Jenifer a lot. Maybe Alecia has identified with an older sister figure during the few times we’ve eaten in Dallas with my family over the past few months or maybe its because Jenifer talks to her like a person. I’ve been watching, noticing their interaction and I respect Jenifer for being so good hearted towards Alecia. This has made me love both of them even more so I’ve been trying to treat my sister more like an adult myself. Alecia’s been having trouble in high school and I remember how much shit I had to eat during that time of my life when I lived at home even though I was an honor student. So I want to be a positive force in her life instead of just another parent.

  So anyway, we’re off to escape the drudgery of life by immersion into a world of risk and American road travel. I have my mandatory modest bag of pot (don’t leave home without it), my best girl (I like the way they said that in the 20’s, my BEST girl) and her little Ford Escort that we’ll be sleeping in a lot of the time to make this trip more economically feasible. This…will be…the…ultimate…vaca-tion!! Jenifer’s full of unbridled energy and anticipation con muy porquito coca for the long flat relatively boring drive from Dallas to El Paso.