I hate going first. The only time its
okay is during an orgy or car crash. Otherwise you are forced to
suffer or see a bunch of crap that you don't wanna see. Mr. W. Scott
is standing there waiting for me to get up and walk to the center of
the Shame Circle. Sad Sack won't even make eye contact with me. Boobs
does and I taste the last thing I ate earlier again. I can hear Beef
sniffling behind me. I look to the right a few seats over and Softy
is sitting there staring at her father like she is trying to make him
burst into flames.
I consider saying how shy I am about
public speaking and then I hear Beef blow his nose into his sleeve
and think better of it. I clear my throat and walk to the center. Mr.
W. Scott steps aside as I pull the microphone closer to my lips. I
wait for Mr. W. Scott to go sit down somewhere but he doesn't. He just stands there waiting for me to start.
“Hello” I say. No one responds.
Rude, much? “My name is Alan Thompson and I'm kind of a big deal.”
Silence. “How am I supposed to start this?”
“Start with when you first became the
pathetic mess that stands before me darkening my soul with each
moment you are allowed to exist” Mr. W. Scott says.
“I had my first drink when I was--”
“Earlier.”
“When I was about 11, I stole--”
“Earlier.”
“Okay...” I mutter. “My parents
never wanted a kid?”
“There. Continue” Mr. W. Scott says
and checks something off on his clipboard.
“My dad had just started his
accounting business and my mother was fresh out of college when she
found out that she was pregnant. Uh, like I said neither of them had
ever wanted a kid. They both had bad parents and knew that they'd be
pretty shitty parents. And they were.” Someone raises their hand.
Some chick with half her head shaved and tattoos all over her arm.
How in the hell did I not notice her before? Mr. W. Scott nods to
her.
“What made them so bad?” Inky asks.
“Did they molest you?”
“Christ, no!” I say. “They just
didn't pay attention to me. They kinda just left me alone. They'd go
to these huge parties and just leave me at home. If company came over
they would put me in my room and lock the door, hide any photos of me,
things like that. I didn't really mind until I got older.”
“Not yet” M. W. Scott says. “How
did you talk to your parents? Were you as disrespectful as you are
with everyone you have come across here?”
“First off, I don't think I'm
disrespectful to anyone here” I tell him and I hear quite a few
people scoff. Sad Sack raises his eyebrow. “I called them mother
and father for a while. My mother hated when I would even talk to
her. My father gave up on hating me and started to groom me to take
over his business so he could retire early. I was just a kid.
Literally a kid. What did I know about accounting?!” My hands start
to shake so I grip the podium. “Can I move forward now?” I ask
Mr. W. Scott. He nods. “One day when I was by myself, I was about
10, I saw a bottle of gin sitting on the kitchen counter. I figured
it was water in a fancy bottle. I opened it and took a huge swig.”
“How did it taste?” someone I can't
see asks. Mr. W. Scott doesn't interject so I answer.
“Amazing!” I say. “Like, I had
never even been around booze before but as soon as it hit my tongue
it was like 'This is what I have been needing my whole life and no
one gave it to me.' I took the bottle to my room and polished it off
under my Care Bear blanket and passed out. I woke up, like, the next
morning and my head hurt like crazy.”
“Baby's first hangover” someone
says and everyone starts laughing. Mr. W. Scott, like some kind of
fucking Office Depot ninja, starts lobbing pens and pencils at
everyone. They start shouting and screaming until he slaps the
podium.
“Another interruption and bones will
be broken” he says. “I know who spoke out of turn and I will deal
with you soon.” Someone gasps. “Continue.”
“At some point during the night my
parents took the bottle out of my hands. But it wasn't like suddenly
they started hiding the shit. No. Every day when I come home from
school there'd be another one sitting in the same spot. And every day
I would drink it.”
“Are you saying that they enabled
you?” Mr. W. Scott asks me.
“Well...yeah.”
“So you are saying that if they left
a gun out in the open and you shot yourself that it would be their
fault?” he asks.
“Of course!” I say. “That's just
shitty parenting.”
“But you just said that they just
left the alcohol sitting in the 'same spot.' They never forced you to
drink it. You made that decision yourself.” He checks something off
on his clipboard.
“But I was just a kid” I say. My
hands start shaking more and I swear there's a giant ant sitting in
the third row. I don't mention this. Maybe if I ignore it it'll go
away. “I shouldn't have been allowed to have access to booze.”
“As a child you had access to the
outdoors, did you not?” he asks me. I nod. “Why did you not play
in traffic? I take it you knew where the cutlery was located in your
home? What kept you from harming yourself?”
“I'm not stupid” I say. “I'm not
gonna run out in traffic or cut myself.” When I say the part about
cutting myself Softy looks at me.
“But you are stupid, Mr. Thompson”
he tells me. “No one forced you to drink. You made that decision.
You told yourself and continue to tell yourself that you are not
stupid enough to run into traffic or cut yourself. But you freely
admit and even boast about the liquor you have consumed throughout
your life. Is this true?” He holds his hand up before I can even
answer. “Experts have said in recent decades that alcoholism is a
disease. I, of course, find this to not be true. I say that it is a
symptom of the very weak. A very weak mind, body, and individual. Do
you know what does not exist in nature, Mr. Thompson?”
“Cookies?” I ask.
“Pity” he says. “Now get off of my stage.”
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