Give Me the Shit

When it comes to success, people only ever want to hear about its annihilation. Especially when those people are family. Yes, families love nothing more than having a good failure in the bloodline. To point at.

The only thing more hated than success, or maybe it’s just more annoying, is someone who’s not yet successful, but who has the audacity to dream. 

That afternoon, as I trimmed the steaks, I thought about how I was going to break it to my family. That I’d been stricken with a bloated oozing carcass of a dream. Horrible! They’d been living in the comfort that I was, and always would be, a loser. That was my righteous path. I was to make no real money, achieve no notoriety, and then die before them. 

That was perfect. Made them feel good about their own rotten situations. Brothers and sisters and half-sisters all festering, all praying to sun-faded pink Jesus I’d continue being a big enough fuck up to cover them. Why not? I’d achieved in failure gloriously up until now. A blockbuster. A bloody stump for a toe. I cut a long piece of fat off a T-bone and chucked it in the garbage. Silver-y fat. I’d been in the kitchen trimming for so long the garbage was now a flabby silver mountain. Flubbing there, laughing at me. No! There was no other way. I just had to tell them. I was going to quit my job at the ad agency and finally go for it as a writer. I was going to be successful. 

I pictured my future, on that day when success finally greeted me. My dream.

I was sitting at the top of a hill in a big brick house with a four-car garage. I had a boat. I was divorced. My children hated me. I hated them. I had a great big TV and refrigerator full of beer. I had my jingles. I had gout. My dick was filled with gonorrhea. My dick didn’t work. I had gray skin. I was half-bug. Bug-like, flopping around, eating disks of mechanically-separated ham. I had Bacon over the mantel, in front of the picture of my second wife. All in front of pink Jesus. I’d eat bacon and stare up at it. My third wife was much better. She was model. She knew nothing. I knew nothing. Any time I started to know something, I reached for my bacon. There were magazines with stretched versions of my face on the floor looking up at me. Hey! You, idiot! They’d all sing. Like Elvis, but when he got fat. Greasy pus singing. Greasy dog. I had a dog who I loved. I’d named him Brownhead. He sat in the sun. He licked at his balls. I had a toe. The doctor said it looked wrong. Come on, toe! I’d scream at it on my couch. Propped up. In a bucket of ice. I wouldn’t worry. I had the money to cut things off. If it came to that. I’d replace it with something better. Maybe a pogo. Maybe a little puppet of my kids. Then they would talk to me and say I was their favorite. I could change them out and stick on my heroes. Maybe Exley. Or no, Mishima. No, that wouldn’t look right. I’d pick Exley and we’d drink together. Me and toe-Exley. He’d tell me I was doing good. Then we’d blow our brains out. He didn’t go like that, but I’d always dreamed of not waiting until I shit my pants. I would look at all my stuff. My cars. My paintings. I’d have a Guston above the Bacon. I’d eat chicken and drink wine. I’d wake up at ten, even ten thirty! Because I wouldn’t have no stupid job! Hounding me. For pages of bile. I’d be calm. My butler would wear a tuxedo and fuss over his mustache and with a ring of a bell he’d bring me little finger sandwiches and cocaine.

And down in an office somewhere—in this dream I lived in Valencia, so down would be something off Carrer de Colon—there would be rows and rows of dog houses that I owned. Big suckers, but not too big. Inside I’d have naked MFA students, and I wouldn’t want them getting too comfortable. Each would be chained to a laptop. And if one produced enough good pages, I’d feed them an apple. They’d be my pets. I’d treat them horribly, because writers need to struggle to produce good honest work. That’s what I’d been told. I certainly struggled now, in reality, so hopefully I got to continue living this life of toil and sweat and failure and hangovers, because then I’d really be on to something. I was brimming with failure! I prayed. Continue to give me the shit, O writing god! Make my life shit so that my dreams come true! 

I felt it. Cosmic tracks shifting and locking into place. Out there in velvet dreamland, one day, my writing would be sent from my office (I’d have my top manager pick the very best stuff) to collect accolades and money and I’d feel really fine about not having to fail at the advertising agency anymore. And when I died, my tombstone would stretch up into the sky. None of my family would come to rest flowers and gloat. For on it, I’d have the engraver list every single dream of mine that came true after cutting all the rotting silver fat from my stinking life.

“Steaks are ready!” I called out, bringing the serving plate to the table.