In the Deep of the Night

Spencer had locked himself in his room for the night, and Missy had stayed with him. She was helping him hash out his plan for appeal. She thought she had suddenly found her calling the midst of Spencer’s personal chaos. To be Spencer’s lawyer, she decided, would be a great honor. She would love to get up in front of a jury, speak eloquently about Spencer’s worth as a human being, explain to the judge how a light sentence was to be deserved, that this was an issue that warranted serious thought and contemplation regarding the ways in which we are supposed to use our lives. He did not deserve to go to jail and throw away a small portion of his life. He deserved to think about what he had done, and decide it was bad.
Charles was in the same apartment, but he hadn’t seen Spencer in at least three hours. He was all alone in his apartment living room. The TV was on mute. An old movie about bonding with the common man. Its dialogue was replaced by a Half Japanese album, which Charles found exceedingly hilarious. After the album ended, and it was very quiet in the apartment, coming up on 4 AM, he went out on his balcony and looked out at the street. He sat down outside, still mildly warm, and he thought about what he could do tomorrow. He was still buzzed from the hash he had just been smoking. He thought maybe he should go back to school. Maybe he should join a volunteer fire department. Maybe he should play more basketball again. Maybe he should try to write again. Maybe he should visit his grandmother. Maybe he should take a long trip away. Maybe he should stop being such a dork around girls. Maybe he wasn’t young anymore, and he had to think about the future now instead of the past. But what could he possibly do in his future? He possessed intelligence, but a negligible degree of it. He possessed no special skills. He possessed a persona that everyone he had ever met considered caustic and unworthy of attention.
However, no suicidal thoughts permeated Charles’s brain. He was not going to end his life prematurely when there was so much left undone. But then he thought, “What is left to be done? Isn’t everything predetermined anyways? Whatever is going to happen is going to happen and I am not going to consider myself any kind of catalyst to this world. Most people are dead to me anyways. Everyone else sucks, and I don’t think that’s a childish thing to believe, everyone does in fact suck. I can’t believe how many people watch TV endlessly. I can’t believe how many people love to pretend like they’re alcoholics, but then blush the second you take a drink in the early hours of the day. I can’t believe how all the best music is always ignored in favor of mush from three years ago that’s been played a thousand times on every radio station owned by Clear Channel. I hate American Idol. I hate how Grammys are handed out to non-musicians who don’t even have any vision, just somebody else’s. I hate how fucking virulent I can be. People suck. I hate the way they drive. I hate the way they walk down the street, walking their dogs, or alongside their partners, looking concerned, laughing about things that are safe to laugh at, believing in our homeland, getting McDonald’s when they’re lazy, which is always. I hate the way some people have so many kids, like they think extra kids are going to ward off death or something, or make it less painful. I hate the government most of all, and how it supposedly aims to protect, but how, hey, look at me, I am vulnerable. I am very vulnerable right now, and anybody could walk in and see me out here on this porch and they’d be ready to hug me, or slap me, either way, I hate people. The only good people are the people that are so drugged out of their minds that they can’t express a thought of their own. The worst people are the people that talk all the time, like they have something important to say, but it’s really just another vision of evil and dominance. Oh my God I can’t take this shit anymore. Everybody’s so fucked up, I can’t believe it. Selfish like nobody’s business. Have I ever been a selfish person? It’s not fair to ask myself that. At times, I will admit, I have been selfish. On the whole, I have been extremely unselfish though, and what has it gotten me? More people think I don’t know what I’m doing because I don’t order people around to do things, I haven’t climbed the ladder to success high enough. I have no aspirations for the American Dream, and that’s so fucked up to these people that they can’t find a shred of worth in me because I’m ‘different.’ All I want out of life at this point is just some fucking peace, some quietude, some contemplation, reading, writing, going to films, museums, art, art, music, architectural study, spectacles, spectacles, and I want to be responsible for one of the many forms, I want to put my name on it, and I want to be remembered for what I did that was good, not what was bad, though to be honest I can only justify everything I’ve done that’s bad but there is no way to qualitatively express what I have ever done that is good. I haven’t received a compliment in three years. I get the dirtiest looks in the world. People look at me and they fear the potential in me. I’m only beginning to relish the thought of being an outsider.”