Monday, July 22, 2002
If I start telling you my story, it will be on my time. I’m not going to force it on you if you don’t want to hear it, but if you’re reading this still after all these typed words, you must want to hear it. Why? Do you think it’s some sort of interesting tale or something? Don’t make demands on me of what kind of story to tell. Asshole.

But since I’m writing anyway, I might as well tell you what happened to me when I left Truffaut Bible College in northern New York state. I had to leave, they were all a bunch of useless tools up there. I’m directionless, that what my parents and my guidance counselors say. But you know what I say? They’re tools. A bunch of dumb fucking useless tools. And you are, too, big-ass useless reading-my-shit tool, you.

Plus, I had to leave because I flunked out. And I burned my Bible. And it turns out my parents never really enrolled me there. That’s just like those tools, to make me feel like I’m no good at school because they never enrolled me. My whole mixed-up life is their fault. I never asked to be born. At least I don’t think I asked, and if I did I can’t be held responsible, I was just a pre-born kid.

My useless-ass tool of a teacher, Mr. Pangloss, gave me $20 to catch a train or something back home to New York City, but instead of going directly home I sat in the bus station for a while. I watched all the freaks going by, thinking how awful their lives were and how they couldn’t wait to get to their next stupid appointment. They were hideous sorts of people, ugly and smelling terrible, just like my old school jacket when I hadn’t taken a shower after gym class. The smell followed me wherever I went throughout the city, as I bundled my old school jacket tighter around me to protect against the wind. ‘Scuse me.

I finally left the bus station when it got to depressing. I didn’t want to go home yet, but I was a little worried about what I was going to do in the middle of New York City with hardly anything to my name. After the train ride I only had $6 to last me until I got home again, that and my stupid old knapsack with my copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass from school that I had never read, a change of shorts, a picture of my big brother Squirrel, and a dead flower of only symbolic significance. And my Visa card with a $10,000 credit limit, I suppose I could survive on that if I needed to.

I was kind of an outcast because I hated everybody in the school I went to, where I failed, where I was never really enrolled, and I had actually murdered one of my roommates before I left and they probably had found his body in the pale white snow on the outer grounds of the school by now. That was another reason I was reluctant to go stupid home, but it wasn’t like it was my fault. I’m not the one who labeled myself a sociopath with homicidal tendencies in the child therapy sessions my parents made me go to.

In a way I wished I could go home. Like maybe if I had a laser of gigantic stupid constructive capability I could destroy the entire world except for the parts of it that I liked. Like the miniature foreign exchange student that lived with my parents before I went off to school. I liked her a lot, sincerely. And my brother Squirrel, he was a good guy, at least before he got married and became a bigshot sell-out “Texas Ranger,” hunting down murderers like me and such nonsense. But everybody else I’d probably destroy if I could. Only if I had a laser. Sure, I could destroy everyone one by one like I did my roommate Kyle, crush their soft skulls with a surprise brick in the back of the head, but I’m the kind of person who would get half the world killed and then give up because it was too hard. So what’s the stupid point?

For more of this great story, buy H.I. Standard’s novel
The Bitcher in the City The House Won't Let You Out
“This is Kemp DuhFarge of the State Police. I found a dead man without a head a mile down the road and came to see if anyone here saw anything or might have been involved in some fashion. It made a lot of sense, but now I feel a bit awkward seeing as how I don’t even know who lives here and have yet to hear a response.”

French Prick
I smoked a thin cigarette quickly in one puff. It was what I do. I’m currently unemployed.

The Negative Sum of Numbers
Mom and dad couldn’t meet Smythe at the airport because he wanted it to be a surprise. Also, they were emotionally distant and mom was haunted by the sexual abuse of Smythe by an uncle that she couldn’t prevent; but mostly because it was supposed to be a surprise.

The Heist Planned Over Coffee
In the crowd was Dickie Dicks; Eddie “Lumbar” Kickenback; Black Tony; and Tony. All were the best at what they did, except for the leader Rufus Dent, who was second best behind some guy who was in prison.