Sean Robin Hughes

“You aint nothin but a pimply faced youth now, but some day you are going to be gullible adult.  And let me tell you what, when the world comes knockin on your door telling you to pay the taxes and kiss your freedom goodbye, you just do what they say.  Then you take your revenge against society in other creative ways.” Uncle Charlie said, lounging creatively on the porch rail, neglected beer and cigarette occupying the same hand.

“How’s that?” I said.

“Welp, I will tell you what, when the world told me to be a worthwhile chump and drag my ass to a dreary office in fucking traffic for an hour each way and then have the howdy-do to kiss my bosses ass and thank him for the shit pay, something just broke inside me.  I don’t know how else to say it.  Maybe I became a fucking psychopath?  What’s a person that doesn’t give a fuck called?”  He scratched his balls and looked me in the eye.

“A sociopath?”

“That’s it.  A fucking sociopath.  I aint’ killing no one, mind you.  Not raping little girls or pushing old folks down stairs.  I just figured that if society insisted on fucking me, I would take some time to fuck society back.  Like a terrorist or sumthin.”

“So you wanted to blow things up?” I said incredulously.

“No!  Well, Yes!  But no.  I love blowing shit up, but I don’t like the maiming and killing parts.  Ever see Fight Club?”

“Yeah.  Brad Pitt and what’s his face…”

“Exactly!  What’s his face.  I didn’t want to be what’s his face.  I wanted to be Brad Pitt.  Stand up and be counted as something worth more than a guy sitting at a desk, measuring his piss poor life by the things he buys at the fucking local Ikea.  Its a joke… but it has a point you see?  Be more than what you are told to be.  And every single one of us are told to be a motherfucking victim.”

“Really?” How does one placate a talker?  By letting them talk, duh.

“Yes, really!  You see it everywhere.  Watch daytime tv sometime.  Call this lawyer cause your neck is hurt, call this lawyer because your bitch is cheating on you, call this lawyer to make bail.  I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a fucking lawyer to call to tell the other lawyers to fuck off.  We are victims.  I don’t want to be. I want to be the guy that made the victims want to call the tv lawyers.  So I did little things… they felt great for a while.”

“Like what?

“Ever walk into a public bathroom and just see piss everywhere?  I mean like everywhere?  On the counters, on the floor, on the toilets, on the gaddam ceiling?  Yeah, that was me.  I would piss all over everything.  I just unzip as I hit the door, and then just let loose until I walked the full length of the bathroom.”

“But that doesn’t do anything.  It just grosses a few people out and pisses off the poor immigrant that has to clean it up.”

“It does do something.  It shows the universe that there is someone willing to piss all over the place. And I did more than just piss all over everything.  I started rubbing dollar bills against my balls.”

“What?! Disgusting!”  I said.

“Yeah, I would cash my check, ask the teller for a thousand ones, then go home and just ball hump every single Washington.  That bitch behind the counter would eye me up as she handed me the cash just assuming that some broke ass white trash like me was going to have a lot of fun at the local nudie bar.  But nope.  I was headed home.  To rub.  Each and every single.  Against my sweaty dingle.”

“That is disgusting.  I mean come on.  Little kids probably touch those dollar bills.”

“Oh like they were clean to start with.  Most money smells like shit anyway.  But any time I see someone using a bill, I can laugh, because after years of doing this every week, I am positive that most of the residents of the state have my ball sweat in their billfold.  I bet the President has had my balls in his hand.”  Charlie stops and takes a deep drag on his cigarette, his beer becomes an ashtray, even though it half full still… he doesn’t seem to care. “But a couple months ago, I needed to step it up.  So I started picking up old fiberglass insulation.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”  I grimaced.

“Then I built a simple shredder down at Eddie’s shop. Lugged that fucker to my garage and started shredding down the fiberglass.  Then I packaged it, all nice and neat in little bags. Then I go shopping.  I go into the Walmart’s, and the Target’s, and all those other symbols of corporate ass stuffing, and I neatly dump those little bags over the clothes racks.”  He laughed uproariously, the cigarette waving around like a sparkler.  Ashes fall and hit the white pad on my mom’s bench cover.

“Imagine those fat McDonald-fed uglies going home and trying on their XXXXXL mumus and stretch shorts.  Oh the itchiness.  Fat fuckers.  I wish I could find a way to make eating that deep fried crap a bad thing.  Like making people allergic to fat.  That would be amazing.”

“Yeah, I could see that.  You think all this is a good idea?”

“Better than bending under the thumb of the man.  Better than being a slave to the system. Anyway.  What you are doing nowadays?”

“Nothing much. Just a Special Investigator at the FBI.  Happen to be in the domestic terrorist division.”

Uncle Charlie stopped the swig he was taking from his ash-laden beer, looked me over top to bottom, his eyes bugging so far out of his head I thought they were going to fall onto his cheeks.  Then he promptly spit his mouthful of beer out in surprise all over me and the wall behind.  He vaulted the porch rail and ran directly into the path of a U-Haul moving van.

I wish I had a better eulogy to give, but Uncle Charlie was the world’s worst terrorist.  So to Uncle Charlie: I hope where ever you ended up, the fire isn’t too hot.