I Have Seen The Future

I live in a bull shit ritzy part of town at the moment. Well, more of a ritzy bull shit town. Offshoot really. It’s a suburb separated by a bridge. It’s a township that shouldn’t be allowed to exist. There are many of those around here. Tacoma should be a large, sprawling mess, but every single neighborhood thinks of itself as its own sovereign unit. Parkland, Fircrest, Lakewood - we all know what you really are. Because it is separated by a bridge, Gig Harbor has a bit more of a legitimate claim to being a different town, but fuck that. Gig Harbor is only here to give assholes in Fircrest something to aspire to, and for even bigger assholes on Anderson Island to look down upon. It’s all part of the same sewage system; if you were really as high brow as you think you are, you wouldn’t live here at all. (Nothing tickles me more than someone who thinks they’re king shit in a tiny town. My former boss was a Tacoma City Councilman. He acted as though he had been elected Emperor, never realizing that most viewed his position as less than or equal to President of the Hair Club for Men.) Not that I hate this area -- far from it, but I do realize that at best Tacoma has sort of a scruffy, bathtub speed sort of charm. You can either accept that and move on, or you can bag it up and call it cocaine, but the latter is only going to get you jumped in a transit center bathroom for putting on airs.

I'm not just the President -- I'm also a member

 

It should be noted that I walk. I’m not bragging to any of my paralyzed readers, just pointing out that I am currently without a driver’s license, and even after I get that back, there is no way I will be able to afford a car. So I walk everywhere, punctuated by the occasional bus ride. Even so, the closest bus stop from my house is a half hour walk, and as the winter is falling and the clocks face set backs, it is dark when I leave in the morning and when I return home in the evening. This isn’t so bad -- the rich kids that zoom past me on the roads are less likely to scream at me as they pass after dark. I assume this is just because they don’t even see me, but I’ll take what I can get these days. But because this is an affluent area, there are no sidewalks for the entirety of my walk, and because I’m in a semi-wooded area, there are only two or three streetlights total. For my readers in foreign lands, I will note that I live in an area known as the Pacific Northwest, which is famous for seasonal depression and rain. It rains all year here, even more often in the autumn. I love the weather in this area, but walking in it for a minimum of one hour every day can become less than charming, and the more it comes down, the less defined the narrow paths on the sides of the roads become.

So every day I walk through tall weeds and deep puddles. And nearly every day there is a new set of tire tracks gouged in the mud, swerving right over the same paths that I walk in pitch darkness. Bumper pieces, shattered signal lights, fiberglass detritus, they pile up with alarming regularity lately. I never see it happen, and it never appears during the day; it is always fresh in the morning and gone by the evening. No doubt this is the end result of a lot of affluent children being given cars the second they hit driving age. Children who have never been told no, who cannot function without consulting their phones, and who think recreational drinking and drugs are what you do in the evening. I’m sure this makes me sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but I am genuinely scared for my life at least once a day walking these slim paths.

There is another oddity to living in these hoity-toity areas -- If you live somewhere that old white people move to in order to feel accomplished and safe, their children go away to college as soon as possible, because old, safe white people are generally the worst sort of person imaginable. So you end up with a town that consists of uptight crusty old people and their kids that are 18 and under. And if you are past your teen years, but not quite an old white abomination, there is literally nothing for you. No people your age, no bars or clubs, nothing interesting to do, no arts or culture, just grocery stores and prohibitively expensive restaurants.

It’s enough to make me want to give up. Many days I question why I should bother shaving or combing my hair. Who exactly am I hoping to impress? I was on the bus this afternoon, and a lovely young lady got on. She looked just like Aubrey Plaza. She took a seat toward the front of the bus -- I made eye contact and smiled, and she moved to the back and sat right next to me. Then she started fucking with her phone, and the screensaver was her boyfriend kissing her. Again, why do I even bother? I used to get fucked a ton a few years ago, and at the time, I seldom bothered to shower or even brush my teeth, which makes me sick to even type at this point, but it’s true. Explain that one to me. If I had gained 150lbs in the interim, or taken up playing acoustic guitar in public, or stopped wearing shoes and saying things like ‘amigo,’ this would make sense. But I have only improved in the ensuing years, yet now I’m a pariah, and then I was an ass magnet.

 

 

It really is enough to make me give up entirely. And that brings me to another type that I keep seeing on the bus these days. Well, not just these days. These guys have been around since the beginnings of public transit, perhaps even longer. Overweight guys, usually in army jackets, or T-shirts that look like they were free, sweat pants with holes in the knees, backpack, big chunky glasses with greasy lenses, bad haircut, optional beard and, most importantly, a worn science fiction novel in their hands. They don’t smell, they aren’t chatty, they won’t sit right next to you unless they absolutely have to. And goddamn it if they don’t look happy. Just to be fat, comfortable, and half way through a Resident Evil novelization. It has to be better than being ignored by snotty brats who have the luxury of being gorgeous. Looks will fade; that paperback about wizards will always be there.