Story Time with Depresso the Clown

Monday's morality tale and yesterday's admission that I'm writing a novel have combined to push me to share a short story I wrote six years ago.  It is not autobiographical.  I borrowed heavily from my past, but the protagonist is not me.  The piece was originally written as a final project for a philosophy class I was taking.  The story represents the philosophy of existentialism.  It touches on some familiar themes from this week, so it seemed appropriate.  Feel free to skip this post if you're not into emo teenage issues.

Ode to Angst Unhinged

When she broke me there was nothing left. The heart pumped without purpose. Lungs breathed to no end. What’s the difference? I knew that I had died. Hadn’t I? Eventually I found solace in another’s arms. But I hadn’t. I was dead. Some new thing found comfort again. Right? That was it. It wasn’t me. My family said move on. My friends said move on. They were my friends weren’t they? Doesn’t matter - they said the nice words.

Where was I? Oh yes, that’s it precisely, I? Me? Myself? No. I think not. New, different, hardened, separate. Thicker, less vulnerable pieces scrabbled together that would not be so easily smashed. Hmmm..... what did the scrabbling? Curious. It doesn’t matter.


One year - I’m breathing again. Me. No, not that one. This one. Don’t press for details. It doesn’t matter. I’m moving on. Somewhere the meaning is clear. I’ll find it, and I think I know where.


The man with all the ribbons on his chest is strong. Nothing fazes him. He has purpose. He has identity. I can too, so he says. Sign the papers. Take the oath. That’s all I need to do. I’ll belong. They’ll know who I am. No more questions. Defend the innocent and follow orders. Everything I need to be me and three square meals a day. Sure. Just sign on the dotted line.


The man who yells all day is no problem. He’s weeding out the weak. Let him work. I sleep four hours a night and march eight hours a day. No problem. This is just the admissions test and I am hard. Let lesser one’s quit. My purpose is here, waiting.


Barracks resonate with the echoes of those before. Their dedication and sweat is an infectious presence both inspiring and daunting as a line in the sand. Every cadence is the amplified answer to the challenge of those who have conquered the past.


At graduation I feel the pride of the parade ground infuse me. I’m real. I am the drive behind a cause greater than myself. Validation is mine.


Boot Camp is a memory. Four years. What the hell! This is my purpose? I circled the world and slept with some women with strange names. In between, the condescending pricks have their way with me. This kid’s been out of college for three hours now and I’m calling him sir and pretending he knows what he’s doing. If he does something dumb it’s my fault for letting him down. He’s scared out of his wits and I can smell it. He clings to me like a scared toddler, all the while deriding my advice for coming from an uneducated mouth.


I give him the right options by insistently asking if he thinks they’re a good idea. He smiles and pats me on the shoulder with a cocky wink. Seconds later he’s trying to repeat my words correctly to his superiors without the sweat on his brow being too obvious. I want to kill him. This is my purpose?


I signed up to serve, to mean something. I don’t recall requesting duty as a thankless lackey. I don’t recall asking to be condescended to every time I make the right call. I don’t recall signing up for the express purpose of being another rung on the career ladder of some snot-nosed Academy kid.


I don’t understand it. Something’s breaking again. I feel myself coming apart at the seams. She isn’t doing it this time. It doesn’t hurt this time. It’s roaring inside me, too pissed off to ignore. But what is it? I’m cracking aren’t I? I just can’t take the strain. The bastards are getting to me. If only I can calm down and continue to serve my betters. I’m part of the system. I have to function. Why won’t that urge to scream go away?


On the other hand, the urge to scream is somewhat appealing. I should be desperately trying to avoid breaking down again. I’m not even trying. This feels right, justified. Whatever’s brewing inside, it makes this built up shell feel like a tin shack in a tornado. It makes me feel like the tornado.


I break at the same time as the young officer’s nose. There’s no sobbing or pleading for another chance this time. There’s no sorrow or angst. This isn’t death. This is a ripping re-birth as that son-of-a-bitch’s nose cracks underneath my knuckles. I probably should have stopped there. By the time the Master-At-Arms pulls me off he’s unconscious. I couldn’t care less.


Now I’m staring at the polished steel mirror in my cell and asking myself, “just what the hell were you thinking?” But when it comes to thinking, I am blown apart – utterly fragged. The dying remnants of the most recent me demand rationality from a reflection I cannot recognize as myself. The reflection is as alien as the rings of Saturn. Nonetheless, a gut feeling senses something familiar, like a whiff of perfume that takes you back to your mother’s arms long after she’s dead.


Epiphany is the wrong word. The bars of my cell browbeat me into deep reflection - claiming the same triumph they have won over the past thousand occupants. I’m pondering the dark, emotional landmine that went off in the college boy’s face. The bottom line is, I guess that landmine wasn’t buried deep enough. Funny, it should have been. It’s been getting shoveled over for almost as long as I can remember.


First day of school - eighteen years ago. Mom said not to worry if the kids say anything about my clothes. I don’t understand, but I soon forget as the kindergarten room reveals a wonderland of promise and excitement. New faces, new toys, new fun. Unbridled exuberance seems like a good descriptive term.


It didn’t bother me when one of the girls asked me why my shoes looked so old. I proudly explained that both of my brothers had worn them before me. She snickered. I did find it odd when my tablemates asked if being poor meant I had to smell too. I’d had a bath that morning.


After a few weeks of such statements, and the subsequent questions to my mother, I understood that I was very fortunate to be going to such a good school. All the other kids from my neighborhood went somewhere else, but I was special. Apparently other special kids all come from families with more money. Or so they told me.


I sit, remembering it all. The reflection remembers too, having those first few shovels of dirt thrown in its face. Pain, embarrassment, realization. A small child is part of a larger world and yet does not belong. There’s a seething resentment in the reflection now - remembrance of a need to change, hide, release control. Let the world dictate the terms. It hurts, but not as much as fighting every day and losing.


The reflection stares - relentless. I can’t bear it. My career just self-destructed and all I’m left with is the psychopath in the mirror. I have to go to some other place, some other time.


What is childhood? Hurt, that’s what I say; a series of masks taken on a trial run to determine their level of public acceptance. My reflection remembers innocence - still breathing air then. It’s still making decisions, seeing truth, feeling love and looking forward to the future. The pain though, is crushing. When did it happen? When did the innocence die?


First day of junior high school, twelve years ago. I look into the bathroom mirror to assess the damage. There is no real reflection. Dead eyes analyze my body’s appearance and point out areas that will probably draw ridicule. Fix what I can, resign myself to the rest. I trudge out the door and make my way to school. 


The masses shuffle to their holding pens for the designated forty-five minutes, then move to their next destination. Everywhere it’s a crush of struggling confused adolescents, trying to make sure someone else is below them in the caste system. Surfing this wave of humanity are the predators - some social, some physical, all more forceful in their coping mechanisms than I am. Athletes, bullies, cheerleaders - gods of the masses. Whether feared or idolized, they are the only evidence that happiness could exist within this place where confidence goes to die.


I feel the roiling, emotional turmoil being an outcast man-child. I want it to stop. Please go away. Don’t act out. Don’t feel. Just survive another day. Strive to go unnoticed and dream of being noticed.


At lunch I get the small measure of attention that I can bear. A needle from Home Economics class finds itself being driven through the palm of my hand and out the backside. A small crowd of onlookers watches in horror and fascination.


“Doesn’t it hurt?,” “How can you do that?,” “Can’t you feel it?” Feel what? Hurt whom? It’s not my hand anymore. Or maybe it was and I can’t recall the previous owner. Forget the details - pain is the only reminder I’m alive. Not that I tell them that. Just smirk and wink. Insouciance is better than gold here.


In my cell I don’t want to remember anything else. I want to forget both past and future. Long hours later the madman has not relented. Recognition is his demand. My fractured control is inadequate to resist. I will remember.


High School brings out a greater level of maturation. So they say. The raging voice inside seems gone since junior high. That sucker gave up on me. I would too if I could. There are things some would call success. Mom and Dad are proud, and there is the fairly easy charade to play out for my friends that everything is just peachy. The raging voice would know different. Good thing he’s gone.


I burn through a few relationships with the girls I can have, wishing they’re the ones I want. My practiced nonchalance is an inspiration to my associates, many of whom I loathe. I appear as a well-adjusted young man. Aren’t appearances fun? Inside I’ve accepted that I’ll never add up to what others think I’ll be. 


In this, I feel connected. Parents, schoolmates and teachers, I see the cracking plaster of their oh-so-sincere smiles. The real meaning of growing up is resignation to failure.


Junior year I feel an especially deep funk coming on. My beloved grandmother has just passed on and the establishment seems particularly oppressive of late. Strange things happen though when you’re bottomed out. Unexpectedly, something about the defiant tones of punk music appeals to a hidden corner of me. I find myself invigorated by a new cause - rebellion.


Purple Mohawk, spray-painted combat boots and an attitude to match. It’s a brand-spanking new outlook on life and it feels like I’m waking up from a bad dream. Suddenly the world is my oyster. There’s a voice from the past both familiar and strange inside, and its burning vigor shows in the reflection of my eyes. Never submit, never accept, and never be content with the world as is.


Life is beautiful without inhibitions. For the first time since I was a little boy, I feel the unbridled joy of just being alive. The happiness I’ve never had seems mine for the taking, now that I’m willing to step on toes. I’m the social predator now and conformity is my prey.


Funny thing though, conformity is. Lashing out at every convention, I find myself side by side with other people doing the same. They are watching me, judging whether or not I am deeply dedicated to being punk. Do I wear clothing that is extreme enough? Do my opinions, mannerisms and actions reflect those of a true ‘punk’? Am I one of them? As euphoric as my high was, it crashes with the realization that I am no non-conformist. I am merely conforming to a different standard. I am a fraud.  


This is more shattering than ridicule from others. An inner eye has labeled me a liar. Looking for something to fight has left me with nothing more than a clearer perception that I was not real, worthwhile, or genuine. I was and am, a schmuck.


Like a junkie crashing from a meth-binge, I feel lower than dirt. Whatever spark there was in the mirror is gone. My infinitesimal yet comfortable level of self-respect has vanished. I’m back to wondering just why I had to be born in the first place.


It’s when I’m at my lowest that she enters the picture. How exactly it starts I’m not even sure. Somehow my partner for Mathematical Analysis class winds up being my girlfriend. Strangely, she seems to have a real interest in me. Not strikingly beautiful, or even overly intelligent, she still holds her own against any girl I’d ever been able to hold on to. She seems to like me for who I am and not my ability to psychoanalyze every past trauma in her life. Normally I play therapist to my girlfriends. Not surprising when you scrape the bottom of the barrel.


One thing is for certain, she is an emotional hurricane. She wastes no time falling in love with me, and convincing me to do likewise. Perhaps bitch is the right term, but I prefer to think of her as assertive. That always drives me nuts. In six months I’m so in love I think the world is all bluebirds and daisies. This must be what I’ve been waiting for all my life. All the pain and humiliation is just a gauntlet to be run in order to gain the big prize at the end.


There is a single little twinge of suspicion that sometimes pops up in my mind. I never feel that same spark from my brief rebellion period, or especially my early childhood. The mirror doesn’t show a flash of something deep and wild. Instead, it feels like I’ve found a suitable owner to run the show. I can turn over daily operations to her - so I do. 


Two years later and high school is gone, I’m working the night shift at a convenience store and the one girl who has ever loved me is moving away with her family. I’m nervous, but I know she loves me more than life itself. Things will work out. Just to be sure, I buy a ring and pop the question, already knowing the answer. Of course she wants to marry me.


Moving day comes and goes, and there’s hardly a day we’re not on the phone together. She is lonely. I convince her she needs to have fun in her new town - make new friends. I’m trying to help her cope with being away from me. Apparently she took my advice.


Three months later she’s explaining to me how we are through and she needs to expand her horizons. All the while I weep pathetically on the other end of the line. No dignity to be found here, only slobbering anguish.


How long have I been in this stinking cell now? That maniac is still staring at me in the mirror as if he’s expecting some glint of recognition. I haven’t the slightest idea what he’s after, but I wish he’d go away. It’s a toss-up deciding to think about him, or the worst memory of my life. They’re both ugly as hell. I already know how the past turns out. I survived it then, so I return to where I’m safest.


My whole world is gone because of her. What am I saying? She is my world. Every hope and dream for happiness that I have is embodied in her, and she just crushed my heart like a used styrofoam cup. I don’t get so much as a thank you for the good times.


This is where I die. And this is where I don’t die. Why can’t I die? What’s keeping the shattered remnants of my heart beating? Suddenly I’m once again staring at the reflection in the mirror.


“You? It was you that wouldn’t let me go?” Of course there is no verbal response. The lunatic is staring at me as if I should know the answer. A sly grin takes over his face. Pinpricks of light stab into my consciousness, as if some long lost secret is slowly dawning on me.  


I stop looking at the reflection as the product of some psychotic episode and begin to wonder for the first time, just who am I? As I stare more intently into the polished steel I see shadows in the reflection; parts of the image that are beyond my ability to comprehend. In other places I see the caked earth of a vagrant who has been buried under the detritus of a thousand traumas. But when I look into those eyes I see a pilot light that defies all efforts to blow it out. Within those eyes I see long lost bits of innocence, held in by a callously indifferent façade.


Yes, I know the reflection is me. I’m not stupid. But which me? He is a chameleon, more complex and nuanced than I would ever give myself credit for. As I ponder that thought, I start to connect the years of burying who I am. I watch as I hide myself in the expectations and concerns of others. The me in the mirror is tired of compromising and hurting and ignoring his convictions. Most of all, he’s tired of being afraid.


My thoughts wander back to the officer they took away in an ambulance. I think about the consequences there will be - how my life in the military is over. Yesterday this would have terrified me. Yesterday I would have cowered at the thought of finding my own way. Today is not yesterday. Today I’m not afraid. I can face the anxiety of not knowing what’s out there. This day there truly is something new about me - I’m waking up. I’m seeing myself for the first time in a long time. And for the first time in a long time, I am not ashamed of that image.


The reflection in the mirror is raging, waiting to live life in whatever way it can. The more I stare the more I know that I am the wildman who cannot be tamed. I am the little boy who wants a friend to play with. I am abused and battered. But I am no longer broken. I am more things than I can rightly name, and forevermore I shall be those things. I will not concern myself with the approval of the masses. From this day forth, I will be me.