Be Honest, Be Real

What the fuck was Tom talking about? About being honest? About being real? About not thinking too much? About hamburgers? I really, truly, fucking seriously had no idea what the hell that motherfucker was talking about. Weirdo…

It was frustrating. Aggravating. Annoying. Irritating. All rolled into one big ball of Easy that I just couldn’t get. Which made it more frustrating. Aggravating. Annoying. And irritating. Because if those twenty or so Grains of Rice performers got it, why couldn’t I?

So I drank it off. I cigaretted it off. I drugged it off. I jacked it off. But other than the temporary satisfaction of every single one of those most favorite activities of mine, what Tom meant still eluded me. For days I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up late, thinking and thinking and thinking about what this motherfucker meant. And every time I thought I understood, after a few seconds I would realize, I was just trying to trick myself so I could finally get some rest. I was going in circles, nowhere, not even close to what that bastard Tom was talking about.

Eventually, I beat up my bedroom wall. I punched a few holes in it. My mom got angry and kicked me out of the house for a week. Which was a good thing. Because in that week, while I stayed at my friend Corn’s house, I ended up figuring it out.

Wearing the same clothes for a week, not eating because Corn’s mom’s food was too spicy for my delicate tongue, not getting enough sleep because Corn snored really loud, brought me to the brink of furious insanity. And as always, the only way I could cope, the only way Corn wouldn’t die from asphyxiation at my angry hands, was for me to write.

And write I did.

Madly I wrote. Furiously I wrote. I wrote about how Corn’s house reminded me of a Thailand farm that I never lived except in hell. I wrote about tom and Jaycie and myself having a nasty threesome, although I made sure Jaycie was always in the middle. I wrote about how if my parents were still married, I’d be on my way to becoming the President of Earth. I wrote about Asian-American ninjas taking over the world through mime and ballet only. I wrote about being desperately in love with a woman named Anna Lisa Kristina who hated the way my face smiled when she walked in any room in the world. I wrote about children becoming superheroes and adults becoming villains. I wrote about elves and dwarves who worked in marketing and advertising and I wrote about their draconian demographic. I wrote, and I didn’t care what anyone thought. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. Until I ran out of paper. Until my fingers bled ink. Until my face hit Corn’s floor.

And when I finished, I walked into rehearsal straight to Tom, presented him my stacks of wrinkled writings, and said, “This is what a hamburger tastes like.”

He didn’t even take them. He just looked at me. Smiled. And said, “Good.”