Victor Green

To quote the late Biggie Smalls, "I got a story to tell."

You see, this blog has filled somewhat of a pattern for me over the last... well, basically the entire time I've been writing this blog. I didn't really know why I started writing this way, but it started to occur to me that maybe this is what I have the most to share. I could try to write about politics, about music, about sports, about geography. I could try to relate about my work experience, or my family, or my grad school program that I have about a year left. And do you know what I do basically every time that I start writing? I share a bunch of embarrassing shit about myself, usually that no one ever knew about and definitely without being provoked to sharing such mess. Is it that I enjoy being humiliated on a regular basis? Or is this just what I have to share with the world?

And by the world, I mean the eleven or twelve people that actually read this shit when I post it.

A lot of embarrassing moments don’t even get mentioned for me. You have to understand, it's a stiff competition to even get on the list for me. Like the lay up I would have made to win a basketball game that skipped off the backboard hard enough to reach half court. Like knocking an older woman over while running out of the bathroom (the wrong bathroom) that I’ve already mentioned. Like the band competition that I had to show up late to, without my instrument, wearing my track and field uniform. Like the alt right book store I walked into and didn’t realize it for kind of a while. Damn, I guess I have covered a lot of this already, now that I'm thinking back.

This tops all of them. And it’s a curious thing to fully explain, even in a project like this, but I feel like it’ll help you understand why I am at least partially the way that I am. I can trace this moment back very vividly, but at the same time I realized a few years ago that I had literally blocked this moment out from my memory for fifteen years before I told anyone. I had told myself that it hadn’t existed, yet I know the impact it has had. I’d be hard pressed not to give ode to it and to the fact that it didn’t cause me to crumble into oblivion. This is the moment that could have, but didn’t, ruin me as a person. It just ruined me as a normal person.

Let me tell you about the time that I almost probably ruined my life.

And let me start by saying that 6th grade was already a rough time. I was one of 7 black kids at my entire middle school. My main interests were hockey video games, pokemon cards, and the comic strip Dilbert. I had glasses thicker than most encyclopedias (exaggeration, but still). Oh, and my voice cracked every 4 words, and I hit a growth spurt that borderlines upon actual cruelty. My legs grew a whole lot in the span of a few months, so none of my pants fit and it looked like everything I owned was high waters. And then my arms grew past where my legs did so I could grab my knees without bending over. Just, yikes. Oh, also I thought I was funny. Like I’d make jokes that were funny to someone that was like me. And was into these things. Hockey video games, pokemon, and Dilbert. Mmmph.

On a fateful day in 6th grade, I walked from my English class to my math class during an in-between period. It was that simple. I didn’t make a decision to do something that was going to fundamentally change the way I lived my life, I just went to math class. I walked in and set my books down and realized, just before the start of class that I had to go to the bathroom. And I was not nervous about it, it was a natural, simple feeling. A human desire. But as a 6th grader, I procrastinated. Besides, it was 6th grade, not like we were doing anything anyway. Do you remember middle school? Do you remember days where literally nothing was learned? I remember whole months that didn’t matter. So I figured this one period, I could just go to the bathroom once class started, not a big deal.

I waited until about 2 minutes after the bell before I asked my teacher if I could go to the bathroom. Her name was Dr. Selma, which it really wasn’t, but that’s what we’re going with. She was petite, she had curly brown hair, and this unmistakable Latina flair about her. Or she was just bitchy, I’m not sure anymore, I don’t remember everything about my teacher. I remember about the day though. She said in simple enough terms, “No. You cannot go to the bathroom right now. Go sit back down.”

A quick side note: you may be asking yourself why a doctor was teaching 6th grade math in suburban Texas, and the answer is fairly simple. She was a doctor of marriage psychology. Which, last I checked, only has a few applications. It appears one of them was teaching 6th grade mathematics.

So I went to sit back down, not really sure how to take the idea that I had greatly mistaken how this class period would go. I don’t remember us even trying to learn anything, we basically just sat in silence and had a study hall. Dr. Selma was pissed about something or other. I, meanwhile, felt worse and worse. I felt like I was about to explode, I’m not even kidding. You know the term turtleheading? I was beginning to squeeze a roll of playdough out. Not a good feeling at 1:15 in the afternoon among ruthless middle school peers. So about 4 minutes later into the period, I get up and ask again. Because screw it. This is real crisis that was brewing here. And again, Dr. Selma said to sit down, this time even more cross than before. I did my best to communicate my distress in my looks and the sigh that I gave out, but I still didn’t think she really understood the dire consequence that I felt was to follow. I would have lobbied with some eloquent speech, some provocative insight that I could have dropped on her. But no. The only thing that came out of my mouth was, “Okay, but this ain’t gonna go like you think.” Which was weird, because I had never used phrases like that before.

Long story short, I just stood up about 35 seconds later. I didn’t even care. She had no idea, I mean NO IDEA what was going to happen. I made an executive decision. But on my way to the door, I said to her, in no uncertain terms, “LOOK,” as I made my way to the door. To my surprise, and really my saving grace, she finally decided to acquiesce. “FIne, just GO!” She basically mirrored my attitude. Thank god, thank allah, thank Buddha, vishnu. Whichever supreme being that pulled that string, owe you big.

Now, 2 doors away from my math class is the 6th grade bathroom. In a different world, I walk in there and lay down the #2 nice and simple. Well, as simple as this dookie ever would have been. This was some nastiness to end all nastiness, but we’ll cover that soon enough. But nasty also covers the bathroom in the 6th grade hall. I mean, to date, basically the most consistently disgusting place I’ve been around was that bathroom. You know, that would have ever been in a middle school. Looking back, I think the reputation of the place was more vile and disgusting than the actual bathroom, but alas, that’s how reputed this bathroom was. It was a banal enough image I had of this bathroom that taking the most necessary shit of my life was not even an option.

For that matter, I guess I was a nervous poo-er, because I was kind of particular about where I’d take my dumps at this time in my life. In my fairly uncrowded and upper-middle class middle school, there were still only a few places I felt comfortable with dropping the kids off at school. One was a bathroom on the 2nd floor next to the stairs that seemed to get next to no use, one was the boys bathroom in the band hall, which saw a very select clientele, and my personal favorite, the bathroom in the art room hallway. It was an oasis, a hall with one classroom and  a computer lab that never saw use. Sure, there were plenty of lockers on that hallway, but with 5 minute passing periods, who has time to pinch a loaf? I found myself crossing the entire school on certain periods just to find a certain solitude here.

But not this day. On this day, I sought not just solitude. I sought asylum.

In a hurried kind of racewalk, I struggled across the courtyard that separated the hallway I began on and the ramp up to my destination. My ass was in full clench mode. I was sweating, both from the effort I was putting in and the mental prospect of having to explain any of this in the near future. I cannot describe the exact discomfort I felt, because I blocked this day out in my mind for so long. But let me get to the part that I felt needed to be locked away in my own proverbial Disney vault.

I get up the ramp with no problem. I open the doors, and walk into the far side of the building still on full clench alert. Not even racewalking, I resemble someone in a petticoat with a herniated disc. I look like I’m being pushed in the back as I walk, but my ass hasn’t caught up. That’s what you should picture with me walking right now. And I get all the way to the door of the bathroom still clenching, and I make the mistake of not walking close enough to the door before reaching for the handle. Essentially, it was celebrating before getting into the endzone. Because by reaching for the door to this bathroom, I ended up losing my full ass-clench. I mean, by a few inches of stride, I just basically needed one more small step towards the door. But now, I felt that I could reach and yank with no issues. In doing so, my levee broke, and the dam could no longer hold. So the dam broke. And...damn.

And this moment will live, in my mind, for all of time. The infamy of… the event.

What followed could not fully be described with any single thought. It sounded like a legitimate 12 seconds of continuous farting. It smelled like an onion patch. It felt like instantaneous shame, with a side of self consciousness and horror. I don’t know what I looked like when this occurred, and I hope I never find out. Point being, this was the worst thing that ever happened to me on school grounds. Of all the embarrassment I suffered throughout my academic and extracurricular career, this was as dark as it had ever been. I hurried into the bathroom, still farting. Well, farting among other things, forget about that. Literally 10 full seconds were occupied by this loud and malevolent force of exodus from my colon. To my additional horror, there’s someone in there with me. Some older kid I don’t recognize. He didn’t even want to look when he heard me come in, based on what he was hearing. Good, I figured. Don’t even look at me. It makes it more likely that I won’t have to explain shit later.

*Note: I’m not trying to be humorous when I use the word shit through all of this.

So this kid is washing his hands as fast as possible, and I’m doing my best trying to play off how rattled I really am right now. Like, I’m pretending to look through the stalls to choose the least dirty one, when I’m really making sure that NO ONE else is in the room when I try to deal with this situation. The kid leaves in a hurry, probably sensing the smell and hoping it doesn’t sink into his clothes and haunt his dreams. When I hear the door close, I check to make sure he really left and didn’t just pretend to leave, and then I take refuge in the handicap stall at the end and try to prepare myself.

It’s not gonna be that bad. You can handle this. You’ll survive.

I’m reaching for anything I can to make myself feel better and literally nothing is helping here. Shit. SHIT. I pull my pants down not looking, trying to psych myself up to deal with this, knowing that it’ll likely be the thing that ruins my life, this IT that I’ve long felt was on its way but now that it’s here I’m still not really prepared for it, like if I was off hunting Big Foot and then actually found it and was like, “Oh shit, I didn’t bring a single thing that would actually help me in this situation.” That’s how this shit made me feel before looking at it. But I'm willing myself to stay together.

It's not gonna be that bad.

And then I looked. And freaked out for a completely different reason than anything before.

You see, there was a shade of green within this shit. A shade I’m not familiar with. A shade I didn’t know existed, nor was possible. A shade I have not seen before this incident, and haven’t seen since. It wasn’t sea foam, it wasn’t olive, it wasn’t emerald. It was, as far as I can tell, a new color. And I didn’t know what to call it. I have to assume, if I can’t find it anywhere else, that I created a color with this shit. So this color, this Victor green I saw on this fateful day, is staring me back in the face in the bathroom of the art room hall. And I’m way more scared than before. This color has completely taken over my underwear. It’s not even underwear anymore, it’s the vessel for which this color came into the world.

And so I jettisoned the underwear and pants I was wearing and just sat there, bare-assed on the bathroom floor for a few minutes. No words, no thoughts. I just pondered what I beheld. In horror. This was that thing I had sort of always seen coming that would be my mark on the world. I was no longer thinking about homework and band practice. I was worried about math class and history assignments. I wasn’t just worried about changing my pants anymore. I looked at this color and thought that now I had to change SCHOOLS. I needed to move away and undergo surgery to change my appearance. My family needed to go into witness protection. This is Def-Con 17 we’ve reached here. Code black. Code green. Code VICTOR GREEN. There was no going back from this. FROM. THIS. SHIT.

But alas. Could I come back? I pondered if I could pull myself together. Come on. There had to be something I could do before just giving up. And I did this thing that I do all the time now, where part of my mind suggests something, and another part of my mind shoots it down and gets angry that the first part even suggested it.

Okay, I thought. Can we get new pants?

Like where? The lost and found? You gonna stroll down the hall and look there for another pair of jeans your size? Really? They’re just gonna have pants for you? Are you a fucking moron?

The gym locker?

No, they locked that right after our period. (I knew that they did, I had tried to get my dirty gym clothes after hours before.) Besides, that also requires walking down an open and public hall to get to to the locker room that won’t be open, and then you’re trapped out in no mans land. Then you’re walking around the coaches’ domain, with an exposed ass for someone to break a foot into. Dumbass.

Okay, go to the office and call your parents.

And say what, exactly? That their oldest child is incapable of bladder control? You want to have that reputation in the family? No one, NO ONE will ever let this go. Your family will be worse about this than most of these asshole kids. White people have trends, they’ll find something new to torture in a few months. In your family, you will always be the one that shit his pants in school and then voluntarily drew attention to himself. This doesn’t leave the room.

Besides, that didn’t work for another reason. Calling parents meant I needed the front office phone, and those women that worked there didn’t keep anything quiet. They were bigger gossips than the kids at school were. Involving them in anything meant the entire school would find out by the end of the day. Hell, they would probably make a schoolwide announcement, “Calling all students with spare pants, Victor Dupuy is in need of your help here in the front office. Underwear too, if you’ve got it.” So yeah. Not an option.

Briefly, I did consider killing myself. Like, just hanging by my neck right there in the stall or drowning myself in another toilet. I’m still a bit embarrassed to admit it, but it really did get a few moments of consideration. But that quickly faded as a real option, and here’s why. The only thing worse than dying, I reasoned, was dying in this much shame. Surely there would turn out to be an afterlife if THIS was what caused me to take my own life. And then I’m dead AND I shit myself like this. This was the kind of thing that people would live and die remembering. Like I’d be chilling in heaven (or hell) and people would walk in having lived full lives and would still bring this up. Or this would be like the thing that kept me out of heaven, like God is sitting there judging me and he’s like, “Vic, I like you. You had a good thing going. But 1, you killed yourself and didn’t repent. And 2, and more importantly, is that shit was GROSS. You gotta understand, Vic, I’m God, and I didn’t make that color. That shit was crazy, I can’t have that in heaven. People have a certain expectation of what gets in up here.” So screw that. This was no way to leave a mark on the world. A skid mark? Nuh uh.

Now, to be fair, I also came very close to just leaving school. Just running home without any pants on. It was also a very real possibility. It was about 2-2.5 miles to my house from middle school, at about the right time of day that I could have done it and been alright with it. I was in good enough shape that I’d have done most of it all at once, not that I was ever a cross country runner. Then again, I’ve always been a sprinter, and the prospect of needing to catch my breath while walking around without pants on? Yikes. Besides, it seemed like this was the type of thing that people would piece together if there was anything suspect with me the rest of the day. A kid runs home with no pants on the same day that Victor just disappears from class? I don’t want to say it sounds like something I would have done as a kid but… well, I almost did do that as a kid.

But that gave me the idea. Could I salvage the pants? The underwear, gone. Destroyed. I will never wear those again, you cannot clean those. Wow. But the pants, were they redeemable? I checked. To my surprise, the jeans were not particularly damp. I mean, I could tell something horrible had happened from the inside and I thought they still had some of the Victor Green smell, but in the end, it wasn’t beyond redemption. A few minutes with some paper towels, and they were passable. The jeans were a darker shade and the...um, added moisture, well, it didn’t really show up unless you were looking right at it, and it was in the crotch area where no one should be looking anyway. Jesus. This was doable. This was not just possible, this was plausible.

I tried them all the way back on, the jeans I mean. Leaving the underwear in the toilet of that stall, I tried to flex around in the pants in a way that made myself feel more comfort. It didn’t come. I tried to ignore it, but it was hard to get past some of the thoughts I had just had. A few minutes ago I had considered leaving school forever without saying goodbye and starting a new identity. I had thought of informing my parents of how weird and hopeless their first born son might really be. I had briefly considered suicide. Now I was going back to class like nothing happened. I was not a kid that hid his emotions well. It wasn’t what I did. So there was a little bit of prep time taken in the mirror, trying to practice my faces to make when someone would inevitably ask why I smelled exactly like shit smells. I won’t lie, I didn’t like the takes I was getting from myself. Wasn’t believable. I just didn’t commit to the character, you know, of someone who didn’t soil himself.

I then took the longest walk was back to class ever. It’s hard to explain my mental state during this. But the idea centers around 3 points:

1. The weight of everything I had just taken on. I’m not an actor. I’m not a good liar. Terrible at poker. So pulling myself back together was not only a chore, but I was very aware of how bad at it I usually was. I would have stayed in the bathroom longer to go over my lines and practice my faces, but I was all too eager to leave the ‘scene of the crime’.

2. (these are in no particular order) I had been away from class for about 40 minutes by this point. Middle school classes were only 50 minutes or so, and I had left somewhat close to the beginning of class and was getting back just before the bell. It was going to be very obvious I was walking back in like this, and I was less than enthused at how it was going to look. All I needed was for someone in the class to remember that I came in looking freaked out, and then hear that during that same time period someone had experienced an explosive deuce somewhere in school with catastrophic consequences. Reasonable dots to connect.

3. I was not sure if I’d left any evidence to track me down. I was making sure no one saw me leave the bathroom, so I actually took a different route back to math class. The way back literally took longer and was a different path, just to check if I was being tailed. Also, I was trying to think of whether or not they could identify people in the world by their fecal matter. It was in the early days of crime scene investigation shows, I didn’t know if that was a possibility yet or not. Still don’t know. Maybe.

On top of all of this, I hated math class in general. Never once liked math. I hated going into this class with dry pants on. So this did nothing to improve my take on this subject.

But alas, I was not cursed on this day.

I walked into the room and saw everyone sitting in groups laughing and playing around. Some kids had cards, others were talking about new cell phones, a few of my friends had a board game out. Someone was just sitting there, napping in a loud room.I had to restrain myself from celebrating out loud. I pulled it together and slunk down next to one of the tables they had drawn together. As it turned out, right after I had left, Dr. Selma had completely loosened up, told everyone to do whatever they wanted to do, and had left the room. She wasn’t even there when I got back. No one could verify if I had come and left again, or if everyone else was even there. I was home free. I was safe. I exhaled uneasily as I sat and trying to play it Bogart.

And then the scariest thing happened. One of the girls in the class looked up, sniffed the air, and asked in a somewhat loud and confused voice, “What the hell is that smell?”

And for an instant, it seemed like EVERYONE in the room looked at me. I almost shit my pants. Again.

And then someone said, “Steven!” And they all blamed it on this fat kid standing behind me. And for once, I was happy to let someone else take a fall. I let the spatial profiling go on without batting an eye. I had enough I was trying to get through that day. I actually pretended to get up and move out of disgust.

Somehow I made it back to my room in my own house. Along the way, I had to get a ride home from one of my friends, who actually ended up taking me to his house, which I normally would have been excited about. Today I was excited to get home and take the 3 different showers that I desperately needed. I then looked myself in the mirror and vowed to not acknowledge this happened for at least ten years. And believe it or not, I made it about 15 years or so before remembering this as an actual thought. I mean, at first I was just faking it, but somewhere along the way, so many other embarrassing or mesmerizing things occurred, I forgot I was even trying to forget this one.

My point in all of this though: I could not subconsciously just go back to myself from before after seeing Victor Green. That was the dawn of a new age in my life, and perhaps in the human race itself, assuming I ever figure out how to recreate what i saw. It was not something that just happened and I could get over it completely with time. It changed the course of my life. Dead serious. Imagine something really embarrassing that happened to you. Now imagine something that sucked, but was way less of a big deal. If that 2nd thing happens first, and then the worse thing happens afterwards, that a really crappy day because of these two things. First this one small thing happened to set the tone, and THEN the really bad thing happened.

Like let’s say you get splashed by a puddle while in a nice suit, dress, uniform, whatever. You look nice, and you get splashed wet. And then on top of that you get hit by a car and break your leg. That would suck. I mean, you’re all wet and THEN you get a car running into you. You didn’t need that. But flip it. You get hit by a car and your leg is broken, and then a puddle splashes you. Who gives a shit about the puddle?! You’re writhing in pain on the street, and some water gets on you, big fucking deal. It might help wash off some of the blood, who knows? Now, you may be saying, the puddle isn’t a big thing even if it happens first. And I get this. Yeah, that's technically right. Try not to get too caught up in the theoretical shitty things that did or didn’t happen.

So yeah, that’s probably the worst thing that ever happened to me, from a traumatic memory type of perspective. And because it happened, a lot of other things happened that didn’t really register in comparison. So in a way, this event in 6th grade may have helped me more than it ruined me. Perhaps this is the true effect of seeing Victor Green in person.

But shitting your pants in a midddle school bathroom? I wish that upon no man.

Bye now.

Vincero

This is an apology
For the stars we cannot see
That burned out bright as phoenix tamed
But came to quick serenity
This brings to mind those of the flames
Who burned out bright without a name
That turned out not to have the time
To beckon from us their acclaim

This is an apology
Because not everyone we see
Will truly get to be
Not every fired arrow
Finds its apple or its sparrow
But if I can, before I go
Vincero

I find myself gazing yet again
Upon my shining, starry friends
Of worlds and lands I will not see
For they have long burned out to end
But now and then, I breathe back in
The thought that maybe they did send
A story worth admission
Who's submission's plot will ought contend

I remember pondering while watching my mind wandering
Wondering where in all this yonder I can find my own calling
And thus can stop this feeling that my time has been spent squandering
Looking down into the abyss from up in the mist
Up on the cliff, up in the bliss
Trying to figure out how long I've been...this
And I'd be remmissed not to blow a kiss to everything that brought me
Fought me
Distraught me
And therefore, taught me how to exist
For each of those pieces mark a shift
In the paradigm that now I'm trying to fix up
And bring out of the mix up to have to deliver as my gift

And that's what this is
If this counts for an ounce of anything at all
Let it be me looking up after a distant fall
Just to recall
That I've gone through anything at all
Looking up at the stars, set humming
Shimmering back and forth from sunning
Swooning, mooning, blooming, and ballooning
I must give thought to the ones long done
The ones still running
And those that perhaps I'll never see coming

All I can do is wait to congratulate
Those that meet their victory gate while I can stand and wait
For many more may slip by on just the date
That I must bow and duck out late
And if I miss these twists of fate
I beg you not to castigate
For I may have light of my own
That I'll need you do decorate

If I'm not here, when you shine brightest
Please think of me in the politest
For if you miss my moment coming
I hold it against you not the slightest
For sure, I strive for purity
Before I find obscurity
But I can settle for knowing that
In the end, it was always me

This is an apology
Because not everyone we see
Will truly get to be
Not every fired arrow
Finds its apple or its sparrow
But if I can, before I go
Vincero

Wildcard, Bitches

I used to read the strangest things as a kid.

Oh, wait. I should say Hi first.

Hi.

Anyways, I read 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu as a kid. Or, most of it. 

Mostly because I was bored while visiting my grandparents in Florida as a kid, but also because it seemed like the kind of thing that you should read at some point in your life, to gain perspective or at least be able to feign that you have perspective, which was up my alley. So I read it over a long weekend while hanging out in Blountstown, FL, or most of it, and then I finished it later in life as an adult that could truly appreciate it.

A lot of things stick out when you read a book like 'The Art of War'. It's not like most books you would just read. The book itself isn't any kind of literary organization, it is just a bunch of rules and principles. Stuff like when to attack an enemy, when to evade. methods for cultivating a successful army, ways that leaders get screwed over by their supporters. Things that build morale, things that kill it. That kind of thing.

This book single-handedly made me hope I never have to go to war. I mean, the fact that war, as a concept, was dumbed down this much and is still by no means straightforward. Screw that. I had enough trouble applying these ideas while playing Starcraft on my computer. I cringe at the thought of world leaders going to war and not thinking it through, but again, in the interest of not getting overly political, I won't go into names. But man, I hope those individuals don't pick fights with the U.S. army.

I bring up The Art of War, however, because of a particular passage that I will forever remember. This passage is in the elongated version that my grandparents have, that hold a lot of extra commentary and explanation of the book itself. It's about different types of soldiers and the jobs that you give them. The passage goes like this:

"The skillful employer of man will employ four types of men: the brave man, the wise man, the covetous man, and the stupid man. For the wise man delights in establishing his merit, the brave man likes to show his courage in action, the covetous man is quick at seizing advantages, and the stupid man has no fear of death."

I thought to myself at the time: Oh shit, which one am I?

Not just at work, mind you. You ever stop and wonder who you are, in your group? Are you the brains, or the muscle, or the looks or even... the wildcard? TV shows always dumb it down to cliches like "the dumb blonde" or 'the jock" or "the rich douchebag" and make it painfully obvious, but there could really be individuals with roles in your own circles of friends, and you may or may not realize that there's something specific about you that keeps people around you regularly. Oh, sure, it may be money or fame or a parent in law enforcement that can make legal trouble go away, but it could be even more basic, or abstract, than that. 

Like, I don't know, maybe your life is so screwed up, people like to have you around to remind themselves that shit could get worse all the time. Maybe you're the funny one in the group. Shit, maybe you just think that you're funny and the others rip you to shreds when you leave the room. You might be the best cook, have the best apartment, be the most fashion savvy. Maybe they just all actually like you, and you're the only thing holding your group of friends together, and without you they would all fucking hate each other. I don't know, I'm not sure who you are, but you must have done something to get friends. And it's not likely to be that you were the smart one, the brave one, the sly one, or the stupid one.

Again, in no way am I saying that every person in the world falls into one of these four categories. Definitely not in job or military settings. After all, come on, how many skillful employers are even out there? Every company has a few employees that you look at and think, 'Damn, who in HR came in drunk at work and let this dude get a job?' But also, people in general don't always fit into nice boxes like this, not that these are all even nice boxes. 

But I do always think of that last option. The stupid man, or wildcard as we say more often nowadays. The one who is not afraid to die, probably in a horrible and embarrassing way. The guy who makes the interesting decisions that get everyone else into a certain type of situation, but can also be the random one to get everyone out of the same type of mess. You just never know what the hell this dude is going to do, or be willing to do. And this type of individual just might come in handy sometime. 

I mean, even back in the Ancient times, they understood the use of a fall guy. Same thing today. I know for a fact that certain huge corporations have people on hand almost exclusively to step in front of nasty situations so that the upper management doesn't have to be inconvenienced. Some refer to them as Customer service. I even know of a video of an ex-NFL player, Cris Carter, talking to incoming NFL league rookies about the entourages that they keep, and having a guy there that will take the blame if something bad happens and someone has to face serious legal culpability. 

Imagine being that guy in a group, where all your 'friends' agree that if shit goes down, they're just all gonna say that you did it. Like, that's the only reason you're even around. Someone has to explain to you, "Alright, Benny, here's what's about to occur. The police are on their way, and there's way too much cocaine here for us to finish in time. We're gonna need you to take the hit this time, buddy. Yep, just, yep, just tell them that it all belongs to you when they get here. We're gonna head out the side door here. And Benny? We really- huh? Oh, sure, you can do some more cocaine while you wait, no problem, but Benny? We're really gonna miss you." 

Take Zeke, for instance.

We’ll call him Zeke, anyway. Zeke is a big ass burly dude who loves to get into dumb situations with others. I forget how I know Zeke, but I know him and I will always remember that I know him now because of the story I'm about to tell you. I’ve never seen him get into an actual fight, but I’m guessing he can throw them hands pretty nice. His teeth are a bit fucked up too, so I’m guessing he has experience in taking a punch. Anyway, as intimidating as he is, he showed me that he has no real fear of death or injury or consequences. Oh, and he also taught me the value of being oddly specific with your threats.

We were at a bar, enjoying ourselves after a football game one night, years ago from today. I don’t remember exactly what was going on prior to this, but we were already pretty rowdy on this particular evening. We go to a bar down the street from the house we were hanging out at, and it was pretty packed. Dimly lit bar, loud music, beer pitchers being poured everywhere. I'm sure you’ve never heard of a place like this, right?

So it was packed enough that there were limited tables and chairs for everyone that wanted one. And we had one table and had grabbed most of the chairs we needed, and were trying to get one more, when out of the corner of my eye, I notice the next table trying to pilfer one of our chairs. Now, this wasn’t a big deal at all, but it was annoying and in our defense, it was OUR chair that we had gone and collected. And Zeke notices at the same time I do, and we approach the two guys on their side of the next table. Not big guys, not small guys, just two different regular looking guys, nothing imposing or anything. I try to be diplomatic, and explain that they have grabbed one of our groups chairs, and that we want to keep that. And they start to go into something about it was really theirs first and we should just let it go and find another one. And it was at this moment that Zeke utters a phrase I will never forget as long as I live:

“You give the chair back or I’ll beat your fucking dick off!”
...

Now, when he said that shit... I forgot what we were even talking about. I briefly forgot there were other people there. I turned my focus to Zeke because I became very concerned all at once. Mostly for my own safety, but also I had a few issues to unpack.

First, and these are in no particular order, not really an appropriate reaction to losing a chair, is it? We went from calm to blowing up in a matter of seconds, so there’s that. These are chairs, they are not the new iPhones or seats on a space shuttle ride, or really anything that warrants an outburst. Because nothing warrants an outburst quite like this one.

Second, what exactly did he mean by that? Did he mean beat their dicks off, like ejaculate them here in the middle of a crowded bar? Because that’s not something you should just go around offering. People shouldn't be doing that in public to strangers that they're unhappy with. Or… did he mean he would beat their dicks...off? Like off, off? Because that’s a whole different set of questions. Ejaculation might actually have been weird enough to scare somebody away, but the later option, that's not really something you should do to, well, anyone. Ever, under any circumstances.

Why would you do something like that? The punishment does not fit the crime. And why are you announcing that shit, like it’s already a foregone conclusion that beating off a human penis is where this has to go now. Is that what you’re prepared to do? Are you just saying you are willing to do that over this chair situation, or are you saying that you know from experience that you can remove a man’s dick from his person? Like, for real, have you DONE THAT? This is the kind of person Zeke is, that I have to ask these questions out loud. I need to re-evaluate the people I associate with if this is the company I’m keeping. Like, what else have you not told me? What are you prepared to do if someone spills your beer? If we get into a bar fight, do I need to be concerned for my own crotch region, regardless of whether your on my side or not?

And I don’t even want to look at these bastards we’re facing off with. I'm concerned with how they'll react to this oddly specific threat. If they were told that they may lose their penises in the course of fighting for these chairs, and it doesn't shake their resolve, then I want nothing to do with these men whatsoever. I don’t have time to be fighting dudes that aren’t scared about losing their junk over something so trivial. Any man who is willing to risk losing his penis for, well, really anything... that's a dude that doesn't care about LIFE in general.

I honestly don’t remember if we got the chair back or not. I haven’t hung out with Zeke since.

The point is, these things reflect on you. The people that you associate with, the company that you keep, it matters. Partially because of the situations that you get each other into, but ultimately, the role that you play in their lives and the role that they play in yours, even when you aren't around each other. You cannot be there to constantly explain to complete strangers, "He's kidding. He's not really the kind of person to rip genitalia off of a living person."

On the other hand, we didn't get into a fight, that much I do remember. Maybe it was a calculated move on Zeke's part. Holy shit, maybe Zeke actually is the wise man! Or is he brave for putting himself out there for something so stupid? Or wait, no, is it that he's clever for out-thinking everyone and using an approach sure to work in his favor?

Who am I kidding? Definitely a wildcard move.

Wildcard, Bitches!

Bye now.

This Is Not For You

As kids, a lot of our parents told us that we can do anything we want. I've come to believe that this is always a boldfaced lie.

And that's a good thing.

When you're young, you have all these hopes and dreams in a wide world of possibilities, that will invariably get whittled down over a long and slow process of living on this planet. I figure, there's so many things that are going to end up killing your spirit in life, why start the process too early? Let kids run around through their early years, thinking that Santa exists and that life is fair and that being an astronaut is a realistic goal for a career. Which, again, it is possible at some point. But it's such a lofty goal for a program that our country isn't even really active in at the moment, and even when the U.S. is doing it, literally the best people who have perfect grades and are in perfect shape will still probably wash out and not make the cut. So an adult would want to temper their expectations. But a kid who doesn't know any of that and will probably change their dream at some point soon? Let 'em dream, what's the problem?

So, yeah, lie to your kids about what they can do. Tell them they can do anything they want.

You might want to mention, however, that they can't do everything.

And not just kids. No one can. There's not a soul on this earth that is going to be good at everything. Why would you want to be good at everything? Do you know how long that would take? Imagine being a lawyer who has a medical degree, and can play the piano, and is good at tennis, and is a Grandmaster at chess, and knows geography, and can quote philosophy, and speaks 3 different languages. That sounds exhausting to do even all of those things, and I didn't even begin to list "everything" that a person could be good at. We've all met those people that seem to be good at everything. And you know what those people are when they're not around everyone else? TIRED. And probably some degree of miserable too. And why? Because there literally is not enough time to be good at everything, even if you were capable of becoming good at all those things individually. And you know damn well that of all the stuff out there, there's gonna be a whole lot of shit that you don't want to do along the way. Again, stuff you could do, but have no actual interest in. So... just don't do those things.

You know what I mean though, some stuff you'll need to at least know about. You'll need to know enough about taxes to pay them each year. Doesn't mean you have to study tax law and become an accountant. You should probably be familiar with how to drive a car at some point, but you are not required to be the best race car driver that ever lived. I mean, you should know how to live healthy and perhaps even be able to get in relatively good shape. You do not, however, have to train like you're trying out for the NFL combine.

I guess football is a good example of this for me. Not that I'm good at everything else, but still. I always liked watching football. I did not always like playing.

See, I was not a very good football player. I could run, I could catch, I could even kind of throw for a while. All those individual parts and tasks of being a football player, I could do them one at a time just fine. But I wasn't a good player for most of the time I played competitively. You see, I didn't have the mind for it. To be a good player, you have to be able to practice with others and play with others at a certain speed. It's not enough to be able to practice on your own and have these skills down when you can control the circumstances. You have to be able to perform in the game, with pressure on and 11 guys on the other team trying to stop you. And as much as i could practice and get to a spot that I thought I was ready, almost every game I ever played in involved at least one moment where I completely froze or forgot what I was doing and I gave up a big play or screwed something up. And as a result, I got benched very often, to the point that I didn't really get a chance to develop any confidence on the field, and plus I just started hating playing like that.

I still remember the moment that I figured out that football was not going to be my thing.

It happened in 8th grade. Our team was playing one of the middle schools in Coppell, a few cities over from us that we didn't usually play. They had this enormous stadium and they had a ton of fans show up for some reason, what felt like a couple thousand and it was louder than I'd ever played in before. And I was the starting cornerback on the left side. For those of you that don't know, a cornerback is a defensive player that covers the wide receiver positions. You have to be able to run along side the wide receiver and either prevent them from making a catch, intercept the ball yourself, or be ready to make a tackle downfield if someone gets around the defensive line. Obviously there's a little more too it than that, but the point is that a cornerback is doing a lot of running and has to work in a lot of open space.

Well, I was playing against this kid, a little bit shorter than I was, and he was jus staring at me when we lined up. Staring angrily. I mean, real malevolent look, like I'd dated his sister and it didn't work out type of look. And the first or second play of the game, he runs a route straight down the field, and I try to keep up with him and time it so I can jump for the ball at the right time, and it fails miserably, the kid gets a huge gain while I'm guarding him. And as usual, the coach pulls me out, no surprise there. And I get an earful about letting my team get back field position and my lack of focus and blah frickin blah, I hated playing for that guy.

Before you ask, no, that wasn't the big moment I was talking about. That came in the 2nd half.

The coaches put me back in after we got a comfortable lead. Or were down by a wide margin, one or the other, like it matters. I was back at cornerback, and that same kid that burned me for a huge gain before was back in. Still staring angrily, like the first play he embarrassed me on wasn't enough and now he was really pissed off or something. But I wasn't worried about it this play, because our defense had called cornerback blitz. So as soon as the ball was hiked, my job was to run towards the ball and try to get a sack or tackle for loss of yardage.

(I apologize to those who don't know football lingo well enough to follow all of this, suffice it to say that I was about to do something I was more comfortable doing and that wasn't going to get me in trouble if it didn't work.)

Anyway, the ball gets snapped, and I break inside. No one seems to see me coming, which was a good feeling. Then I get closer, running full sprint, an I see the quarterback hand the ball off to the running back, so I head right for the guy. And at the last second, he sees me coming, and lowers his shoulder in my direction. And I dive in for the tackle, and I brace for impact and...

...

The next thing I remember is a voice coming from above, saying something muffled that sounded like, "mmmhpppm mhmpmpphhh  rmmmmph". And I realized I was in a pile of kids on the ground, and I was face down. And that didn't seem to be a good omen, considering I was just running at full speed and had dove right at someone coming back at me with his force. Finally, someone helps me stand back up, and I look down, and the running back I was coming for a few seconds ago is laying on the ground, beneath where I was, and he looks hurt. And I can hear people from the sideline cheering for some reason, and a few of my teammates run over to me and are slapping me on the helmet and saying things like, "Good job!" and "That's the way we hit, boy!"

I try to smile and just play it off for a sec. Then I grab one of my friend's that's on the field, who we'll call Josh. Actually, it was Josh, what am I saying? Josh was there.

So we have a few minutes there, while they help the running back off of the field. He wasn't seriously hurt, but he was shaken up for a bit. And I ask Josh, "What just happened?" To which he replies, "What do you mean, 'what just happened?'" And I explain to him and no one else that I just blacked out and don't know what I just did. And then he says, "You may have a concussion, dude. You might want to sit down." And I keep pressing him on it. "Just tell me what happened."

So in Josh's words (at least, the way I remember him telling me):

"Well, you came in to tackle that guy, and he ran into you and knocked you back. I saw it and thought you were gonna go flying. But as you were falling, you grabbed onto him and kind of flung him around and piledrove him into the ground. Looked pretty cool. Oh, and he fumbled the ball while he was flying through the air, and a bunch of other guys jumped in, trying to get the ball. I think they got it back for their side, but it was still a pretty sweet play. So he's still on the ground though. Are you sure you're alright, though?"

So I didn't come out of the game, even though I definitely think I should have in retrospect. The next play I covered the wrong guy and let another big gain happen, but I didn't get benched. But that was the moment I knew I wasn't gonna be a football player any longer. The moment that I do not even recall was what let me know that there were better ways to devote my time, energy, and remaining brain cells. I quit football after that year, not because of the worst play I'd ever made, but because of the best one I'd made. Can you imagine if I had to blackout every time I made a good play? I wouldn't be here, writing this. Or I would, but you'd find it impossible to read through the extra consonants and numbers in every other word typed.

I kept playing basketball for a few more years after that. Ironically, I got two different concussions playing basketball in high school, a much less violent sport. But that's not even a story. Point in all of this is, you're allowed to not be good at everything. You can read into it however you want if things don't go well on several different occasions doing the same thing. Could I have pushed through it and kept playing football? Yeah, probably. Maybe I would have been fine, and not gotten hurt again and learned the position well enough to play through high school.

Maybe another concussion and I'd be in a wheelchair.

And maybe I missed my calling and should have been playing through college and even playing on Sundays. It could have happened, right? Maybe? Who knows?

But I feel pretty good about listening to that muffled voice that woke me up when I was at the bottom of that dog pile. That voice that said, "mmmhpppm mhmpmpphhh  rmmmmph". Which I can only assume was trying to say, "Maybe this is not for you."

Notice of Resignation

I, Victor Joseph Dupuy, III, being of sound mind and body, do choose to resign from my 20's on this day, May 24th, 2017. I don't make this move lightly, and I hope that it is not taken as a sign of my feelings towards my 20's, but it has come time for me to move on to other endeavors.

Effective at approximately 3:15 P.M. (Or 3:45, I honestly forget which one it is) I will have been alive and active on this planet for three full decades. During that time period, I have needed to grow and develop in ways that I did not fully realize and appreciate in those moments, but would now like to acknowledge. My 20's have had a significant role in that, and I would be remissed in not acknowledging their service and dedication with the utmost gratitude. Many valuable lessons were taught, even if some of them were lessons that should have already been learned long before. Many sobering, inspiring, and at times agonizing memories were made, none of which will soon be erased, not with time, not with therapy, and not with alcoholic beverages. My 20's and I were right there, through ups, downs, ins, outs, and all abouts.

I know it is customary to give two weeks notice before leaving notice such as this, but I happen to know from firsthand experience that my 20's will not mind one bit. We knew this day was coming, even if we just assumed it would somehow take longer than the literal amount of time it takes to become 30 years old. Once again, thank you for everything, god speed, and farewell.

Sincerely and with tremendous reverence,

Victor J Dupuy, III

P.S.  DIRTY THIRTY

Where credit is due

There's something to be said about our own biases. You know, what we do or do not want to admit about things, especially people. Confirmation bias occurs when we see or don't see something, basically because we want to. It happens when something confirms what we already thought, and we accept it. It also occurs when something goes against what we think, and we find several reasons to dismiss it. Or even moreso, confirmation bias occurs when one thing happens, and two people that disagree about that event can both point to things within the event as evidence that they are right and the other person is wrong.

I could use politics to make this point, something about Trump's firing of FBI director Comey and Comey's handling of Hilary Clinton's emails and Russia's intervention into the presidential election. I COULD do that. But watch me not do that now instead.

People keep debating Lebron James vs. Michael Jordan, and it's fucking pointless.

Actually, it's not. It's human nature, to try to take the really good parts of something and say which part is the best. We do it with taste tests for foods, we're constantly weighing which television shows are getting the best ratings, we compare prices and qualities of different goods online before we shop for them in person, we give yelp reviews for places we've shopped at. Sports are especially key on records, on wins and losses, and eventually on champions. So it only makes sense that we start trying to compare which champion is the best. But that's not enough. A champion today doesn't feel like the champion if there was a guy in the past who was still better, so we just keep bringing up how the new guy isn't the old guy. We keep living in the shadow of past accomplishments until someone new can exceed those accomplishments to a level that everyone somehow agrees is better than all predecessors.

On the other hand, there are always new factors today that didn't matter yesterday. For example, many would point to how Michael Jordan played in a time where there were more fights in basketball, so he had to be tougher than Lebron does in the league today. And that's a fair criticism, until you consider: who the hell would pick a fight with Lebron James? The guy is huge, and even for his starting size, he's built like a tank. A tank that can still run with high agility and elevate over anyone he chooses to. There are NFL linebackers that might refuse to pick a fight  while wearing a full set of pads and a helmet. So it's not a fair comparison there. Why would there be? They are different players that played different positions and used different attributes to succeed. They had different upbringings, had different stages of development, and broke into success under different levels of expectation. I grew up with Michael Jordan winning championships, and I can now watch Lebron fight for them as a youngish adult, and both of them had greatness expected of them. And both have delivered that. But that isn't enough? There has to be one that's a higher level than the other?

In the back of my mind, I can hear a voice saying, "Yeah, kinda."

I'm doing my best to not choose sides on the two, mostly because there's not reason to. I have a poster of Jordan on the wall at home to this day from the finals of his first championship. I have a few of the books about Jordan's rise to fame and some of the ups and downs he faced once he got there. But I catch every Lebron game that I can and I genuinely want to see him play as great as he can, even if it means he one day surpasses Jordan. Either way, I can appreciate the unique skill level that they have both attained in their careers, and the fact that one of them is still going strong and may for another 5-7 years is pretty exciting. And you don't have to agree with me on either player, and you don't have to like either one, but for Lebron, it's crazy to try to say that he has to be the best of all time to be enjoyable.

I can give credit to something that's due credit.

Or somewhere, or someone. The thing about giving credit is that some people make you want to give them credit, and others just deserve credit despite being complete pricks that you don't want to give credit to. When you want to give credit, you give tons of it, and rarely do you give just what is deserved. You give way more than what is necessary, and you notice a bunch of other things that barely even matter and then you probably even make up a few things to give credit for. But when you don't like someone/place/thing, you intentionally wait until you are blown away before you acknowledge anything, because you actually want to diminish that which opposes you.

I had a track coach once that was much like this. Actually, to be fair, he was never officially my coach, but he coached another group within the team I was on, and he really new his stuff. And I hated the prick, because he was just that much of an asshole. I mean, he didn't try to hide it when he disliked someone, and he disliked a lot of people for reasons that were never explained. It wasn't just me either, there were plenty of guys my age that came to the same conclusion: he's not mad about something, he's not upset, he's not hard to get to know. Coach Anthony is just an asshole. (His name isn't really Coach Anthony, in case you were wondering)

The guy just seemed to look for reasons to dig at me, and I know I'm not just making it up. There have been others that confirmed it with me. People would come up at practice and just say things like, "Why does coach Anthony hate you? What did you say to him, because he is not a fan."

You know, to tell the truth, there was one time I messed with him just slightly. I used to work during the summers for the Food and Beverage department of my University, and they would have functions that would cater to the coaches. One of them took place in this dining hall set up in a certain part of the football stadium, mostly for sports alumni to meet and celebrate glory days, stuff like that. So I see Coach Anthony while I'm working this one time, and I decide to mess with him slightly. When he got up to the bar, I put on a stern face and just simply asked, "Sir, can I see some identification?" Thinking he'd think it was funny and we'd have a little joke between us. Yeah, not at all. His face turned t stone, and he was just like, "Are you kidding me? I will jump over this fucking bar if you don't get me a god damn drink, Victor." Which, wow. Didn't see it coming one bit. I tried to tell him I was kidding, and he really didn't mellow out about it that day or for like a year after it. Maybe he was pissed about some other stuff going on, I don't know. But he never ceased to be a prick from that point forward, at least not to me.

I know for a fact that he was a good coach though. I know because the one time that he actually gave me some coaching, which he didn't have to do, it made a pretty big impact on my career. It was about 2 years after the bar incident that was barely an incident, and I was preparing for the conference championship, pretty much the biggest meet of the year for me. And my actual coach had already left to go to the site where the meet was going on, and I had one last pseudo practice as preparation for this meet before traveling there myself. So I see coach Anthony, and for whatever reason, he wasn't being a jerk to me, and we actually joked around for a few minutes about something random, like a Will Farrell movie or something. And I turn to walk away and I think to myself, I wonder if Coach Anthony has any pointers for me that my real coach hadn't thought to say. So I turn, and I ask him.

Turns out, yes, he did. In about 2 minutes, coach Anthony gave me some advice that I had not previously thought of. I won't go into the specifics because you probably don't actually care about that level of detail, but he had an insight into one of my main events, that I had been doing for years and years, that completely changed the way that I thought about literally everything I was doing to set up my body's position and... see, there I go again. You don't care. The point is, it was a really simple thing to think about and he knew exactly how to communicate it so it would stick.

And then he said, very confidently, "Congratulations."

And I said, "Congratulations, what for?"

"For finishing in the top three at the meet." And he walked away. Just like that.

Can you guess which place I came in at the meet that weekend?

Second. I finished second at the conference championships because of 2 minutes of instruction from a coach who was otherwise a complete asshole to me every time I spoke with him. And I lost by just.... well, it was really close to me winning. Really, really close.

But I give credit to him because he deserves it. He's a hell of a coach.

But MAN, I don't like that guy.

Anyways, bye now. I'll talk to you later.

...

A centimeter. I lost at the meet by one god damn centimeter! GUH! Can you imagine if Anthony had taken a full five minutes to not be a jackass?!