THE TREE OF LIFE

It was a tough gig. But I had learned it. You have to find some forum, some place of trial, some experimental lab to test things.

I am no good at golf. I break all the clubs after 36 holes.

I am no good at baseball. I cannot see the frickin ball coming.

I tried to sell insurance. Of course when you start you are selling whiskey to alcoholics or placebos to cancer patients, it does not really give people like me satisfaction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulVDM0a49Lw

I tried fast food, I tried slow food, I tried food delivery....

I mean a buck an hour. Just like Willy Loman's kid. Fuck that.

How do you decide what you wish to be anyway?

I mean you can study hard in school and pass all the tests and then pass more tests to get into higher schools and then you can pass more tests to get into higher schools; and then what?

Well, if you pass enough tests you can teach I suppose.

As a student I needed a part time job. So some prof said that there was an opening for student counselors.

Well, I get down there and they want me real bad. I mean I passed all these tests and stuff and I was 24 working on a PHD (at least that is what I told them) and I had a clean criminal record and all because I never got caught and I really enjoyed being a student.

So this 19 year old wanders into my first session held in some basement mold covered room. And he has zits and he is about 120 pounds and he is sickly with a very sad countenance. And I always learned that I really know nothing, so I took the Rogerian angle and let him talk.

And talk he did. His dad died when he was ten and he ended up living with an uncle who had a thing for ten year old boys that Auntie would not acknowledge..

So Sammy (his real name is Timmy but I am attempting anonymity here) tells me that he really, really likes his uncle anyway.

So Sammy keeps up his affair with Uncle Jack (His real name is Bob but anonymity is sooooo important) and he grows into a young man and by age twelve, he starts being attracted to young girls, aged ten and under.

Well there are hard economic times ahead for this pathological pedophiliac and by age 15 he is dealing crack on the street to the junior high crowd.

Six or seven or eight (he is not sure) of the little buggers die from bad drugs that he has sold them and he is a little depressed about it all.

He ends up here at the big U and after a year his grades suck. He sells MJ most of the time to help him with his coke habit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-xIulyVsG8&feature=related

So he asks me, what is the best way to kill myself?

I immediately thought, why not just do it on cocaine.

So we discussed that for awhile and it turns out that it is very expensive and he tried to do that seventeen times already.

So I came up with an idea.

You ever hear of liquid opium?

Oh yeah, we used to sell the pretend stuff.

So we spoke about this and I gave him a number along with some instructions.

He would get a big bottle of scotch. He liked scotch. And then he would draw a big bath. Then he would dip some fatties in the liquid opium. After consuming half the bottle of Johnny Walker Black, he would lie down in the tub and light up a fatty.

Not two weeks later, there it was in the school paper. Sammy's obit: Dead of a Drug Overdose.

And I knew then that I had a talent. I could do this. I could help people become free.

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, they would be free at last.

They would be free from the vicissitudes of life.

They would be free from disappointing others. I mean all of us end up disappointing others all the time. Think about it. How many people have really been appointed by you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtkVGClqrT4&feature=related

They would be free from corporate lies.

They would be free from governmental lies.

 They would be free from political lies.

They would be free from community lies.

They would be forever free from familial lies.

They would be free from this lie called liberty. I mean nobody is free. To be free you would have to forgo all that is wanted; all that is needed. And that means death.

You would be free from relationships after all. I mean every relationship depends upon reciprocity, as a matter of fact it demands reciprocity. And there are those among us, and believe me I have met these people, who have nothing to reciprocate and never will.  There are those among us who have nothing to give because they have nothing. They cannot figure out the game enough to steal from others, which is what capitalism is based upon. They cannot figure out the game enough to even feign to have something to give in order to provide themselves sustenance let alone somebody else.

Kevorkian was a joke. I mean the poor idiot dying in his hospital bed could have used his services years ago. Kevorkian simply wished to help the person leave his excrement bag after languishing in his own shite for months.

But what about the morality of it all? Oh hell. Morality is based upon a code that helps those who know how to get by and keep others from doing the same; to protect them from those who cannot get by. Ha

So, anyway, I keep up my studies cause they keep sending me scholarship monies and it's 1974 and it costs so little to go to school anyway

So Mario, this kid from the Bronx comes into my counseling session and tells me he must kill somebody.

Well who is it that you wish to kill, I asked innocently.

You telling the cops? You wired?

Look at this fucking hole you idiot. You think I am funded. Hahahahahahahaah

Why do you laugh at me?

Why not? I mean why in the fuck would you wish to come down here and give me your confession when some goddamn man in a dress can do it for you and give indulgences and not even know your fucking name?

All of a sudden this redness overcame his face. The anger was something I never witnessed before. Sweat appeared on his scalp and forehead. And then, of a sudden, he relented.

I do not know how else to describe it. He relented. Not a real psych 101 reaction. But there it was anyway.

And he looked up after the redness abated and he said:

You're all right.

I said: Sure, I'm all right. I mean I get to sit in basements and speak to total excrement thirty hours a week.

And he laughed and laughed and laughed.

Frank, I gotta cousin. His name is Tolio. His name is Tolio because his mother was a fucking black in the Bronx and they could not spell Talia. Fuckin niggers. That is what he is. He is a goddamn nigger.

Look I wont stand for this racist drivel, get the fuck out of here.

Wait a minute. Wait one goddamn minute. I got an idea. Listen. No more racist stuff as you call it. You never lived in the fuckin Bronx. Forget it. I apologize.

No more. I cannot stand it.

Okay. Okay. But I have this idea.

Tolio is an idiot. Do you know he killed his own brother with a fuckin shovel? When he was ten years old he killed him; for taking his running shoes for chrissakes. When he was ten years old.

What has this got to do with anything?

Well....Uncle Antonio wants him dead. Not for real moral reasons. It's just....it's just he screwed him on a drug deal. It was like the tenth time and he wants me to do it.

So...............

I think that you could talk him into it.

Me. What in the fuck are you talking about.

Oh, I know all about you. You talked one of my runners to kill himself. Sammy. I know all about it. He told me.

Well fuck you, go to the authorities. You do not know shit. I ....

No, no no. I wished him dead a long time ago.

What are you getting at?

Antonio will give me ten grand when Tolio is dead.

Oh great. Now I counsel contract killers.

Oh, you do not just counsel them friend. You can share in the proceeds.

So that is how it all started.

Don't you all see. All of humanity is on the precipice.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE QUESTION FOR ALL TIMES.

Most of us are cowards. We eschew, ignore such messages.

But here was a profession. I mean I just help nature take its inevitable course. I mean do you know why people do not live a thousand years like Methuselah anymore? I mean Adam lived almost as long.

Why did 120 years become the perfect lifespan for Egypt and the Hebrews?

The problem here is not that there is no god. The problem lies in the fact that there is.

Well here I am; to solve that problem. Because man decided he no longer wishes to live that long. Hell most of us do not even wish to make it to half that age.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_ncQgjIlFM&feature=related

So I took the promise of five grand--with a grand up front cause I aint no idiot--and went to visit Tolio.

WHO IN THE FUCK ARE YOU?

Tolio, Tolio, I am here for you.

He receded into his alcove on the street holding a forty-five at my abdomen.

No, no, no. I am not here to collect anything Tolio. I know what happened to you. Your family is very upset. I am just here to show you a way out.

But I have no money.

I do not want your money Tolio. I really don't.

Why should I trust you?

Well Tolio. I do not want your money. I have no money except this fifty dollar bill to get me home. You can steal that if you wish. It's deductible really. I just wish to discuss some things with you is all.

Mario sent you. I know this. Mario that son of a bitchin racist bastard. I ...

Tolio, Tolio....Mario did not send me. Daddy sent me.

With that Tolio dropped his gun and began weeping. Let us get some coffee and a scone. Whatdayasay?

Tolio grabbed me and hugged me and kept weeping.

I mean, what the fuck is wrong with people anyway?

We stopped at Telli's. A little café off the beaten path. It was really adapted because it lies just outside the alcohol line set up by the powers that be many years before.

We talked about daddy and we spoke about the neighborhood where Tolio grew up. We spoke about the Black and Italian gangs.

Then I pulled out a flask and we had some drinks to go with the scones.

Later we retired to Sam's place and had some beer and some whiskey.

A wonderful evening really.

We ended up in a cousin's apartment so Tolio would be free from his family.

We talked about all of Tolio's sins. We spoke of fratricide. We spoke of homicide. We spoke of unspoken things.

Finally I said:

Tolio. Give me a good confession. A last confession. And I shall give you absolution.

And he did.

And I handed him the fingerprint free gun with the golden bullet.

And he shot himself right then and there.

Right in front of me.

With kind of a smile on his face.

He was free. Tolio was free at last.

And I knew I had a real profession after all.

I left the clean gun and took his 45.

I had this feeling of freedom that I had never experienced before.