Assholes Finish First (9 page)

As a way to relieve this post-school malaise, we decided to pick a city and all travel there to celebrate Halloween as a group. PWJ suggested Washington, DC. His little sister was having a huge Halloween party at
her house in Arlington (just across the Potomac in northern Virginia), and she was going to have so many girls at her party that she actually asked PWJ to invite his guy friends:

“PWJ, please bring your friends. I’m worried that this will be like the 4th of July party I had. There were 100 girls and only 25 guys. All my single friends were bored.”

PWJ added that his sister’s friends fell into two groups:

1. Elementary school teachers (her current occupation)

2. Sorority girls recently graduated from Southern colleges (her previous occupation)

Plane tickets were purchased post haste.

I arrived in town a day before everyone else. It wasn’t for an extra day of drinking, though I can always use that. I came early to cheer up Hate and SlingBlade. As much as the rest of us were starting to hate our lives, it was WAY worse for those two, because they didn’t even have real jobs to hate. When we graduated, they were the only two of our group who didn’t have law firm jobs waiting for them. Now, six months later, they still hadn’t found permanent law firm jobs and were relegated to doing document review to survive (essentially legal temps, REALLY shitty work).

They tried to joke about it, but you could tell it was not good. Two months before Halloween, in an email chain where we were all bitching to each other about our lives, Hate sent this email:

From: Hate

To: Tucker Max, PWJ, GoldenBoy, El Bingeroso, Credit, Jojo, SlingBlade

Subject: Depression

Ah yes, I would like to welcome all of you to the world of depression. I know it well.

I would be happy to conduct a seminar on how to cope with depression for those of you newcomers to the scene. The price of admission will be one case of domestic beer. In the biz, we call this “medication.”

Also outlined in the course will be proper masturbation techniques, clinically known as “a reason to get up in the morning.” And finally we will teach basic rugby techniques, also “legalized assault.”

As for getting out of your dead-end jobs, I have no tips, as I cannot even get into one.

That was bad, but it was this email from SlingBlade that made me book the early ticket:

From: SlingBlade

To: Tucker Max, PWJ, GoldenBoy, El Bingeroso, Credit, Jojo, Hate

Subject: re: Depression

These are actual quotes from a conversation Hate and I had last night concerning the state of our lives. You can judge for yourself how we are doing (bonus points for matching the quotes to the person):

“The problem is I have no beacon, nothing to look forward to. Or even any hope that anything good will happen to me… ever.”

“One of us needs to get laid.”

“Just one of us?”

“What are the odds of both of us getting laid?”

“The problem with this interview is that I have to get them to like me, and at this point, I don’t even like me. They’ll ask,
‘What do you have to offer us?’ The answer, of course, will be I have nothing to offer you or anyone else.”

“I’ve decided to compile a list of reasons why I shouldn’t kill myself. As you can see, the paper is blank.”

“I could never kill myself. What if it doesn’t work? Then I’ll have failed at the only thing that could save me from my failures. Where do you go from there?”

Oh yes—did I mention that Hate and I tried out for
The Weakest Link
last week? We were rejected. Apparently, when pitted against unemployed steelworkers in a competition of intelligence, we come up lacking.

I pulled up to their place about 4pm on Friday. Describing the awfulness of what I found will be a struggle, but let me try:

The apartment was in one of those shitty, beat-up complexes that was probably cool when it was built in the late ’60s but now looked like it was one drive-by shooting away from converting to Section 8. The piles of animal shit everywhere were a nice touch, but what really seemed to tie everything together for me was their apartment screen door hanging by a single hinge. With a little more artful disrepair, it could easily be used for a movie set in a postapocalyptic world. I half expected to see packs of stray dogs fighting over decomposing carcasses and feral children scurrying into sewers.

Inside, I was momentarily impressed, because it looked like SlingBlade and Hate had painted their apartment in really cool shades and designs. Then I realized those shades and designs were not interior design—they were huge water stains in the cheap drywall.

SlingBlade and Hate were in front of the TV, sitting in those fabric camping chairs you can buy for $15 at Walmart, playing Tetris against each
other. There was no other furniture in the apartment. Unless you count SlingBlade’s action figures on all the ledges as furniture.

As he got further and further behind in the game, Hate was becoming more and more enraged, and of course SlingBlade was talking shit to him about it: “Hate, your spatial-reasoning skills are inferior to mine” and “Do the pointless spinning geometries of Tetris remind you of anything?”

As Hate’s bricks stacked perilously close to the top of the screen, SlingBlade got the four-block single piece and cleared his screen. This was the final straw; Hate could no longer stomach failing in both the real world he lived in and this virtual world he was trying to escape into. He threw his controller at the TV and left for rugby practice.

SlingBlade “Beating him at Tetris is the only reason I even get up anymore. I’m not sure what keeps him going. Rugby, I guess. Or anger.”

Tucker “You ready to start drinking?”

SlingBlade “Whatever.”

Tucker “What, am I interfering with your masturbation schedule? Is your 4pm jack-off session usually a good one?”

He ignored me, as if that’s ever worked.

Tucker “I’m curious. Do you hold the action figures in your off hand when you masturbate, or do you just stare at them from across the room?”

SlingBlade “I masturbate in the shower. My action figures judge me. Especially the Justice League.”

Tucker “Come on, let’s get out of this shithole and go to a bar. Alcohol helps alleviate depression.”

SlingBlade “Go away. I’m not going to a bar.”

Tucker “Look, I know everything is shitty right now, but if you don’t stop acting like such a bitch, someone’s gonna fuck that pussy on your face.”

SlingBlade “Why don’t you go back to your regularly scheduled program of shame fucking retards and crying yourself to sleep, and leave me alone.”

Tucker “Get up, you’re coming with me. There are sluts at the bar, but they aren’t going to wait for us all night. Early bird gets the worm.”

SlingBlade “What if you’re the early worm?”

Tucker “It means be the bird, not the worm, so then you get the worm.”

SlingBlade “Worms are blind, brainless, dirt-eating shit tubes.”

Tucker “You’re still coming with me.”

We ended up at a pretty cool bar—hot girls everywhere, great vibe, everyone having fun. I go to the bar, and see this girl with an O’Doul’s. She was not just holding it—she was actively drinking it. Legitimately pouring the liquid from the bottle into her throat so she could then swallow it. I didn’t know people actually drank those things; I thought they were just for show.

Tucker “Why would you drink a beer without alcohol? That’s like dating a woman without a vagina.”

Girl “Do I know you? You think you can just come up to me and say ‘vagina’?”

Tucker “Well, sorry Miss Manners. Maybe if your beer had some alcohol in it, you’d think that was funny. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go talk to the hot girls.”

One girl charmed, rest of the bar to go.

I eventually got two homely girls to come over and talk to us. I picked them because they seemed very nice, and since they weren’t great looking, I assumed they would be desperate to talk to us. What SlingBlade needed right now was some kind of affirmation. I should have known better than even to try.

Girl1 “So what do you guys do?”

SlingBlade “Oh, this is precisely what I needed, Tucker. More people who can judge and reject me.”

Tucker “He’s a lawyer.”

Girl2 “That’s a cool job.”

SlingBlade “I’m a legal temp. I do document review in a windowless office in the basement. In my firm’s pecking order, I’m below the paralegals and secretaries.”

Girl2 “It’s OK. We’ve all had crappy jobs.”

SlingBlade “When I need a pep talk from a dim-witted receptionist, I’ll be sure to look you up.”

Tucker “Don’t pay attention to him, ladies, he’s just in a bad mood.”

Girl1 “Well, uh, what do you do?”

Tucker “I’m an inventor.”

Girl2 “That’s so cool. What things have you invented? Anything I would know?”

SlingBlade [
dripping with sarcasm
] “Oh, this’ll be good.”

Tucker “Not yet, but my big invention is coming out soon, I think it’s going to do really well.”

Girl2 “Oh, what is it?”

Girl1 “Is it cool?”

Tucker “You know those cones that dogs have to wear around their necks after surgery to keep them from chewing the stitches?”

Girl1 “Yeah, of course.”

Tucker “Well, I invented one for babies.”

Girl1 “For babies?”

Tucker “Yep. It’s not for surgery, obviously, that would be ridiculous. It’s a party game.”

Girl2 “A party game? What do you mean?”

Tucker “You put it around the baby’s neck just like with a dog, but then you fill it to the top with some sort of liquid—water or apple juice or pretty much anything drinkable—and then he has to drink it as fast as he can. It’s called: Baby Drink or Die.”

Girl1 “Baby Drink OR DIE?!?”

Girl2 “WHAT?!?”

Tucker “You think Baby Drink or Drown is a better name? The investors thought it was more marketable. Should I have listened? Fuck, I should have.”

They didn’t think that was funny, for some reason.

I eventually quit trying to cheer up SlingBlade and started talking to a group of Georgetown undergrads, because one of them was hot and into me. SlingBlade could not have been more disgusted with them. They were self-absorbed, spoiled sorority girls who thought that because their daddies were rich and powerful they could do whatever they wanted. To SlingBlade, these girls represented everything that was wrong with the world, and he wanted nothing to do with them. To me, they represented fish in a barrel. Though their daddies may have spoiled them with material things, they also ignored them emotionally. These girls were going to find male attention somewhere, and I was more than willing to vigorously and enthusiastically hump it into them.

After an hour of “validate then withdraw,” plus a lot of vodka, I had missile lock on the one I wanted to fuck. Well on the way to rubbing our genitals together, she decided to be playful and call me out.

Girl “I think I can outdrink you.”

Tucker “Please. I woke up this morning drunker than you’ve ever been in your life.”

Girl “You’re a big talker, but are you a big drinker?”

Tucker “Line’em up.”

She returned quickly with two brown shots. I smelled them.

Tucker “What is this?”

Girl “Three Wise Men.”

FUCK. This is not good. I’m allergic to whiskey. I think maybe I should explain this to her, and request a different alcohol. Then I remember that I am awesome. Even fighting through anaphylactic shock, I can STILL bury this emotionally unstable, bulimic undergrad.

We do the first shot, and for the second, I think I’m going to be OK. Then it’s like I took a hit of acid: I get dizzy, everything slows down, people’s words begin to slur, and I just know I’m going to puke. I am about to make
a quick trip to the bathroom, but before I can do it, she hands me the next shot.

Girl “We’re not done yet, Mr. Big Drinker.”

Just smelling the shot, my knees buckle. If I was smart, I’d throw the shot in her face, run out of the bar, and punch a drifter. But I want to get laid, so I stupidly dump it down my throat and hope for the best.

My body went into involuntary convulsions and immediately rejected the shot. I had one of those small reaction vomits where just the top layer of your stomach comes out. I was holding a cup of beer, and about 8 ounces of brownish, watery vomit sloshed into the cup and on my hand. For a second I tried to play it off casually, like it was a totally normal thing for me to vomit back into my cup—you know, to save my drink for later.

It didn’t work. The girl and her friends looked at me like I was a Mexican busboy who’d just propositioned them. I don’t think they could believe a grown man just puked into his own cup, after only two shots. Before anyone could say anything, SlingBlade tied a nice bow on the incident:

SlingBlade “You make me ashamed to be a man.”

We left immediately after that. Alone, obviously.

In the middle of the ride home, I abruptly commanded SlingBlade to pull the car over, and proceeded to vomit all over the street. Literally all over the street—I ran across the road as I was throwing up, puking the whole time. And for some strange reason, I was waving my arms above my head, like one of those women on Maury Povich who sprint backstage after finding out that none of the three men is the father.

SlingBlade “Why were you flailing your arms like that?”

Tucker “I needed to alert the oncoming cars to my presence.”

SlingBlade “Well, why did you run across the street vomiting?”

Tucker “If I understood why I do the things I do when I’m drunk, I’d be… rich… or less drunk… or something.”

The Halloween Party

The next day, we all bummed around and played video games until it was time for the party. About 7pm we started putting on our costumes, but SlingBlade just sat there.

Tucker “Dude, what are you going as? A morose, underemployed video game nerd?”

SlingBlade “I don’t have a costume. You think I spent even a millisecond thinking about that nonsense?”

If he doesn’t get a costume, I know exactly what’s going to happen: Everyone will pester him about why he doesn’t have a costume, and he’ll spend the entire party sulking and pissed off, which will ruin any chance he has of having a good time. Not on my watch.