The one unintended consequence of my sobriety, I'm finding out, is an obnoxiously sunny disposition. Usually when I'm paying for my gas or buying some miscellaneous item, my main goal is to avoid small talk at all costs and get my black ass out of dodge as fast as humanly possible. But now that there are no more daily assassination attempts on my liver, more often than not I find myself actually engaging people - even smiling while doing so. Yes, my new found niceness utterly sickens me. If I saw an acquaintance at a store that I wanted to avoid having small talk with, the extraordinary stealth that I exhibited just to stay clear of their harmless minutiae would impress most ninjas. Now not only will I seek them out, I'll engage them with the same small talk that I once loathed and even inquire about their family. Ugh. Sobriety has made being an unrepentant douchebag less of a priority, and that starts to scare me. Not looking for every opportunity to say the most reprehensible things imaginable to people without even flinching is definitely a cause for concern. Did you know that I have new found habit of sexual reciprocity? I used to take so much pride in my pre-ejaculation and the love I have for penetrating women to Public Enemy's "Welcome to the Terrordome". What is happening to me? I mean, even mercilessly assaulting people for minor offenses is starting to lose its luster. For the past few months I seriously thought my asshole world was crashing down around me, that was until I met a self loathing black man with an Obama assassination fetish that is.
I had to give the drummer some: An old friend of mine is the guitarist in a jazz band. For the longest time I had promised him that I would go to one of his performances, but I was really dragging my feet for the fear that his band would sound like a constipated turkey - a judgment that a seasoned asshole like myself would only feel compelled to share with him. But despite the possibility of ruining a friendship with my blunt honesty, I finally made it to one of his performances - and suffice it to say his band was absolutely amazing. So amazing in fact that I found myself making it to three of their performances a week, they were that good. I mean, sure there was a lot of eye candy in attendance that I wanted to be proverbial notches in my Chewbacca sized sexual exploit belt - but my friend's music was a great backdrop as I whispered sweet "You haven't lived until you've been fucked in a confessional" sentiments in some young lady's ear. Seeing a band as much as I did you get acquainted with the other band members, and I must say that they were all pretty stand up guys. Well, all of them except the drummer, Derrick. I knew going in that Derrick was a black conservative, but that didn't bother me, our post set conversations about politics actually started out rather civil. He had legitimate beefs with Obama that I couldn't argue with, principled stances that forced a insufferable prick like myself to show the gentleman nothing but respect. But then, as if someone flipped a switch, he went from civil discourse to questioning Obama's birthplace and making Michelle Obama jokes that you'd expect a militia member to make. At this point I was actively avoiding him, doing things like striking up conversations with strangers or simply leaving the room whenever I saw him approaching. Unfortunately he would occasionally find me and unload some wing nut craziness about Obama being in bed with al qaeda, straight lunacy that Glenn Beck would distance himself from. When he would go on these rants laughter seemed to be my only option, because I quickly saw an attempt at methodical debunking his nonsense devolving into me snapping his fucking neck in front of 50 jazz aficionados. Besides, beating my homey's bandmate wouldn't be the best thing for our friendship - so I told myself that if it got too bad that I simply wouldn't come back any more.
Then it happened. Right after one of their sets Derrick sat beside me, angrily reading a newspaper and said: "This motherfucker won't survive his first term, and thank god for that!" Yeah, that was enough for me. So minutes later, as he smoked a cigarette behind the club, I snuck behind him and put him in one hell of a sleeper hold. After a few moments, right before he fell asleep, I released the hold and delivered two rather disgruntled punches to his kidney right before throwing him head first into the side of a dumpster. Yes, I gave him a couple kicks for good measure as well. Then I promptly went home. The next day I got a call from my friend informing me of the ass whipping Derrick was on the business end of. Damn, no one knew it was me. I guess being an asshole is sort of like riding a bike, you never forget.
(P.S Yes, beating a black conservative counts. Don't judge me.)
