October 7, 2003

20-NOTHING: CONFESSIONS OF A SPOILED BRAT ON THE EVE OF HIS FINAL JOURNEY INTO MANHOOD

by Marty Beckerman

"We are not youth any longer. We don't want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts."

—All Quiet On the Western Front by E.M. Remarque, 1927

"When masturbation's lost its fun, you're fucking lonely."

—Green Day

SIXTEEN HOURS AGO, I lay naked in bed - post-coitus - with a Lesbian. It was the first time she had ever copulated with a boy, which serves as final proof that either I'm such a Man that even Lesbians can't resist me, or I simply look like a really butch dyke.

"I thought it would spray more," the Lesbian confessed after the drunken Squirm Session had reached its natural end. "Like a geyser or something."

Alas! My Penis is not a Geyser of Semen! At least, not since I turned fifteen years old and stopped jerking off seven times a day. (Currently I'm down to once, maybe twice, occasionally thrice, although this chaffs beyond polite description.)

And this brings us to our topic for today: Transitions. You see, I've just spent a week in my old stomping ground of Anchorage, Alaska, and—although the last seven days have been a total blast in terms of my cerebral Pleasure Center (for having never seen a Penis before, that Lesbian sure gave one amazing blowjob; I mean, usually you have to ask the Girl to lick your testicles, but she went straight for them!)—I'm pretty sure that Mutant Zombies have eaten the brains of everyone who I went to high school with, rendering them all mature and responsible and insane.

For the Love of Christ, my friends are becoming homeowners, working full-time jobs and feeding themselves—and I'm disconcerted to say the least. It's only been 26 months since our high school graduation, back when we had no desire whatsoever for chores, jobs, or self-subsistence. We were kids—completely free of toil & worry—and now we're… God, I don't even know anymore.

We're certainly not adults—at least, those of us who remain in the Boozed Womb of College (call it fetal alcohol syndrome)—but no longer is it socially acceptable to depend wholly on Mommy and Daddy for our basic needs like food, shelter, and weird new hallucinogens. (Strangely enough, an effervescent ex-cheerleader friend of mine is now the marijuana/shroom kingpin/queenpin of Anchorage—who would've thought? The pompom pusher?)

It's the kind of thing that makes a Man start to believe in Fate, Karma, Destiny and Cosmic Paths. My ex-girlfriend from high school—who basically dumped me after I told her that I loved her, the first night she let me sleep with her—just got dumped by some guy after she made the same mistake of confessing deep feelings. She recently apologized for breaking my heart a couple years ago, but it didn't really mean anything—at least, not what it would've back then—and I've had a bigger heartbreak this summer anyway.

(You know, the kind where you spend a night sobbing beyond control on your best friend's living-room floor, utterly alone in a city of millions. Without getting into specifics, let me just say this: When guys hurt girls' feelings, it's because we're dumb and accidentally say/do stupid things without thinking of the consequences beforehand. When girls hurt guys' feelings, however, it's because they're the most calculating, manipulative, scheming, vindictive, Machiavellian, psychotic people on Planet Earth. Thank you for your understanding.)

Everything's changing, just like when I hit puberty eight years ago and sprouted millions of curly little hairs all over my stocky, hyena-like Jewish body. My friends all look older—I look older—but I still feel like a despicable little kid inside. Actually, I can't think of myself as anything else, to be honest.

Maybe that's what happens when you grow up as a spoiled brat, not to mention your parents' only child (but I repeat myself). While my childhood friends Weston, Brandon and Leah slaved away with parental chores from the time they could crawl (or breathe), I got every toy in the world just because I asked/cried/whined/annoyed. Incidentally, Weston and Leah are now self-sufficient homeowners earning respectable paychecks—at ages 21 and 19, respectively—and Brandon is a decorated Veteran of War. (Meanwhile, I busy myself by masturbating three times daily, and occasionally scribing a genius novel for one of the biggest publishers in the world.)

Oh my God, I'm pathetic. Twenty percent of the human population lives in dire poverty, according to the U.N., and I'm complaining about the fact I can grow up to become a Responsible Adult. Christ in Hell, there's no excuse for this horrible narcissistic bullshit, is there? Is there?

"This is the last time in your life that you'll ever be carefree, son," explained my father at the beginning of the summer. "Enjoy it while you've got it, because God doesn't let you die for a long, long time."

What this all comes down to is that I'm graduating from college in nine months, and then my life will be considered a failure if I'm not making at least $40,000/year—housing and feeding myself, and generally making it in the Real World. Moving back in with my parents is tantamount to the Death of the Soul: You are an Invalid to Society, Worthless to the Human Race, Expendable Biomass Consuming Valuable Resources.

It's time to be a Man now, and not in the sense of sprouting pubes or converting Lesbians to Citizens of Dickville. It's time to be self-reliant, self-supporting, self-sustaining. And I suppose I should be happy about this transition period, or at least comforted by the knowledge that everyone else is going through the same thing. You feel better about yourself when you put food on your own table, I know that, but I'm afraid of admitting that an era of my life is finally over.

"You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to tell you where they're going," writes author P.J. O'Rourke, but I'm not sure where I'm going and I'm even beginning to question where I came from.

The Past can't be reclaimed, and people change as time marches forward. So who are the real people: The memories of my friends or their present realities? Does it even matter? You can't spend your days wishing the Ghost Town of Memory would come back to life, because everyone has spiraled in parallel, disparate directions; on different paths. We're all the same deep down—we've been through the same laughs, heartbreaks and tragedies together, & those will unite us for the rest of our natural lives—but our new individual experiences are visibly transforming. We are not the Same People.

Good Lord, I need to stop smoking so much of this Demon Marijuana. Why am I even deconstructing these godforsaken sensations? Don't people go insane overanalyzing shit like this? Christ, I've got the next sixty years to worry about Maturity, Respectability and Financial Independence. For now, I should be content to just sing, frolic like a woodland creature, and Convert Lesbians—one by one, continent by continent—forever and a day.

Except for the Butch Dykes. You bitches nasty.

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