Suburbia’s monotony.

Count the assholes!

One asshole, two assholes, three assholes, one metric shitload of assholes!

Oh you ignorant, arrogant, narcissistic, misguided pricks, driving your hybrid cars to the gym while you plug yourself into your iPods and ignore the world around you.

Gah, I thought I deleted this song? Finish turning the corner. Now skip song.

Watch out, little kiddies. I may get distracted sipping on my Diet Coke and talking to Greenpeace on my hands-free phone, that I may not see your ball bounce onto the road, and you naïvely follow. I want my dead child served medium rare.

If only we all could see the world in such an optimistic manner. You’ll break though. We all break. It’ll happen about the time you come home early from football practice one morning to find your daddy in bed with Sally from Nextdoor’s daddy, and then notice your mother regularly slipping away to the kitchen to drink from that opaque sipper bottle. She always gets happier after she does that, doesn’t she? Don’t worry though, kiddo. You see, Sally’s going through a very similar thing. Her mother’s cigarettes don’t smell like everyone else’s. Good news, this’ll make her easier to get into. Your bedroom windows are right next to each other, and she knows you’ve been spying on her. You’re going to knock her up when you’re both 15. She’ll then become a junkie, die of a speedball overdose, and by the time you’re 16 you’ll be a solo dad. Congratulations, champ.

The way things are going, we’re going to have a generation void of biologists, because they’re too busy studying ‘intelligent design’ to grasp the fundamental theory relative to all aspects of biology: evolution. The jailed population is going to continue to grow, and the average age will be younger and younger as the youth of today have no role models on how to live their lives. And on top of that, we’re witnessing the beginnings of the first generation to start dying before their parents. Religion, here’s your apocalypse. Enjoy it.

Picture this, children. It’s Christmas and you’re all excited to see what Santa brought you. RC Helicopter? Friggin’ sweet! But uh… dad, where’s the propeller? Broken? But I just got this thing! And you’re not even going to give me the parts to fix it with? Oh gee, thanks a bunch, fuckers.

I hate people. I need not look any further than the sorry souls walking on the sidewalk next to the road to prove my point.

Hey you. Heard of legs? You have? You even have a pair? No shit! All I see you using is your mouth, so how about you put the burger down and go for a fucking run already.

Nice underwear there, cocksmoke. It’s quite a feat to reverse evolution to walk like that. Pull your damn jeans up. People only want to see your ass so they can kick it.

Dude, we get it. You’re gay. Yes, there are still douchebags out there who get all up in arms about that sort of thing, but I’m not one of them. And that shiny silver vest is reflecting sunlight into my eye, burning my retina. Cut it out.

Buddy, marijuana doesn’t kill, I’ll concede that point, but it does kill brain cells. Sooner or later you’ll be running around in a skull mask being a general nuisance to anybody interested in intelligent conversation.

One asshole, two assholes, three assholes, four! One metric fuckload of assholes! That’s ten times a metric shitload. It’s science. And the sooner you clowns start using the metric system, the better off you’ll be. Trust me.

Hang on a sec, the asshole brigade are heading towards… my house! I haven’t lived there in a long time, but it’s still technically mine. I think.

Step one: direct car into driveway.

Step two: mow down anybody in the way.

Step three: talk to the guy walking towards me with his chest puffed out all angry-like. And by talk, I mean yell at him using a bunch of colourful obscenities. Unless he yells first. Then I might just hit him.

“Excuse me, sir!” he yells, as I get out of the car. “You can’t park here. You have to park on the road for the auction”.

“What auction?” I growl. Very intimidating.

“The house auction”. He looks at me like I’m an idiot.

“This house isn’t for sale”. My confusion grows.

“Uh… yes it is”. Clearly this isn’t going anywhere.

“Look Mister…”

“Bell”.

“Like it matters”. He doesn’t react too kindly to that. Poor bugger. “This is my house. Get it? MY house. M-Y. My. I’m Lee Stone, and I’m the legal owner. You understand the legal system, right? Because when it says that I own something, it’s mine to sell. Not yours”.

“Um…” he stalls, as he rifles through the clipboard tucked under his arm. “It says here that the legal owner is one Zhou Zhong”.

“You’re fucking kidding me right?” I snatch the clipboard from his hands.

“Afraid not, sir”. Jesus Christ. He’s right.

“How the hell did this happen?”

“Sir, I understand that you’re angry”, he says. It feels patronizing. “But I have no answers for you. I’m just another cog in the system”.

“Right. Not your fault. I get it”, I concede, sort of. “I’ll quit bugging you the moment you direct me to where Mr. Zhong is”.

“I can’t risk endangering the client”.

“Oh shut the fuck up, Bellboy”, I snap. “Zhou used to rent this fucking house FROM ME. I know who he is, okay champ? And look around, will you? This entire auction is white as shit. I’m the only non-Caucasian person here! With a name like Zhou Zhong, it’s not going to be hard for me to identify the little sucker. It’s not identification that I’m after though. It’s location, location, location”.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to le…”

“Zhou Zhong is about four feet tall; has a propensity for wearing fur coats; has been in this country for years and yet still retains a near unintelligible mastery of the English language; loves cream soda; and has a crescent shaped birthmark just above his navel”.

He looks at me, dumbfounded.

“Too much info, right? Yet I know it. I don’t want to, but I do. Now where is the little cockroach?”

“Upstairs”.

And he steps out of my way. Acting out a tip of the hat in appreciation from my bare head, I stroll on through the front door, MY front door. The entire place looks different from how I remember it. That wall on my left, used to be on my right. This makes it a little more difficult to navigate my way to the staircase, but I get there without too much hassle. I bounce up them, two at a time, and bang open the door at the top of the stairs. My old master bedroom. Sure enough, there’s my target, my old pal Zhou Zhong, standing atop a stool as he flexes his muscle-less arms in the mirror. He turns to look at me, eyes-wide.

>“It not what rook rike”, he manages to say, before I’ve swept across the floor in a matter of just two strides. I grab him by his leg, taking full advantage of the size advantage I have. With my other hand, I pick up a belt that I assume belongs to Zhou from the nearby bed. Quickly, I tie it around Zhou’s leg, drag him towards the bed, lift him high above my head, and wrap it around the rail that connects the high bedposts. He squeals while I do this, but struggle is futile. I stand back, hands on my hips, proud of my accomplishment. “Was this necessay?”

“You’ve got some explaining to do”, I tell him, ignoring his remark and awaiting enlightenment.

“I know, I know. Can you ret down first?”

“Yes I can. But I won’t”.

“Honey, we’re going to have to make this quick. The auction’s about to start”. I turn towards the door to find a slim brunette woman standing naked there. She sees me and her mouth drops. She screams a little and quickly covers her breasts. It’s a shame, cause she’s got a nice rack. She then realizes that she has more to cover up than just her mammary glands, and so flees the scene. I send a puzzled look at Zhou.

“Was she… uh…” I begin. “Was her, you know, shaved to look like your face?”

He nods.

“Nice”. In response, with one quick motion, I tug on the belt, and it comes apart sending Zhou crashing to the floor. He takes his time getting up, dusting his shoulder in the process. “So are you going to explain?”

“I not see you in rong time”, he offers.

“So you decided to weasel your way into ownership?” I press for more details. “I don’t even know how that’s possible”.

“I good at what I do”.

“Since when was this what you did?” He looks up at me and shrugs. “Times have changed, huh?”

“I serring house”.

“I’d noticed that”.

“You want buy?”

“Buy? Motherfucker, as far as I’m concerned, you need to fork over some cash to me before you take this any further”.

“I did”.

“Bullshit”.

“It got put in bank account under your name”.

“Seriously?” I look at him, thoroughly confused.

“Seriousry”. He moves off towards a set of drawers and fiddles around inside the second drawer for a moment. He then pulls out a small cheque book and throws it across the room to me. “I good at what I do. And I honest with friends”.

I flick through the book. It seems legit, and really I don’t have any reason not to trust Zhou. I’ve known him for years.

“So you want buy?”

“Nah man”. I shake my head to accompany my refusal of the offer, flicking the book closed in the process and tucking it into my pocket. “I was actually going to sell it now anyway. That’s why I’m here”.

I move over to the window, looking out at the gathering crowd. Mr. Bell catches me peering down and waves, inquiring with his facial expression as to how things are going. I respond with a friendly salute.

“If you not want house”, Zhou says, as he comes to stand next to me, barely able to see. “Why so angry at me?”

“I’m not”.

“You were”.

“I guess I uh… overreacted”. Zhou knows me well enough to take that as an apology, without me actually saying the words.

“Why?”

“Good question”. I scan the crowd. There’s Fatty. There’s Wigga. There’s Queertron. There’s Pothead. “Look at them… fucking disgusting excuses for human beings”.

“Um… wha…?”

“There’s a point where an individual’s freedom to express their individuality just gets abused”.

“I not know what you talk about”.

“Neither do I”, I admit, stepping away from the window. “But being back here, being back in the old routine. I hate it, man. I look around and see everything that I did wrong, everything that people are still doing wrong. And I hate it. I’m sick of being defined by my mistakes. I’m sick of fighting battles that don’t mean shit. I’m sick and tired of the same old crap, day in and day out. It’s not that hard to do the right thing, yet people fail so miserably at it”.

“Creary you have thinking too much again”.

“Clearly”.

“I can’t help”.

“Neither can I”.

“Sorry”.

“Don’t. Sometimes people forfeit their freedom. You took this house before I was ready to part with it, that can only tell me that I’m doing the right thing now. That’s enough”.

“I still not know what you talk about”.

“I know. I apologize for that. I’m not trying to be cryptic, or poetic – I’d be failing if that was my intention – or anything ridiculous like that. I’m just… I’m just pissed off”.