recovery – pseudo lou

THOUGHTS DURING THE DEVL PT 1

There’s some nasty woman with awful teeth sipping a bright morning cocktail across the bright resin countertop. Feels like she is looking at me.

I honor the rumors I’ve heard of this ugly, dishonorable woman today; that she was disowned by her hyper-wealthy family. Her surname is planted upon the important buildings and venues of a divine nearby campus, bumping shoulder with buildings carrying another wealthy surname so filthy rich that it came up when a famous pedophile was captured and… whatever you believe about that, it doesn’t matter.

What’s important to me, and to you, is that this woman makes me think og pedophiles. I break our engagement to watch the hair stand up on my arm as the hum of morning drink licks my soul, and tunes me in. Everywhere smells like acetone.

“What are you about to do that you’re doing that to yourself right now?” She asks.

She must know how repulsive she is. Perhaps I am making her feel not so repulsive, if she in fact knows how repulsive she is. At least to me. She must know how re –.

“I’m going to work. And this is the way I must do to myself if I am going to work,” I replied, suddenly Victorian. She is drinking too, probably. I don’t care what’s in her cup, judgmental bitch. She is disowned. By a family of wealthy kid-fuckers. I know I heard this from somewhere. Someone I know knows. The repulsive bitch.

Work is a breeze. Also a waste of my time. Also a joke. I work here because I am great at what I do. It’s easy to do what I do. So I don’t have to try. I’ve no designs on moving up. Save my energy. Why would I want to move up in this restaurant industry? Nothing hospitable about any of this practice.

This is just what I do to be able to live like I do. Life is brutal; have a good time. I just happen to have a great time. Nobody can tell me about it, either. I know what I’m into, I know it sounds like how my Uncle Lou used to do, Dad. I got it.

Anyway;

I’m thankful today that I was behind the bar, and guest where indulging in the liqour just out of our security cameras. I was cured within a lunch rush. I took the cash tips straight to the caddy-cornered gay bar, post-shift, posthaste.

I woke from a disco nap. Or was that Sleep? I dunno.

I do know: I feel it coming up quickly. I minimize movements as I well up with the lubricating spit from my depths, spilling ever so slightly on the way to the bowl. I wretch and wretch. I see stars. The pressure ignites. My adrenaline kickstarts my go-go-go-ism. I like how I can go-go-go. Nobody is like me.

Nobody can keep this up like me.

In the mirror, I stand in the angle to disappear the imperfections. I am true grit; and embellishment; and disgusted with the early disappointments of today. A miserable existence. But I am resilience.

And discipline:

I don’t puke, I wretch.

I don’t break, I bounce.

I will not miss out on this money, because I am the hardest working man who ever lived.

…But why must I work at all? This world is only facade, and my understanding is complete. My ability, not God-given. More-than. My gifts, wasted because they will not come to see me. They did not meet me at any point, and therefore it is they who failed. They chose not to see me. I am here to be found. Discover these unique abilities, in charisma, and intellect, charm and leadership! Lift me.

But no! I am this, because they gave me no opportunity. I come to be here, and they missed ME.

It is the same pants from every day this year, no matter the month or the year. It is the same jacket with compressed, splintered, unsmokeable cigarettes. I fear nothing, I am too talented. These heavily sanitized, dehydrated hands are callused from this endless tedium. Each knuckle swollen and scarred from the studs I express my anger upon, in an apartment paid for by handouts…

And yet I’m going to just randomly – nay, mercilessly — be quietly scrutinized by this woman who does no thing but take up space. I’m going to work, what the fuck do you have to do for everyday of your wasteful existence? She has it all. Even more than me. I’m roaming this rock contributing something besides shit, little comments. She’s here to bother young, attractive party people like me.

I am stealing from the till because they are going to make much more tonight than I was able to make amongst these children servers for the lunch shift. I am wondering if the are keeping track of the Red Bulls. I am masturbating in the bathroom to stay awake.

No one catches me, so nothing is noteworthy as far as how the shift was. A manager pulls me aside to ask if everything’s alright. I ask if it’s about something I did. She says I seem a way. I tell her I am just like that. I leave.

There is a gay bar near, and in there are gay men, mostly. They pour the drinks in a better way like some of you might already know. But if you don’t: Are you afraid? Oh wait are you gay? They’re not going to pin you down and –.

I have several and it is better. I am sad, but this, too, feels better. Everything smells like acetone. Now I feel good.

One of them just asked me about my goals or what I do or what I wish I did. It angers me to my core.

I wake up in bed with boots on. I smell my feet through those old beat up boots. I smell me. I smell stale.

Better than acetone.

I am thankful, briefly, to be here, but outside it’s missing again. I stand. I stay unreasonably still to see if it comes up again. It does not. I stand even more still to listen for voices and movement from roommates. There is none. It must be late. I hope it’s not. But late enough for them to be asleep. I don’t wanna answer to nobody.

It can’t be too late, for our sake. Where is my phone? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, ope. Found it: it’s not too late!

This is joy!

Our bliss hums in us on the way to A Little More. A couple one mores if we know who’s working, yes. And I am vivid with stories after a little hmmmmm scrounged from the innards of a hot sticky vial The card is going through so we buy fresh cigarettes and return to solitude among the people. I am challenged over something I’m not sure of; and thus dismissed.

I wake up in bed with boots on. Wretch wretch wretch. Shower. Maintenance with what I may be able to scrape from the fridge or my roommate’s special drawer all the way in his bedroom with the door closed in a specific way so I close it exactly back that way then Uber to where I roughly remember the car: near yesterday’s gay bar.

“…And how are we doing today?” bartender inquires instead of pouring.

“Landing the plane, left my car here I think,” questioning him, really.

“You accosted a guest and screamed at my bartender while you were here yesterday,” he continued, not pouring.

“Oh,” I would be able to help out if –, “was having a day I guess, sorry, really.” Not really as sorry as if I could get right. Asshole.

“I can’t have you doing things like that making my bar unsafe.”

It’s four dollars for practically a pint of whiskey. I wonder fleetingly how safety is a principle here; how am I the unsafe item. Probably because I’m straight. That guy yesterday. Probably tried to pick me up and I said no. Gonna need a lot more gear to win this boy over. I’ll just leave. Like, 12 different versions of this place on the way home, once I find it.

Praying the prayers I pray when I can’t find it. When I’m barely certain. So, uncertain I guess. Red Accord, red Accord. With the scrapes. Like my hand. Strong, broken, bloodied knuckles. Not from people anymore; I don’t do that. It was a mistake breaking my roommates jaw. And I had told him say one more thing, but we were both– don’t matter, we’re cool now. It won’t happen again.

I’m looking for a red Accord. Red Accord. As if I might forget.

I think of all the other cars I’ve been given; that I wrecked or got stolen — or reported stolen. Or filed a police report and insurance claim for hit and run successfully. Ford Escape, Hyundai Santa Fe, Honda Pilot, Kia Something, Honda CRV. All those cars are cars that my father gave to me. Because he thinks of me in a way that no one else does. Probably because he is being lied to. And gullible; and perhaps knows what is going on but is easily swayed. Soft. His words. He says he is too soft on me, and worried because that’s what parents do.

And that makes for more cars.

And more stuff.

I wouldn’t be soft if I was him. I don’t think he understands me. But I don’t make the effort to be understood, it would take too long to explain how different I am compared to everyone else. I know what I want from this life, and it is impossibly unconventional. I cannot be happy, unless I have more. Without more I can’t possibly be expected to achieve anything and I’m not going to do anything I don’t feel like, I’m not going to end up just like –

There it is. What a rush that is. Natural dopamine. Beautiful. And I won’t have to worry about that today. Because I’m off. Which means I’m free to go to one of two places. But one place, I think I may have left a tab. We don’t care to find out. I’m free to go to the other one though. Easy peasy. Plus, my best pal bartends there.

I arrive and we each take one in us. Because they are slow. And – because they are slow — we have time to catch up on the details of our many acquaintances in the scene. They seem to be really fucking up. At least the ones we glance over on the social docket. What a mess everyone is. We get it. We have it in our palms. And when we don’t — well, we catch that quicker than most. We survive and hustle and gratify. Our presence is not included. We work hard; play hard; entertain hard; want hard; deserve hard; earn hard; hurt hard; live hard; because life’s hard and that goes especially for ours. Ours is hard. Don’t matter who you are. And them? They are doing the best they can, we’ll offer them that. But none will figure it out like us, expedited and brilliant practically always.

We’re lucky we see things the way we do. It’s always been us verses you. See: we divide time between the two places. One is a Bar and the other is a Bar with a patio. Well maybe there’s like 5 places. Another is cheap cash only and another is cheap but takes card but is far to drive. And we will drive, baby. I dunno why we never get booze to drink together in one of our houses. Especially with our folks pay rent for. I suppose we have the extre money laying around since the rent is paid for. Business since, plus we work to hard to not decompress like this.

Anyway, vastly different crowds made up of different variations of the same exact people depending on the time of day filter in and out as we observe and make merry; us being a part of the same rotating cast. It makes sense, if you know. If you’re not in then you are in our house. See, I am a regular; which means I’ll have my drink poured as they see me through the window. I’ll also get prioritized in a crowd.

I used to be a regular at one of the trendier spots downtown. A room at max-capacity would be split when I entered. Realer than the sea, in my opinon. Across what is easily a hundred or so people, I would catch eyes with another one of my oldest pals who bartends there and immediately get handed, over the envious civilian heads, my good drink.

A regular. A member. Important. More than. These are some of the only people in this society that see ME. I’m given that little bit of recognition I ask for within reason. I feel it is there, that the outsider’s revelation sets in:

“Who’s that being handed his flowers?”

I’m a celebrity. It stays slow. We take more in us. It gets busy and I get no more for free. I leave.

There’s a spore or a mushroom thing that floats into the brain of insects and controls it from that point into its death. Then it moves on.

CALLED OUT

I’m going to re-engage on this endeavor.

I was pawing my pink cloud like a cat toy upon the first couple of entries (now deleted) sometime in early 2022. Let’s see, I was prepping to spend a couple days in Minerva County for a (comparatively) gentle bottoming-out, I was figuring out how to prove I could go do things alone, I was scrambling to utilize a then-and-now-defunct degree.

I was holding onto outdated items that involved focus, like journalistic pursuits — doused in harsh language, loads of edge! — and the impressive feats I yanked out of myself in the past life.

I fell in love with the glamor of drink, and it ate me up. Then I found that cocaine would make me harder to ingest. Until it, too, unhinged its jaw upon me.

When I returned from my introduction to ‘getting right,’ I wanted all my stuff back.

Surface priority one was material. And I don’t know that that will ever stop; I don’t want to imagine yet another bottoming out to achieve that discovery. Stuff, in that sense, makes me happy. I like pants, and shirts, rings and chains and music and tattoos and vanity so help me God. And I wasn’t afflicted by brothers and sisters so I really enjoyed those fruits. I leaned into Only Child Syndrome just to beat anyone slightly observant to the punch.

I put in enough time to start to realize that wasn’t the stuff I was actually concerned about. That my soul was recoiled for a thousand reasons beyond being a mid-bottom addict. Most of it was because I let natural gifts, ones which I was told and reinforced and celebrated all of my life, drown in arrogance and disregard.

I was the self-proclaimed writer — nay, I still am the self-proclaimed ‘talented’ writer who never writes! My elegant, professional paradox. How would all these potential employers ever know what they were missing without having a word to overlook.

I was a musician! I composer, a collaborator and — I now realize– a catalyst in the projects I was a part of… until I was apart from. At a point I became so infatuated with ‘landing the plane’ (as we lovingly referred to it), I caught myself stammering when I told anyone what band I was in.

We ain’t playin’ no shows. We’re doing coke in our party house, missing the trashcans and arguing over how this sloppy 30 minute riff should go. GB of space being eaten up by leaving record on for nothing of note.

The stuff I lost was effort, and curiosity, and inspiration, and motivation. Drive! I took all the built-in gear for granted, and I took it fiercely. The output I was capable of as fun turned into maintenance is uncanny.

My late father said to me, fresh out of rehab, that I was just real late to the race. And that’s just that. In no way or form am I speeding up to catch you rule-followers. I love the rules now too… It doesn’t stress me anymore that I’m gonna also be late to the finish line. Mostly because we’re all galloping to the same one.

Dad did a ton for me, and now I work on passing down that fortune to anyone else who’s anxious for it. It’s the only way to be spoiled.

And in building new relationships that have to do with giving time and energy and developing patience, recovery-based or out in the world, I had the same discovery as everyone else: life is bright, and vivid, and reciprocal. Here in this section I was about to get sarcastic; consider that fear of vulnerability redacted.

My life is easy. And it’s loaded with the advise of so many powerful, brilliant people. They were always all around me; I had made it a point to stay the hell away from the help for the better part of a decade. IYKYK.

This advisory board grows. It began with my uncle and psuedo-namesake ‘Louis,’ someone who I hadn’t realized was looking out for me quite some time, they’ll be ‘Frank,’ MA and Dad. My Band of Boys. My House of Decided Brothers and Sisters.

Frank‘s word in my ear and on my eyes sounds like its a triple-dog-dare right off the bad. This is fortunate and frustrating. The stunted, lonely child in me must compete to impress against this newfound sibling.

They said, “why don’t you write. it’s easy, just do it like songs” I don’t know if that deserves quotes but that’s what I retained.

Some god voice tells me I can’t say no.

So I recalled an initial conversation with Uncle ‘Louis’ about doing something like this under a fake name and letting it rip. However, my ravenous EGO slid in and suddenly there’s my name, my image, my identity all over this thing; hilariously to be then shared on social media. Narcissist!

(I can say it, my best friend’s a narcissist)

If you subscribed to that spew early on, congrats it’s me as you remember! Our little barely kept secret. But to anyone who tags along here on out, I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict named Lou Mercy.

LOU for my uncle’s alter-ego Louis; the demon that runs your house when you’re no longer home. Also the nickname for a someone with which things never quite lined up just right romantically.

Hi Lou, you probably don’t remember doing this: but thanks for being the voice that said “You gotta stop” at just the perfect time.

MERCY for what I been shown; and for any of you deserve at your worst.

Especially dickheads.

(I can say it, my best friend’s a dickhead)

I’ve removed all the photographs and mentions of who I am Out There. The voice is likely going to be a give away and the stories ensuing, pending on what comes out of me… It’s no matter.

I‘m a character as it is. But here, I’m going divulge my insanity and confusion via Lou Mercy. I’m just separate enough through the pseudonym to view two versions of myself. No more pictures and artful direction, besides my decided sister’s art, not-so-ironically chosen due to its alcoholic medium.

This oughta double as an about page. The colbrus are cleared, time to get spiritually fit. Life goes.

xx decadence,

Lou

RETENTION

I fear that I might have convinced myself of my own stupidity.

In the years following a formal education, I developed a self-deprecative streak that locked me into routine revelry and an insatiable need to achieve laughs and dazzlement through anything but my own intelligence. Granted, the path to get to some of those laughs took some clever leaps and bounds — self-deprecation runs deep.

Any type of screw-up, minuscule to moderate to historical, the explanation was likely punctuated by, “because I’m such a dumb-[whatever expletive],” to perhaps incite giggles among a by-standing coworker. Sprees of talking to myself during ‘side-work’ yielded whispered jabs at my own IQ for no presentable reason. Sometimes those cracked me up.

Short story long enough, this continued array of life’s miserable-isms, light-hearted self-loathing, and empty ribbings apparently snuck into my conscious mind. Now I think I’m, like, actually dumb. Or stupid. Whichever is the less permanent one.

When it comes to book smarts versus street smarts, I am the former. Which means I can slurp up a ton of information, in a short time and spit it all back out at you in the proper locations and order. It might also be accurate that I take up large hunks of my head with this material and quickly empty them to make space for the next batch of information (whether relevant or trivial).

This almost seems counter productive, because slowly I found that book smarts only bangs on paper. Otherwise, common-sense people take the reins of life, quit schools and systems, whatever else, and they succeed. I, on the other hand, got confused as to why I wasn’t getting all the accolades and job offers in the world and got jaded and pissed off like a petulant brat.

I packed in my absorb-deploy ability for information and swapped for in-and-out abilities with drugs and alcohol. I wasn’t cramming anything for out-dated standardized tests, job-applications, whatever the rest of you were doing while I was ‘out.’

I was ineffectually flattening out the crumpled files of my mind, trying to impress deaf ears.

I still read somewhat, and I was passionate about the lyrics of good songwriters just enough to mash together their thoughtfulness into my own poetic nonsense. I’d like to say I maintain a convincing cadence, complete with affirming head nods and eye contact that any half-tossed fellow like me could associate with and trust enough to laugh along with.

I placed these insipid conjugational craft-cocktails above all else — from good arguments to gripping stories to cascading embellishments. And my accomplices in life did the same right back. What the hell did we ever talk about most the time? No idea.

Not to say that all of it was for nil, of course.

Repeats occurred that could be manipulated for sport–in favor of a different, meaningless result. I mean, for real: tell me you haven’t stolen the spotlight upon noticing someone else was about to tell a rerun at least once in your lifetime. No?

How about jokes? You never stepped on someone’s punchline knowingly just to nullify your homie’s thunder. God bless your friendship if it’s still a no.

Anyway, the boozy back-and-forths soared deftly into my ego — or clumsily over my head in those unmemorable evenings and mornings. I was floating in my own thoughts, paying attention occasionally only to land a ‘good one’ because I was ‘smart’ and ‘brilliant’ to everyone. That narcissism was always, is always and will always there for you. IYKYK.

So it’s strange now, that this weight has revealed itself to me. Weight pun here for you: that time made me dense in the fog of this hefty, revelrous era. I think [do I though?] I halted any higher creative or logical functioning in my fried little brains just long enough to fulfill the colloquialism: If you don’t use it, you lose it.

And all this in a time where — ironically — my only ambition was using.

Though I’ve chewed chin at a championship level throughout the years. I’ve pantomimed intellect and forgotten many a debate topic simultaneously. I know this because a whiskey, amphetamine-rasped drawl loves capturing an unwitting audience. Even the witting ones are doomed.

But, now: I’m in recovery. Which means rebooting my thoughts and having a punishingly clear awareness of my slumbering potential, similarly soaked in flop sweat on a couch we’re both not paying rent for.

Easily, I might let that self-pity paralyze me but it’s nothing different than my stagnancy in the face of any challenge. I could misread this lack of growth as if it were showing me I had peaked in this realm and ought to stay here forever. Settle down, get a divorce. Or don’t. Have a kid. Or Don’t. Start drinking again. Or don’t.

Pretty simple I suppose, sacrifice potential for simplicity and security.

Of course I’m not choosing that. Those occasional tales where a person lives in a wet, devil-may-care way for eras [plural] of their life and get it together. I’m sobering the-fuck-up, ’cause I want to do more cool shit.

I’m addressing that I feel dumb at this juncture, that I’m not stuck an ignoramus. I’m making a last minute attempt to kickstart my cognition.

I imagine there’s plenty of empty lots with potholes to be filled. Might need to hire some crossing guards to help new ideas along to class. I’ll run my highlight reel during recess like a scared-straight program in in case any rowdy ideas start fucking up in my figurative public school system.

…If only I kept track of how many folks told me I was smart while stumbling in the throes of a bender, another lost job, a neglect for a significant other, etc. — I might not even feel so self-deprecative toward myself. Maybe I’d actually believe how brilliant they said I was. Not that their opinions are harder evidence than my own; compliment’s a compliment.

It soothes this thought somewhat: that half of me was ever there, when it comes down to it. Potentially, and I mean potentially, I can restore myself to near perfect capacities, just in time to pretend I was just messing around back there.

As 2022 rolled in — among other changes — I began to treat every day like I have to understand something for a class, or as if work requires it [they currently don’t, just to be clear]. I now occasionally pretend my brain still requires that daily fix –but of a more wholesome variety.

I decided to pump an inhumane amount of this healthy behavior into myself all at once — you know, to make up for all the lost time. This was where I fucked up a little bit.

You know, I really do love me some excess.

Reading multiple books at once, taking copious notes and essentially trying to accomplish way too much had me short-circuiting. It’s as if the books are going to up and run out on me, every stack of them on my dresser, the coffee table, the floor.

Last week I overwhelmed myself adding an old, out-of-print book of my mother’s called Become A Writer to my stockpile. After I tossed it onto the stack, I ran my hands through my hair, like: I don’t have fucking time to learn how to write.

I enjoy rereading thoughts like in that previous sentence. I find a sort of backwards solace in how easily I rile myself up. It’s end times all the time.

Despite of my insane diligence, Googling every sexy word [proof: salacious, elucidated, mercurial… oooh wee] regardless of necessity or context yanks me back from the big picture most of the time. So, unless my subconscious is digesting the info while I sleep, it’s highly probable that my retention volume is taking a loss.

My father jabbed me, asking, where the fuck was this in college?

Again, the archaic educational system was set up for people like me to conquer without much regard. Load me up and dump me out. Don’t care how suggestive that phrasing is — and I’m not trying to brag, I just have test-taking brain.

What’s that translate to in life, really?

What my Dad was razzing me for is the ensuing lack of intrigue or initiative in nearly everything that happens after achieving that degree. Once again, all I had going for me out that gate was predominately absorption.

In the back of my journals, I have this sloppily etched dictionary of those words I find poetic or intelligent, like the lurid ones I mentioned some hundred words ago. I imagine lyrics and future conversations might either enhance or suffer due to my newly discovered eloquence.

If this is how those writers’ favorite writers write, then of course I must look ’em up, learn ’em and rocket them into the ether at will. That way the next reader won’t know what I’m talking about, just like the tradition established by my heroes before me!

But honestly, what do I really look like when I brandish words such as picayune (worthless) or lolloping (clumsy, ungainly series of paces or bounds) or supercilious (behaving of looking as though one thinks the are superior to others)?

Writers’ favorite writers’ works appear to be loaded with such verbiage. They seem so cool and heady when they use them, those writers do. So how could I not mistype new collections of characters into my Chrome browser every six sentences throughout a passage. Just for the ephemeral bliss of being as brilliant as a ‘confirmed’ brilliant scribbler may be.

I can binge and purge information when that information had a planned destination. I’m addicted to repeated formulas, to obtaining more of the same thing all the time, to loading journals past their brim with Pilot G2 0.7mm ink, and so on.

It’s this fiendish behavior that I’ve hit a new interesting vein in my recovery:

Instead of five thousand push-ups a day or baking intricate pastries or building birdhouses, I might have replaced my insatiable need for my drug of choice with information (relevant, or otherwise).

Perhaps this is utterly useless. It’s just another ritual. But that doesn’t mean I can’t make some internal progress with these adorably trivial tidbits and alliteration that really gets me going. It is extremely likely that this (re)starting point yields more comprehensive ways to consume information and apply it when the time proves opportune.

A helpful essay on how to be a knowledge-sponge may emerge. Probably not, because I’m not confirmed brilliant. I’m just working on that self-deprecation and becoming aware of my adult-onset stupidity.

I’ll continue to pour things into my head [phrasing], in hopes that it flexes my the right muscles. It’s possible I’ll still have no idea what to tell you if you ask what I’m reading about. Whatever. All I know is it’s hilarious and great and you had to be there.

I imagine by some sort of divine chemical reaction, more content is retained than I’m even able to take inventory of. It’s just enough to drop a timely line [phrasing again] and feel the rush of being clever with witnesses.

If you read this far, we have a shared hobby or two,

so here’s to figuring it out as we go.

xx,

Lou