One: Recreational Nihilism 

I like to think I’m an optimist, but these are trying circumstances. Small hotel room, three of my classmates, an hour drive from school at a YMCA-sponsored “civic engagement” program. 

And Ritchie. 

Classic asshole. 

Cinematic, even.

Now, like I said, I’m a Xanax-pillbox-half-full kind of guy, but this is a bit much. This is because, as I say, Ritchie is, and I’m repeating myself intentionally here, lengthening the sentence for emphasis, adding words to make you feel it as much as I do, deep, deep within the darkest chambers of my soul, an asshole. 

He tells me he doesn’t remember asking for a lap dance, and to put a fucking shirt on.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I have to take a shower, and people tend to do that with their shirts off,” I explain. He doesn’t seem to hear me, otherwise occupied at the work desk that comes with your typical Holiday Inn room, giggling to himself—an ominous sign, actually—and straddling the computer chair. With his neck craning over his phone, he’s furiously swiping and smiling like an idiot.

“You seem pleased with yourself,” I note.
“Yes,” he reports, between what’s mounting into manic laughter, “viscerally.”

I peer over his shoulder at the title of what turns out to be a review he’s just finished thumbing out on the subject of the hotel we’re staying at. “JUST KILL ME ALREADY,” the title reads. I remark that at least that’s accurate, though, like I said, perhaps a bit much. Noticing he has my attention, he points out to great self-amusement that he’s just published his screed under the name of one of the YMCA conference organizers—our Ancient History teacher, in fact—and begins to dictate, between wheezes, the review in its entirety.

“For your handsome $220 nightly expense, you’ll be treated to all the luxuries of 0.3-ply toilet paper, bedsheets that would pass for shower curtains, and a bed that’s so uncomfortable it practically rapes you every night. 

       Your quality of sleep will leave you wondering how you could feel jet-lagged for three days straight, even though you drove here. 

And that brings me to the blankets. The conventional wisdom that carpet-burn can only come from carpets, or that shanking is only something that happens in prisons, it turns out, stands corrected. 

       If your medieval torture device of a bed isn’t enough to hospitalize you, rest assured that the spiked-furniture-plus-third-world-lighting-combo will leave you impaled soon enough.

       Every single employee incessantly smiles with such a creepy, forced enthusiasm you’ll be tempted to file a restraining order, and all the male employees look like used-car-salesmen who took a gap year out of college to become a sex offender.

        Their smiles only break, it so happens, when you ask them for something. I saw a housekeeper walk by and asked him for some extra liquid soap ‘please, if it’s not too much trouble,’ and he just continued on in silence after shooting me this violent glare like he might force-feed a gallon of it to me. The next day, it occurred to me that he was a muslim and, thinking it must have something to do with a language barrier, I gestured to his cart this time while saying ‘if I could just grab something please.’ As I reached forward, however, he made a wild jerk to pull the cart back and proceeded to stare at me like I had defecated on the Koran.”

     “Yeah, that might be just a tiny bit racist, Rich,” Nathan points out helpfully. 

      But Ritchie doesn’t seem to hear him. Barely breathing, he continues.

     “Last night I was hearing hysterical groaning next door and honestly couldn’t tell if it was someone being initiated into the ways of adulthood or just an employee being asked to do his fucking job.

       The walls are so bad at insulating sound you’ll lie in bed up to 4 A.M. listening to four conversations at once. As you lie awake late into the night hearing voices periodically issuing from the ceiling, walls, and even below you, you’ll start to feel like a schizophrenic.

       The shower settings are liquid nitrogen and global warming with nothing in-between. As the scolding water pelts your back with such force, you’ll find yourself showering in the fetal position for the first time in your life.

     Afterwards, before the PTSD sets in, you’ll feel like you’ve been quarantined in an Ebola containment center. By the end of it, you’ll probably qualify for Red-Cross-Haitian-relief funds. The good news is, most of the floors are just high enough to make for a quick suicide-jump if you have enough courage to put an end to this torture.

     On the bright side, the thought of staying here again makes for a great game of would-you-rather. Would I rather use Colgate toothpaste? Yes. Would I rather get gang-raped by the Trump family? Obviously (who hasn’t been?). Would I rather be a ginger, or microwave my dick? Let Elisha Keys impregnate my girlfriend? You bet your ass I would!”

Now, there’s an obvious problem with this. Actually, very many problems, but I’ll pace myself. For starters, our teacher has a very recognizable name, and is one of the conference organizers—that is to say, she represents our school to the program administrators, being one of them herself, and needs to convince this convention center and the extra hotels down the street every year to put up with 800 kids for a weekend. And, no modest achievement, in past years she’s been quite successful—though it’s not exactly a mystery how she’s managed to do that. By way of prompt, frequent, unforgiving punishment.

Now, I ask you, what kind of enthusiastically stupid person would want to run face-on into something like that? 

     Ritchie. 

     Ritchie would do that.

In fact, confronting him, I ask him why he felt the need. I pepper my plea for him to take it down with a few pointers about “not pointlessly aggressing authority” and “being diplomatic.” 

“Enough with the Socratic questions, Ben. Get to the fucking point.”

“I’m just saying, maybe that isn’t, like, the most advisable thing to do right now?” 
      He seems to consider this for a second. 

“Or ever?” I hasten to add.

Another contemplative pause. I must be getting through to him.

Suddenly, he makes a vaguely disturbing growl and retorts that I sound like that last family that refused to pay him for his babysitting services. This, incidentally, was the first time I’d heard of it. I spat out my water in a misty spray. 

“You’re a fucking babysitter?” I just couldn’t believe it. It was like finding out he had a terminal illness or something.

“Yes, for the Petersons.”

      “For the Petersons?”

      “What, you’re shocked? That I’d take the easiest job in West Harding, watching their little shits for sixty dollars a night?”
“Sixty dollars?” This almost as hard to believe as the Petersons letting Ritchie within a mile-radius of their own two sons. 

After a moment of reflection I add, more to myself really, “Jesus! Are they trying to turn their kids into swearing, cynical little pricks?”

“Actually, dear Benjamin, if you're wholesome, innocent, preacher’s-kid ass can believe it, I was a rather good influence on the two boys. I’ll admit it was probably the swearing habit they developed around me that did my babysitting career in, but I made for a good teacher. Despite the way things ended, for example, they became considerably less prone to whingeing at mommy and daddy under my care.”

“For example?” I prompt him to elaborate.

“Well, like, when one of the little shits said something naughty, I knew just what to say. ‘Now, do you kiss your mother with that fucking mouth?’ I’d say. It wasn’t like I was encouraging them to swear, more like fighting fire with fire.”

“My God.”

“You’re one to talk! You don’t exactly read like a Bible when you’re bitching about your, well, bitch. Even after she extravagantly and predictably cheated on you.”

That “Bitch” had a name, which he’s become rather fond of bringing up where it serves him. Chloe, so we’ll call her. And, to be fair, he was right—I had been doing a lot of that lately. Not helping my case, really, I said nothing.

“Oh, for fucks sake. I told you: sperm banks are for aggrieved couples struggling with infertility, you don't date them.”

“She’s not like that!”
“You’re still defending her! That’s hilarious! Adorable, even, and makes my point exactly—you’re just a one-stop-shop, aren’t you? For drive-thru, mail-order sluts like her. What did she say to get you stalking around her like a lost puppy, even after the fact? ‘I’m so, so sorry Ben, I only fucked, what, the entire football team? Nothing personal, really!’”

“But it wasn’t the entire football team!”
“No, just the Offensive Line. Now, like I said, considerately, put a Goddamn shirt on and go to bed, so I can. Another example of why I don’t much regret losing that babysitting job. Getting those shitheads to sleep was impossible.” 

All I could do was glare at his impossibly smug face. 

“I’m sure that was in spite of your laudable efforts, Rich, not because of them,” Nathan put in. 

“Yes, in fact. But, what can I say, five-year-olds can be such whingeing little pricks. Take Sean Johnson for example. Every night, I would sit him down in his cozy little twin-size, even going so far as to tuck him in, turn out the lights, appeal to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for a good nights sleep and, next thing I know, he starts barking orders at me like I’m some kind of wage slave.”

“If by ‘wage slave’ you mean an overpaid, criminally underqualified sap like you?” Nathan parries. “So, what happens next? You follow his ‘orders’ or what?”

“Actually, that’s when I start making requests of my own. You see Nathan, because I’m Ritchie Anderson and, by God, I don’t take shit from five-year-olds. I ask him, ‘You know what would be just great, Sean? You know what would make your Uncle Ritchie really, really proud of you right now? You could shut the fuck up.’

But, you see, Sean doesn’t do that; Sean doesn’t do anything Sean doesn’t feel like doing, in fact—hence the rather urgent need to tell him so. As expected, he begins to ask me ‘why I treat him so mean’ and ‘why I have it out for him’ between little sniffs of less-than-convincing crying, requiring me to explain, patiently as I can: 

‘Because, Sean, at times like this, you are prone not to shut the fuck up. You see that little mouth of yours? And you see these little ears of mine? They just don’t quite seem to like each other, kind of like Mommy and Daddy when they fight downstairs.’ 

He then suddenly demands an ‘apology,’ or a ‘take-back,’ and I find, to my genuine astonishment, that that little mouth of his is still moving.

‘Now, you see Sean, that was good there, those five little seconds where you didn’t say anything. I could even say you were really starting to get the hang of it. But, unfortunately, you may have slipped up a little just after that. You see, let’s go back to the analogy about your mouth and my ears. You see how your mouth is shaped kind of like a bullhorn? And you see how it’s still talking, and positively, unequivocally, unmistakably not shutting the fuck up? And, do you notice, especially in view of the fact that you were just silent for a moment there, that it can be the case that it is shut up, and hence I am forced to conclude that you are choosing not to do so?’ 

It goes on like this for quite some time but, alas, he does not quite seem to get the point, even despite these considerable exertions on my part. I think it’s probably due to a communication break down, or something. Somewhere between the words ‘shut’ and ‘the fuck,’ I’m guessing.”

“And his tears,” Nathan added.

“Those too,” he agreed.

“Yeah, that what I, er, gather,” I remark. The silence draws on for a few seconds.

      "So, anyway, you know what would be just grand, Ben? It would really do me wonders."

      "I could shut the fuck up?"

      "Please."