Binghamton, New York and Marlboro Light-infused Quiche

I was in Binghamton, New York almost two years ago. It was July of 2007. Even 2007 seems like a while ago. And before that 2005 seemed like quite a while ago. Each year seemed more innocent than the last. Except for 2008. Now that it is 2009, 2008 does not seem innocent. 2008 was the worst of the void. I don't think I accomplished much of anything. But at least we elected a black President. 

I was basically driving a stolen car through the scenic hills, mountains, and valleys of Upstate New York. It was a loaner car from my Dad's dealership. Some kind of drag-racing special, the price decals on the window. I was working at the dealership at the time (cleaning up gumballs and cigarette butts from the driveway), so it was not that big of a deal for me to borrow a car. However, it would have been a big deal for me to drive it all the way up to Syracuse, New York. I was hoping they would somehow not notice the extra 500 miles on the gauge. What is it called? The odometer?

On the way back from Syracuse I passed directly through Binghamton. My girlfriend at the time and I stopped at a Wendy's in Binghamton to use the rest room.

What struck me about Binghamton was how thoroughly "hillbilly" it was. Young, idle hicks sat on the beds of trucks. They had the look: trucker hats and flannel shirts. They were smoking Newports, chewing tobacco, drinking brewskis, fooling around with Wendy's paraphernalia they had filched from inside. Blowing Wendy's straws at each other. Kids out of "Footloose". Small-town kids about to go cow-tipping. Kids who have nothing better to do but drive around town and get high, hanging out in parking lots, seeing and being seen. Future meth or oxycontin addicts? Who knows. The rest of America is scary. The rest of America could make anyone appreciate New York City.

What is the future of a Binghamton loafer? It's bad enough for me. I have to fight my way out of desolation, out of being another nobody with no real friends. Thank goodness I do have real friends. Thank goodness I have some sort of permanent structure.

The problem with Binghamton kids is this: What if one or more of them does not have a "permanent support network"? Without civilization to bolster them, what would become of them if they lost everything, especially essential loved ones? Alcohol, meth, future dead-endism, or just having one (0r more) depressing family/ies? Would they become as rootless as the traveling salesman, with a family in every podunk city?

When I take my rides out to the sticks (I'm overdue) I am reminded of both my own hipness, my own coolness, my own cosmopolitanness, my own closeness to celebrity and worldwide fame. I am also reminded of my own anonymity and insignificance. After some time in the sticks I am eager to go back to the library and study. I want some kind of hold on the world. I'm ready to kill someone just to be famous. I'm ready to kill immigrants in an immigration center. I want stability. I don't want to end up as nobody, nowhere, doing nothing. I don't want to end up in a nowhere town with a fat, ugly wife. I do think it's too late for that (the house and wife), but even if I made a strong turn into homosexuality most small-town fags are as cliche as quiche. Moustaches, gaudy rings, Marlboro Lights, and recipes for Marlboro Light-Infused quiche. Why do most small-town homosexuals look and act like Buffalo Bill from "Silence of the Lambs"?

When I was at the Binghamton Wendy's I was distinctly afraid my girlfriend would be snatched from me by depraved hillbillies.

When traveling through the sticks I find it is best to travel with a beautiful girl from civilization. See, when traveling through the sticks with a beautiful girl who makes her home in civilization, she is acting as your tether and you are her tether.

Once we were back in the car I felt safe. I didn't have to worry about hillbillies abducting her.

Back to the beautiful girl... I would like, once again, to go to South of the Border in Dillon, South Carolina with a beautiful girl. That would be a honeymoon. I did it before, with Zipporah, but there was too much baggage with Zipporah. I am READY now for a serious relationship with the right girl. I would like to go to South of the Border in Dillon, South Carolina with this perfect girl.

South of the Border IS America.

One of my happiest memories: Driving to Florida with my parents when I was a Sophomore in High School. Because I've been filled with spiritual cancer for a while now, I have expressed bitterness toward my parents on many an occasion. But I do have to admit that not all times were bad. There were good times. When I smile the world smiles with me. 

Yes, February of my Sophomore year of High School. I was doing particularly well in school that year. Each and every day my individuality was being recognized. I was extraordinarily POPULAR. I was even talking to quite a few pretty girls. I had a ton of very cool friends. I was in like Flynn with the cool crowd. What made that year special was that I was popular just for being myself.

There was this girl in my art class. Her name was Brynn. She had a tremendous ass. I remember fantasizing about using her ass as a pillow. I mean, actually going to bed on it at night. Throughout the night she would blow farts in my face and I would savor each one. She was one of many. There was this Puerto Rican girl, Leila. I fantasized about her nursing me, suckling me, nourishing me with her breast milk and then allowing me to eat shit out of her ass.

I was on the verge of actually getting a girl, some girl. One girl or another. I was popular. I was appreciated. Each and every day in art class I created paintings that were much admired for their sheer bad taste alone! Who mixes orange, pink, green, and black and makes it "work" in the most hideous way imaginable? The paintings were nauseating, like eating pickles with a tall glass of chocolate milk! 

That year we were going to drive to Florida. My Dad had a timeshare at this place called Orange Lake, right next to the Disneyworld Megalopolis. On the way down all I thought about was how cool and popular I was. The sticks reminded me of both my own coolness in civilization and my own insignificance everywhere else. I wanted an anchor, a root to hold on to. I listened to the Grateful Dead the whole way down and thought of my own popularity. This was all before Prozac. 

I remember when I was 19 years old, roaming the country on a Greyhound bus. I remember stopping at a random bus station in Upstate New York. Okay. I was still young. I was good for now. But WHAT was I going to do about my future? I didn't want to become just another loser. I needed a ROOT. STABILITY.

I wrote all of this because of that shooting that took place in Binghamton. I called this blog "New Will" because I think so much of my nihilism is fading. Don't get me wrong. I still know what's what and I will always know what's what, but I can also be happy and have a place on this earth and I can find the right woman. And I can be a creator. And I can explore new universes without reinventing the wheel. All I have to do is what I have been doing: I need to throw everything and the kitchen sink at this damn depression until it completely vacates the premises. And then I need to chase it away with a stick every time it even thinks of returning.

I don't automatically applaud mass murders anymore.