There’s not a whole lot that is funny about Dayton. For instance, me and Chad and Penny sitting in the basement of Black Box 101 listing the Top Ten Reasons You Know You’re Addicted To Crack when only one of us has ever smoked crack (Chad) but before our lives are through there will be only one of us who hasn’t ever smoked crack (Penelope).
The stand-up here isn’t funny. Only when Dave Chappelle comes. I saw Dave Chappelle in the coffeehouse once. See? That’s the kind of thing I mean. That’s my claim to fame. I saw Dave Chappelle in the coffeehouse one time. That’s as good as it gets, in Dayton.
I find myself giving away all my things, in Dayton. Because I don’t plan to stay here. I’m really going to leave. Save my money, go to New York. They have computer programming jobs there. I’d even make more money.
When I say giving away all my things, I mean: if somebody wants a pair of pants I own—I give them to them. Chad and I trade corduroys all the time. Jules used to borrow my pants. Actually some of them she never gave back. But that’s kind of an academic issue now, isn’t it?
I know I’m overly analytic, but you have to think about these things. Giving away your possessions is a classic sign of suicide. It’s a warning sign, a symptom. Somebody should have said something. Someone should have been looking out for me in all of this. You know? When people give away all their things, sometimes that means they’re Buddhist. The rest of the time it means they want to kill themself.
Where was the person who was looking after me? Where was the person to say: Hey: you need therapy. And you need a lot of it. And you need medication. And exercise. And better sex. And healthier relationships. And you need to go to church, or AA meetings or something. Where was that person for me?
It wasn’t Jules. It wasn’t Ash. It wasn’t Chad or Penelope or any of my other friends. It wasn’t my parents. I mean I’m twenty-three, what are they gonna do? I used to go over my mom’s house when I was high on ecstasy and cook her breakfast. Her and my little sister. What the fuck is that? I mean I loved my mother—I wanted to cook her breakfast—and I loved ecstasy, too. I probably never would have cooked my mother breakfast if I wasn’t on ecstasy..so..how do you count that? Is that a mother and son sitting on the screened-in porch eating delicious, expensive food that I bought at the grocery store..that I cooked for the three of us, that my mother and I ate while having one of the closest conversations of our lives—for her as well as me. Is that psycho crazy stuff or is that a better morning than most mothers and sons tend to have in their relationship. I don’t know.